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THE LOSSES
A novel
"I've just read Cully Perlman's hefty, ambitious, and radiant debut novel, The Losses, and I was flat knocked out. This is much more than a promising first novel by an inordinately gifted writer; it is a dazzling literary achievement. Perlman is an enchanter, casting his spell with lyrical prose, evocative details, and spellbinding characters. He explores familial chaos, reckless behavior, and tragic love with poise, savvy, and tenderness. What talent, what nerve, what a wondrous and spellbinding novel."
--John Dufresne
How You Can Use the World Around You to Create Your Characters
One of the best ways to pick up characters is by listening to the conversations around us. When you’re at Starbuck’s with your computer, listen to the conversations the people around you are having. Are they excited? Sad? Perturbed? Perhaps angry about something that’s happening to them at work? In their lives? Between them and their significant other? If so, write down the interesting parts. Or tape the whole thing, if you don’t feel like you’re being too creepy. Look over f
Cully Perlman
21 hours ago6 min read
Is It Worth It to Query Literary Agents in 2026?
More and more agents are closed to queries or are only open to queries via referrals. Which means you shouldn’t waste your time querying them. They won’t likely read your query, and it’s possible you’ll just be considered a rookie or annoying. It’s like putting a no soliciting sign on your door and still having the Avon representative knocking at your door. If Avon is still a thing—I have no clue and I’m not even going to bother to Google if it is.
Cully Perlman
7 days ago9 min read
CHARACTER ARCS IN FICTION
Character arcs make readers care about the characters. Readers can relate in some way to what a character is going through, and so they understand why and how a character throughout the story. No, characters don’t need to change. Anything is possible in fiction. But characters who don’t change, who have no arcs, will probably not be as interesting to your readers. These are known as flat character arcs. Flat characters may already know who they are.
Cully Perlman
Dec 29, 20255 min read
THE BEST CHRISTMAS NOVELS YOU SHOULD READ RIGHT NOW
What better time than the holidays to pick up that book you’ve been longing to read? Hopefully you can do it by the fire, in a quiet setting, maybe near the Christmas tree or the menorah or a stack of Zawadi by the kinara. Anyway, here are some holiday novels you may want to check out while you have the time for a little holiday escapism.
Cully Perlman
Dec 23, 20252 min read
FREE NOVEL MASTER CLASS WRITING RESOURCES
We figured because it's the holiday season, we'd post some free novel master class writing resources. There are a lot of templates out there that you can purchase, some online, some in Word documents, Google documents, Excel spreadsheets and so on, but I find free resources or templates you create for yourself based on your needs to be the best ones, especially since there really is no need to pay for something you don’t have to.
Cully Perlman
Dec 22, 202515 min read
How to Write First Drafts of Novels in Weeks or Months
The shortest time it took me to write a first draft of a novel is three weeks. That’s writing all day every day, including weekends. I get that way sometimes, where I have a lot to say about some topic or other, and the stars align, writing-wise. It doesn’t always happen, but when it does, it’s pretty special. It’s a magical feeling I get where I sit down, I start writing, and the writing does not stop. For anything. Not to watch a TV show or movie. Not to read. Not to do any
Cully Perlman
Dec 9, 202510 min read
NovelMasterClass’s 200th Blog Post – What Makes a Writer a Writer?
NovelMasterClass’s 200th Blog Post – What Makes a Writer a Writer? Today’s a special day. Today is NovelMasterClass’s 200th Blog Post – What Makes a Writer a Writer? It’s a milestone that’s taken just over three years to accomplish, and I’m proud of what I’ve done in that time. Today marks the two hundredth post thrown up on NovelMasterClass.com . We’ve had interviews with some great authors, professors, and nonfiction writers, and we’ve learned plenty about the craft of writ
Cully Perlman
Dec 1, 20257 min read
7 Great Metaphors in Fiction to Emulate
A good metaphor sticks out. It transforms a sentence from something that makes sense to something that makes more sense, even if you don’t know why. Take this sentence, for instance: “He had a great imagination.” In terms of a sentence, it’s utilitarian. The reader immediately understands what the author means, and so the sentence has done its job, but that’s all it’s done. No further explanation is necessary; the reader just keeps reading.
Cully Perlman
Nov 24, 20256 min read
5 Great Examples of Scenes in Novels
When we read fiction, we love a lot of it (if the book is well-written), but it’s always the scenes that we remember. The scenes are what’s visual for us, even above description, though the term “description,” when you’re first starting out as a writer, might trick us into believing that’s what we’ll remember, i.e., the things “described” by an author because they’re visual. Now, I’m not saying that that is always the case, but it pretty much is, at least in my view.
Cully Perlman
Nov 18, 202512 min read
From Poetry to Prose: One Writer’s Journey into Middle Grades Fiction
Before I was a teacher, I’d been a newspaper reporter, and before that, I’d been a neighborhood snoop. Some of my adolescent interests involved using police scanners and CB radios. I knew things about our town and neighbors that few teenagers would have cared about: who’d been arrested, where the latest car crashes occurred, whose house burned down. This acquisition of semi-dark knowledge eventually motivated me toward journalism, where I could use writing and investigation s
John Davis Jr.
Nov 11, 20254 min read
WRITING THE BEGINNING, MIDDLE, AND END OF a NOVEL
Two days ago, I completed another full edit of a novel I’ve been working on for 23 years (yes, 23—that’s not a typo). I have a beginning I sort of like. I’ve worked on it again and again for over two decades. The beginning of my novel, which deals with the mental trauma experienced by a young boy in a small town, trauma that naturally follows him through the rest of his life, including during WWII and upon his return home, starts out with a lot of violence. Things change.
Cully Perlman
Nov 4, 20257 min read
A Letter to Writers
We live in a time when some of the greatest books every written have been “banned.” It’s a direct attack on the First Amendment under the guise of “protecting children.” Of course, this comes down from the top, and the top is a man who has had to pay a woman for having raped her. It comes from a man who calls his victims liars. A man who has created a country where if you’re not white and republican, you’re the enemy, and so he’s terrorizing anyone brown-skinned, or from othe
Cully Perlman
Nov 2, 20255 min read
IS FINDING TIME TO WRITE IMPOSSIBLE?
Finding Time to Write is up to You. We're all Busy. We all have Jobs. Ask Yourself This: Do I Really Want it? For some people, the answer is absolutely. For others, not so much. I bring this up today because someone in one of the writing groups that I’m a part of on social media made the comment that they weren’t able to start anything because they weren’t going to be able to finish it, or something to that effect. They have a full-time job (I don’t even think they have kids,
Cully Perlman
Oct 28, 20256 min read
5 Motivational Writing Tips to Get You Back to Work
So, on this beautiful Friday (it’s beautiful where I’m at and looks to be pretty nice all over the U.S., though Tropical Storm Melissa looks like it’s becoming a hurricane), I want to share 5 motivational writing tips to get you back to work.
Don’t Edit While You Write. Now, I’m sure you’ve heard this one before, and you know what it means. But it doesn’t have to be a full-on, abandon that adverb that sticks out like a sore thumb sort of “don’t edit.” Take that thing out!
Cully Perlman
Oct 24, 20255 min read
5 Writing Prompts to get You Writing
I rarely have any issues writing, not because I don’t struggle sometimes but because I don’t believe in writer’s block, as I know it’s just not being able to write what I want to write when I want to write it. Sit your ass in the chair and the muse will come, my friend the writer John Dufresne, says, and he’s right. The must doesn’t come to you and then you sit down to write. So, that’s what I do.
Cully Perlman
Oct 22, 20254 min read
7 Writers and the Jobs They Did Before Becoming Famous
We all have jobs, us writers, most of us before we write and after we've published. Most of the writers (some pretty well known) can't support themselves on writing along. So, they teach at MFA in creative writing programs, in business, in whatever. In America, writing doesn't hold the same weight as it does in other countries. It's just a fact of life.
What do you do while you try to become a fulltime writer?
Cully Perlman
Oct 21, 20255 min read
10 Self-Publishing Resources to Help You Get Your Novel Published
Today I want to provide a list of resources for you brave authors, you rebels heading out on the publishing journey all on your own. You’ll likely have heard of some of the resources I’m going to mention (KDP, IngramSpark, Scrivener, and more), but there’ll be some in here that you may not know about. I’ll try to provide as much of a descriptive blurb as possible so you know before clicking through to the site what to expect.
Cully Perlman
Oct 20, 20259 min read
THE UPS and DOWNS of WRITING FICTION
I read something funny one time about a writer, though I can’t remember who that writer was, but someone interviewing the author asked a question (and I’m paraphrasing) about what they thought when some other author got a novel published or received a high advance for their book. Naturally, the interviewer was expecting some nicety from the author or whatever, something like, “I love her!" But instead, the writer replied, "I hope she gets hit by a bus."
Cully Perlman
Oct 14, 20256 min read
Comparing the Narrative Structure of Nathan Hill’s The Nix and Jonathan Franzen’s The Corrections
Another novel I’m reminded of is City on Fire, by Garth Risk Hallberg, as all three novels, in terms of scope and length (As a writer, I love me a good long book that’s captivating and just interesting all around; it’s a feat few writers are capable of), but also because, for me, it highlights the skill of the author, meaning they know how to write a long novel that keeps readers reading and not abandoning the book mid-read.
Cully Perlman
Oct 11, 20255 min read
Why Artists Should Write Novels Criticizing Authoritarian Regimes
To mitigate the dangers of Trump and his ilk, artists can collaborate with international organizations, publish anonymously, or use digital platforms to reach global audiences—audiences who may be experiencing the same things that we are here in America. Solidarity among artists, readers, and activists is essential to protect creative freedom and ensure that dissident voices are heard. Be a dissident voice. Do what you can, before it’s too late.
Cully Perlman
Oct 6, 20259 min read
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