Part 1: Introduction and overview

1. For Openers
2. Why Don’t You Finish That Book?
3. Who Am I to Give You Advice?
4. What About Talent?

Part 2: Getting started

1. The Ten Rules of Finishing
2. Work Habits
3. Good Days, Bad Days
4. An Idea You Can Live With
5. Who Tells Your Story?
6. Tone-deaf
7. Yesterday or today?
8. Populating Your Book
9. And Then He Said…
10. Setting as a Character
11. Giving a Damn

Part 3: Following the line

1. Act One
2. What’s a Scene? (And What’s a Chapter?)
3. To Outline or Not to Outline?
4. Exposition
5. What we leave out
6. Listening to your characters
7. The shape of your story
8. The dread middle

Part 4: Getting out of trouble

1. The Critic
2. Losing Interest
3. The Dead Scene
4. Architectural problems

Part 5: Finishing up and some thoughts on publishing

1. Finishing Up
2. About publishing
3. Writing for life

Part 6: Additional resources

1. Additional Resources