What makes a historical novel historical?
Learn how Maggie O'Farrell gets maximum value from historical details in her novel The Marriage Portrait.
How do you weave world-building details into a scene?
Learn how to seamlessly weave necessary setting information into a scene readers want to experience in this analysis of Rebecca Roanhorse's Black Sun.
How do you lure readers into an epic fantasy world?
See how Rebecca Roanhorse uses suspense to make readers desperate to know more about the fantasy world she builds in Black Sun.
How do you establish setting in historical fiction?
Learn the techniques Lauren Groff uses to introduce readers to a distant historical setting in Matrix.
How do you get maximum value from setting and description?
Examples from Tana French's The Searcher show how to give your descriptions additional meaning and resonance.
How do you open a mystery novel?
See how Tana French uses sentence style, summary, and suspense to pull readers into the first chapter of The Searcher.
Talking head avoidance device: Persuasion chapter 20
Austen shows us what a difference the perfect setting can make.