How do you write a novel? Practising novelists and teachers of creative writing reveal their working methods and offer practical advice. Subjects covered range from magic realism to characterisation, surrealism to historical fiction, via perspective, plot twists and avoiding being boring, among many others. This book is for creative writing students writers and readers of novels teachers of creative writing With contributions from Leone Ross, Tom Bromley, Jenn Ashworth, AJ Dalton, Nikesh Shukla, Stella Duffy, Mark Morris, Alison Moore, Nicholas Royle, Alice Thompson, Kerry Hudson, Toby Litt, Livi Michael, Joe Stretch, James Miller, Sarah Butler, Will Wiles, Graeme Shimmin Featuring Eighteen specially commissioned essays Creative writing exercises Top tips Lists of recommended novels

With an introduction by Toby Litt In his heyday, during the 1960s and early 1970s, B. S. Johnson was one of the best-known novelists in Britain. A passionate advocate for the avant-garde, he became famous for his forthright views on the future of the novel and for his unique ways of putting them into practice. Johnson said of the acerbically comic and exuberant Albert Angelo that it was where he 'really discovered what he should be doing'. On page 163 of this extraordinary book is one of the most surprising lines in English fiction. But you should start at the beginning. The eponymous Albert is an architect by training but a supply teacher out of necessity. Feeling that he is failing at both, and haunted by a failed love affair, he begins to question what he wants to achieve. Using a number of original narrative techniques Johnson attempts to reproduce life (and its travails) as closely as possible through fiction, while at the same time revelling in the impossibility of such a task.

Edwin Paine and Charles Roland have a lot in common - they’re both English schoolboys who love a good detective story, and they’ve been known to dabble in mystery-solving themselves. They’re also both dead, a condition which has proven to be less of a hindrance than one might think. From the pages of THE SANDMAN, Neil Gaiman's intrepid dead schoolboys head back to the horror that is St. Hilarions School; the place where they both were murdered. This volume collects Toby Litt and Mark Buckingham's Dead Boy Detectives #1-12, as well as well as the short stories “Run Ragged� from Witching Hour #1, Ghosts #1 and Time Warp #1.

Edwin Paine and Charles Rowland are no different than most boys. They love adventure, games, and spending time outdoors. They’re curious about girls, curious about life, and particularly curious when it comes to mysteries. You see, Edwin Paine and Charles Rowland happen to be two of the best detectives in England. Note that we didn’t say living in England. That’s because Edwin and Charles aren’t living in England. In fact, they’re not living at all. Collects The Dead Boy Detectives #1-12, Sandman Presents: Dead Boy Detectives #1-4, The Sandman #25, The Children's Crusade #1-2, Ghosts#1, The Witching Hour #1, Time Warp #1, Doom Patrol Annual #2, and Swamp Thing Annual #7.