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Is the Publishing Industry Rigged?
People buy books. Publishers sell books. Literary agents are the middle people between authors and publishers. And while publishers ask themselves many, many questions, the most important ones are these: Will this author’s novel sell? And Will people buy this author’s book? Agents ask themselves the same questions prior to taking on a new client. The publishing industry is just that—an industry. Publishers are businesses. For profit businesses, for the most part.
Cully Perlman
Aug 27, 20256 min read
Artificial Intelligence Wrote This
I was in business for years, digital marketing and advertising, and so I understand his point of view and the technology behind it. I would never use AI for profit, though I do feel a little guilty having “written” the majority of this post using AI. Yes, I did it to see how AI on MS Word has improved since I first tried it out a couple years ago. This year (2025), Microsoft made further improvements, including Voice (you can execute voice commands, practice different languag
Cully Perlman
Aug 19, 20257 min read
Is My Idea a Short Story or a Novel?
What’s the underlying message I’m trying to communicate? Is it faith versus doubt? Government overreach/government against the people? Man/woman versus self? Revenge? For me, it’s likely a good combination of all of those and various/many? more. It’s just how I write, and from what I’ve read, most writers are (intentionally or not) doing the same. i.e., incorporating more than a few themes, either in their shorter works or their novels.
Cully Perlman
Aug 5, 20256 min read
Writing a Sense of Place
A setting can take three basic forms. One is the natural world, or in an outside place. In this setting, the natural landscapes of the world play an important part in a narrative, along with living creatures and different times of weather conditions and seasons. The second form exists as the cultural and historical background in which the narrative resides. Past events that have impacted the cultural background of characters or locations are significant in this way. The third
Cully Perlman
Aug 1, 20254 min read
What's a Memoir?
Authors, or better, memoirists, seek to tell their story. They write, or set out to write, non-fiction about their lives, or certain years and events in their lives, and they do so by trying to write a compelling narrative that makes the events they find important or of public interest in their histories interesting to their potential readers. I’ve known many aspiring memoirists, most of whom are getting ready to retire or have retired and now want to capture some of the magi
Cully Perlman
Jul 22, 20255 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
Don’t Waste Time Writing or Reading Novels You Don’t Love
So, what’s the fastest way to not waste your time when it comes to reading books? Don’t read the ones that don’t pull you in after a page or two. Or twenty. Your time is valuable, and there’s no sense in completing a novel if you aren’t enjoying it. Yeah, I know, I get it. Lolita is great! Never finished it, though I’ve started it probably thirty times. You haven’t read Vanity Fair by Thackeray? Nope. Doctor Zhivago? Sorry. The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy? Well, I di
Cully Perlman
Jul 1, 20256 min read
Joseph Campbell’s The Hero’s Journey
Structure. It’s a simple word, but it’s not that simple a concept when it comes to your novel. Most of us probably don’t even think about the structure of our novel when we begin, especially if we’re new to the game and don’t even know that different structures exist. We start writing, or we start plotting, creating an outline that’ll guide us for the entirety of our book.
Cully Perlman
Jun 17, 20257 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
THIS IS AI TELLING YOU HOW TO WRITE A NOVEL
As avid readers and writers, they were not pleased at the misquote by their graduation speaker (I told them to give her a break—it was, after all, after she’d read Hinton’s novel, so that’s what was on her mind). Any kid quoting any book or poem is good in my book, pun intended. But that’s not going to always be the case.
I foresee a future where AI and fiction written by writers is going to be so blurred we’ll no longer know the difference. And it’s depressing.
Cully Perlman
May 27, 20258 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
How Jack Kerouac’s On the Road Influenced Generations
The month after I read On the Road, which Kerouac famously wrote on eight long sheets of tracing paper which he taped together into a continues 120 foot scroll, I sold my prized Gran Prix (prized because it had dark tinted windows, 6x9 speakers, and shiny rims that were all the rage in Miami, Florida, at the time), all of my possessions (except my books), broke up with a long-term girlfriend, and jumped in a friend’s car heading West to work as a cook in Yellowstone National
Cully Perlman
May 7, 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
Targeting Your Dream Literary Agent with Your First Chapter
In order to give yourself the best shot at getting a literary agent to represent your book, you need to be a student of the game. You need to make sure you know what your dream literary agent is hungry for, and you need to give them plenty of it. You should read everything their clients have published in the last two years, or at least the first one or two chapters. If your novel fits in with what you read, you may be on your way to ensuring you have the best chance you can h
Cully Perlman
Apr 15, 20259 min read
How to Start a Book Club
What I’ve learned about book clubs from people in book clubs is that not all book clubs are the same. Choose yours wisely.
Cully Perlman
Mar 19, 20253 min read
Book Review: MY DARLING BOY. John Dufresne takes us on a Journey into a Dark, Drug-Fueled Florida.
As most parents of addicts know, addiction is a chronic medical condition with recidivism rates holding north of fifty percent.
Cully Perlman
Mar 12, 202511 min read
BOOK REVIEW: STONE ANGELS by Helena Rho explores the sexual exploitation of Korean women and girls during the Asia-Pacific War
Helena Rho’s Stone Angels, a novel about the sexual exploitation of Korean women and girls during the Asia-Pacific War
Cully Perlman
Feb 25, 20258 min read
Beware of Your Social Media Posts
Today I’m thinking about the wild west of social media, and how you, dear authors, should beware of your social media posts.
Cully Perlman
Feb 18, 20255 min read
WHY I WRITE NOVELS AND FICTION
I write novels and fiction to make sense of the world. I write to express myself, to communicate the things I find important in this life.
Cully Perlman
Feb 11, 20251 min read
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
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