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Writing is a job. It's fun. It's trying. It's hard. But if you're committed to getting published, you have to put the work in. Come to Novelmasterclass.blog to get tips, read and watch interviews and book reviews, and learn how to write.
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
The Best-selling Novels of 2025
2025's Bestselling Novels According to the New York Times I recently spoke with a long-time creative writing professor friend of mine about the writing he’s seen over the last couple of years, both in undergraduate and MFA Creative Writing classes. Things have changed from when I was growing up and studying literature. The books and drama and authors that we were taught back then were books pulled from “the literary canon.” The Epic of Gilgamesh. Oedipus the King by Sophocle
Cully Perlman
Dec 12, 20256 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
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
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
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
Mastering Dystopian Fiction: How to Write a Dystopian Novel That Stands Out
The best dystopian novels do more than entertain—they provoke thought. Choose themes that matter to you and weave them throughout your narrative.
Freedom vs. Security: How much freedom are people willing to surrender for the promise of safety?
Individualism vs. Conformity: Why do some people rebel while others comply?
Technology’s Role: Does technology liberate or enslave?
Environmental Concerns: What happens when nature is irreparably damaged?
Cully Perlman
Oct 2, 20256 min read
Mastering the Craft: How to Write Crime Fiction*
Flat or stereotypical characters undermine the emotional impact of crime fiction. Develop multidimensional personalities with believable motivations, relationships, and flaws. Avoid clichés—such as the “alcoholic detective” or “evil genius”—unless you can bring fresh insight or depth. If you won’t want to go to the alcoholic detective, maybe she is a heroin addict or has a mental illness.
Cully Perlman
Sep 26, 202510 min read
The Complexities of Writing Literary Novels
In literary fiction, plot often takes a back seat to character. The focus is on the interior lives of protagonists—their fears, desires, contradictions, and growth. Creating nuanced, believable characters is a complex endeavor. It requires empathy, psychological insight, and a willingness to confront uncomfortable truths. Literary novelists must avoid stereotypes and stock figures, instead drawing on memory, observation, and imagination to breathe life into their creations.
Cully Perlman
Sep 25, 20255 min read
New Journalism and Norman Mailer’s The Executioner’s Song versus Capote’s In Cold Blood
Mailer’s opening goes straight into the characters. Capote’s straight into a description of the landscape. In Mailer’s opening, the key sentence is “That was Brenda’s earliest recollection of Gary.” Which immediately allows us to hypothesize that her “recollection” is likely faulty. Capote’s opening is much more based in objective fact, however adjective heavy. I’m not saying either is right or wrong; but Capote’s opening is more in line with “reporting” than is Mailer’s. Tru
Cully Perlman
Sep 23, 20259 min read
The Hunt for Your Literary Agent
Literary agents are the middlemen and middle women between you and the trade publishers, often referred to as the Big 5—Penguin Random House, Simon & Schuster, Hachette, HarperCollins, Macmillan, and their imprints, meaning the smaller publishers beneath them (there are also . Of course, you can go a different route, e.g., self-publishing, using a vanity press, hitting the independent publishers like W.W. Norton, Graywolf, Akashic, Algonquin . . .
Cully Perlman
Aug 15, 20253 min read
Learn How to Write Fiction
Read Widely. There’s no substitute to reading good books on the craft of writing but also books in the genre you want to write in (assuming you’re writing fiction). Read with intention. Read out of your comfort zone. As Francine Prose says, Read like a writer. That means focus on what’s working and what’s not working. How does an author make you feel emotion? What words does the writer use? How do they create the worlds in which their characters live?
Cully Perlman
Jul 15, 20257 min read
Having Trouble Coming Up with Your Own Writing Style?
When I wrote my first novel, I copied the style directly from Jack Kerouac’s On the Road. As most writers (I’m guessing) do, I didn’t realize that you couldn’t do that. That the style of the novel was Kerouac’s and that I couldn’t just pilfer it for my own novel.
Cully Perlman
Jul 9, 20256 min read
Cutting Your Novel Down to Its Essential Components
As writers, we dive deep—into our emotions, into the research we conduct so that we get every detail correct, every accent right, and that we pull from our readers the emotions within them that will keep them interested and thus keep them reading. To do that, we must focus on the book we’re trying to write. We need to understand that we have a central character that wants something and who goes after it, despite opposition. She never stops seeking what she wants, no matter wh
Cully Perlman
Jun 4, 20255 min read
Summer Books to Read While You Write
If you’re a writer like me, you have a stack of books on your kitchen table, your kitchen counter, by the fireplace (if you have one), on your nightstand, your dresser, your kids’ bookshelves, in boxes, and everywhere else you can balance a book (sorry, I don’t have books in the bathroom—I don’t trust my guests). I may not get to every book—some I just have around because of the beauty of the language, or as reference books, and so on.
Cully Perlman
May 20, 20257 min read
Finding Your Story
Over decades and centuries, writers have taken inspiration from everywhere you can think of. They take their ideas from the culture around them (or from reading about other cultures), from current events, from history, dreams, their life experiences, from people watching, from prompts, from wherever. For me, it’s usually a combination of a few of the above. The novel I’m currently revising is taken from contemporary political events. The one I wrote last year was about a fami
Cully Perlman
May 13, 20256 min read
Inspiration Quotes from Writers I Admire (on the date of my birth!)
Today, I’m cheating. No desserts—my glucose levels told me to go to hell and I’m pretty sure that’s where I’ll end if I eat any more flourless chocolate cake. ut every now and then, while I’m hammering away at a novel (as I am right now), I do like me a good inspirational writing quote from some writer out there I admire. Today, on Vladimir Nabokov, Immanuel Kant, Vladimir Lenin, J. Robert Oppenheimer, Charles Mingus, Aaron Spelling, Jack Nicholson and my birthdays, that's wh
Cully Perlman
Apr 22, 20253 min read
Good Writers Borrow, Great Writers Steal
She wasn’t saying she had plagiarized the other author’s words, but rather some idea or convention she took and used for her work.
Cully Perlman
Apr 1, 20255 min read
The School of Fiction Podcast
I had the privilege of being a guest on Matt Posner's The School of Fiction Podcast, where we discuss the writing of fiction and editing.
Cully Perlman
Mar 16, 20251 min read
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