Learn how Maggie O'Farrell gets maximum value from historical details in her novel The Marriage Portrait.

Learn how to use focalization to show the thoughts and feelings of multiple characters in a single scene with examples from Maggie O'Farrell's The Marriage Portrait.

See how Maggie O'Farrell uses inventive writing to lure readers into a story whose ending we think we already know.

Use my method to read and analyze novels in your genre to learn the writing craft secrets used by your favorite authors.

See how Casey McQuiston uses fictionalized primary materials to bring additional voices into I Kissed Shara Wheeler.

Learn the techniques Casey McQuiston uses to maximize the impact of dialogue in I Kissed Shara Wheeler.

How do you engage and disrupt genre tropes to hook your readers?

Is there a place for omniscient narration, associated closely with nineteenth-century novels, in a twenty-first-century literary landscape dominated by limited narration?

Learn the techniques Lauren Groff uses to introduce readers to a distant historical setting in Matrix.

In which we see why Anne is the most Virgo of all of Austen's characters.

Austen lets Mrs. Smith say the quiet parts out loud.

Austen shows us what a difference the perfect setting can make.

The river of the plot is about to carry us to the end.

Austen's novels ostensibly end with a happy marriage, but does she ever depict one?

A new character comes on the scene to set up our final plot twist.

Austen turns up the suspense on two long-simmering subplots.

Watch Austen trash her characters as only she can.

A close reading of how Austen uses the slipperiness of omniscient narration to her advantage.

Austen stitches the broken thread of her plot back into the narrative.

Austen twists the plot and shows her characters their true selves.