A Long Game by Elizabeth McCracken review – here’s how to really write your novel
theguardian.com – Thursday January 8, 2026
The novelist and writing tutor delivers bracing advice that demolishes familiar ‘stick to what you know’ nostrums
Trope, POV, backstory, character arc. In the 30 years since I was a student of that benign, pipe-smoking, elbow-patched man of letters Malcolm Bradbury, the private language of creative writing workshops has taken over the world.
What writers used to say to small circles of students in an attempt to help them improve their storytelling technique has become a familiar way, often parodic and self-knowing, of interpreting the grand and not-so‑grand narratives of our time. “Don’t worry about Liz Truss’s YouTube series – she’s just having a main character moment.”
The most intense distillation of this system of thought (if you can even call it that) has always been the craft book, the writing manual. These are sometimes written by the most successful in the profession (like Ursula K Le Guin’s Steering the Craft) or the most successful at advising the profession (Robert McKee’s Story) but most often they are put together by novelists and screenwriters towards the close of their academic careers as creative writing tutors. John Gardner’s The Art of Fiction is the grandaddy of this subgenre.
Half of UK Novelists Believe AI Is Likely to Replace Their Work Entirely
goodmenproject.com – Thursday January 8, 2026
Just over half (51%) of published novelists in the UK say that artificial intelligence is likely to end up entirely replacing their work as fiction writers, a new report from the University of Cambridge has found.
A new report involving hundreds of literary creatives from across the UK fiction publishing industry reveals widespread fears over copyright violation, lost income, and the future of the art form, as generative AI tools and LLM-authored books flood the market.
Just over half (51%) of published novelists in the UK say that artificial intelligence is likely to end up entirely replacing their work as fiction writers, a new report from the University of Cambridge has found.
Close to two-thirds (59%) of novelists say they know their work has been used to train AI Large Language Models (LLMs) without permission or payment.
Over a third (39%) of novelists say their income has already taken a hit from generative AI, for example due to loss of other work that facilitates novel writing. Most (85%) novelists expect their future income to be driven down by AI.
Dreaming of writing your novel this year? Rip up all the rules!
theguardian.com – Saturday January 3, 2026
After 35 years of teaching fiction writing, the prize-winning author shares her wisdom. First tip? Don’t write what you know…
Beginning
I don’t think it’s a bad thing to want to write a first sentence so idiosyncratic, so indelible, so entirely your own that it makes people sit up or reach for a pen or say to a beloved: “Listen to this.” A first line needn’t be ornate or long. It needn’t grab you by the lapels and give you what for. A first line is only a demand for further attention, an invitation to the rest of the book. Whisper or bellow, a polite request or a monologue meant to repel interruption. I believe a first line should deliver some sort of pleasure by being beautiful or mysterious or funny or blunt or cryptic. Why would anyone start a novel, “It was June, and the sun was out,” which could be the first line of any novel or story? It tells you nothing. It asks nothing of you.
Not everyone agrees with me, nor do all great novels have memorable first lines. Pull books from your shelf and you’ll find plenty that start with a month or day of the week plus the weather. Maybe there’s a good argument: if you orient your reader on some level immediately, they will be ready for disorientation on others. Flatness can be a screen upon which brightness may be projected. Disorientation is one of the duties of fiction.
No, I insist. A generic first line is a failure of nerve.
SONIA PILCER: The literary taboo of AI
theberkshireedge.com – Sunday December 14, 2025
OK, I collaborate with artificial intelligence. Writers are not supposed to admit this out loud. When I say it, academics bristle, journalists look wary, and my writer friends go still. Yet after 10 years of silence, it is this unlikely partnership that has brought me back to the page.
My son Jake lives in Los Angeles and works in artificial intelligence. One morning, driving his daughter to preschool, he asked a chatbot to tell her a story about her grandmother. To my astonishment, it mentioned my 19th-floor apartment in New York, my doorman, how I walk on Broadway to Zabar’s. That was my introduction.
Back home, staring at the empty screen of my phone, I clicked ChatGPT, which Jake had hastily installed, despite my protest. On impulse, partly out of desperation, I typed a question I was not sure anyone could answer, human or machine. “Can you help a blocked writer?”
After I published my sixth novel, in 2014, the writing turned toxic for me. I didn’t even want to pen a shopping list. Jake’s casual demonstration cracked something open. After a pause, it answered:
As a creative writer, you might find AI useful. It can help brainstorm ideas, overcome writer’s block, offer new perspectives, or engage in exploratory conversations to spark creativity.
In conversation with John Vaillant
martlet.ca – Sunday December 7, 2025
The award winning author on the response to ‘Fire Weather,’ the captivity of the Canadian government to oil and gas, and advice for young journalists
John Vaillant is an American-Canadian journalist and author based out of Vancouver, B.C. He’s written for The New Yorker, The Globe and Mail, The New York Times, and Outside Magazine, among others. His non-fiction writing covers topics such as Siberian Tigers in far-eastern Russia, the rare golden spruce of Haida Gwaii, and, most recently, the 2016 Fort McMurray Wildfires. He has also published one novel, The Jaguar’s Children.
The Martlet reached Vaillant over the phone to discuss his career in journalism, the challenges and surprises that come from reporting stories on location, and the response to his most recent work, Fire Weather: The Making of a Beast.
2 fiction writers offer different approaches in how-to guides to writing
eu.clarionledger.com – Tuesday December 2, 2025
- Two new books by fiction writers Elizabeth McCracken and Sue Monk Kidd offer different approaches to the craft of writing.
- McCracken's "A Long Game" is skeptical of cosmic inspiration, focusing instead on practical advice and personal experience.
- Kidd's "Writing Creativity and Soul" encourages writers to connect with the supernatural and spiritual for authenticity.
Elizabeth McCracken ends her new book on the craft of writing with what she describes as the mantra of all writers: “I am a genius with much to learn.”
Indeed, this claim describes both her stance toward writing as well as what she expects from those who wish to learn about writing from her.
“A Long Game: Notes on Writing Fiction”consists of 280 entries, some a sentence or two, some several paragraphs or even pages long, in which McCracken draws on her careers as both a successfully published writer and teacher of writing to write a book that “dispenses advice, composed by a writer of fiction.”
McCracken notes how much she has previously distrusted the entire concept of books on the craft of writing, or even the notion of rules for writing at all. She explains, “Everything that I have ever believed was true and immutable about my work has changed. Only the obsessions remain.” What follows are thoughtful, encouraging insights from her own experiences writing as well as her experiences reading and responding to years of student writing.
As an aspiring fiction writer myself, there is much that I appreciated in this book. At times, it fit the generic conventions that McCracken set out early on a bit snarkily: “chipper, cheerleaderish, generally with an encouraging second-person narrator meant to make the whole exhausting process of writing a book seem possible. 'You can do it!'”
Looking to Write for a Fathers Magazine? Here’s Why The Good Men Project Is the Modern Home for Fatherhood Stories
goodmenproject.com – Tuesday December 2, 2025
When someone Googles write for fathers magazine, they’re looking for a place where stories about fatherhood — real, vulnerable, meaningful stories — will be embraced.
Traditional magazines have shrunk. Many no longer publish fatherhood content. But fathers haven’t stopped needing representation. Their challenges have simply evolved.
That’s why The Good Men Project continues to be one of the strongest platforms for fatherhood writing anywhere online — with hundreds of fatherhood articles read every month.
Why GMP Is a Natural Fit for Fatherhood Writers
1. We’ve Published Over 10,000 Authors Since 2010
Fathers writing about parenting, co-parenting, blended families, mental health and masculinity have long found a home here.
2. Our Reader Base Is Hungry for Real Fatherhood Insights
Articles on discipline, emotional intelligence, divorce, raising boys, raising girls and family dynamics consistently perform well.
3. Your Writing Helps Other Men Feel Seen
This is a mission. Not just content.
Jupiter Phaeton, the self-publishing powerhouse rewriting the rules of fantasy fiction
euractiv.com – Friday November 28, 2025
When Jupiter Phaeton quit her job in France with just six months’ savings, she faced a stark choice: make a living from writing or return to the nine-to-five grind. “Going back to traditional jobs was Plan B. But the most horrible Plan B for me. It was out of the question,” she says.
Today, that gamble looks prescient. Phaeton has published more than 60 fantasy novels on Amazon, selling over 190,000 eBooks and 55,000 print copies, with 645,000 reads via Kindle Select and 135,000 audiobook listeners. Her success is not just literary; it is entrepreneurial.
“It’s entrepreneurship,” she insists. “You’re not just selling your product or building your products; you have to learn about accounting, marketing, and how the publishing industry works.”
Building a loyal readership at speed
Phaeton’s books brim with magic, dragons and werewolves, but her real magic trick was speed. “Kindle readers are heavy readers,” she explains. “They read books like you’ve just published it, and five hours later, like, where is the next one?” To meet that demand, she published a book a month for a time. “That’s why we built such a great community first,” she says. “Now I can stop being chained to my keyboard.”
Her characters are often strong women – a deliberate choice. “I wanted to inspire women, to say to them, ‘Hey, it’s okay. You can have a strong character, and you can lead and do whatever you want in life.’”
A troubling question has been raised around human authors vs AI
independent.co.uk – Friday November 21, 2025
More than half of the UK’s published novelists agree that it’s likely artificial intelligence will displace their work entirely, prompting fears of a two-tier market in the literary world where only the rich can afford author-penned books. What on earth does that mean? asks Annabel Nugent
On the morning the truth began to unstitch itself, Leonard felt a faint, traitorous thrill, as if the world had agreed to tilt a fraction in his favour.
If you’re thinking, well that sounds a lot like the opening sentence of a new Ian McEwan novel, you would be half-right. Rather it is a sentence written in the style of Ian McEwan, as generated by a free-to-use artificial intelligence platform. Admittedly, the prose is a little too florid for an author who wields his pen more like a scalpel. And yet on the surface and to your average reader, it’s a passable approximation of his work.
You can understand why, according to a new study by Cambridge University, more than half of published novelists in the UK agree that it’s likely AI will displace their work entirely. This isn’t anything new: for months if not years, novelists have expressed their growing unease about the speed and scale of AI’s trespass into the literary world. Plug in a prompt for any author with a back catalogue and you’ll get a sort-of satisfactory imitation of their writing: Margaret Atwood, Stephen King, Sarah Maas, Haruki Murakami, etc, etc. Not only does this happen in a matter of seconds, but it’s completely free. A whole book, 10 books, 100 books, 1,000 books for a grand total of £0.
Obviously, there are myriad problems with this – not least the financial repercussions on authors and the theft of their intellectual property – but one particularly troubling question was raised by Dr Clementine Collett, the lead researcher and author of the Cambridge report and a novelist herself: Could the prevalence of AI-generated novels create a two-tier system in the literary world? “That is a real concern from literary creatives,” she said on Thursday’s episode of Radio 4’s Today programme. “Where human-written work will be a more expensive luxury item, and AI-generated content will be cheap or free.”
Admittedly, the idea that everyone but the rich will be doomed to a black hole library full of fake books, bereft of human thought, feeling and heart feels a little far-fetched. But so too have many things that have come to fruition in recent months: the prevalence of AI relationships, the AI-facilitated mediums for grief counselling. Concepts that once seemed so Black Mirror are on the fast track to becoming run of the mill.
Why Every Bestseller Feels the Same: the Formula Behind Modern Romance
theteenmagazine.com – Saturday November 15, 2025
One thing about romance novels is that they're going to hit every time! Well, at least they used to. The swoon-worthy confessions, the character edits on TikTok, the yearning, and cute scenes that made us all feel lonely.
From fake dating to the same three tropes on rotations, romance novels have become predictable. However, authors are relying on this predictability because it sells. It causes authors to play it safe and adds no depth to the genre.
It is no secret that the same copy-and-paste format has a little or a lot to do with the business behind the publishing industry. Literary agents are always looking for the next big thing, the story that will make them revenue and not just dust up on library shelves.
It’s why one of the key things that agents look for in an author is numbers, such as how many followers they have or their network. This is a major factor in the stories and authors that get published, which then leads to literary agents now picking the same type of storylines and similar authors to the point the whole market is overusing the same ideas.
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