One of the things that surprised me most when I started editing was the number of times I recommended a writer change where they started their book. Reading interviews with authors and talking to authors—maybe because I was looking for it—I noticed this was a recurring theme. Why is that? How do we tell where our books start? Not the hook that draws readers to keep reading, but the story itself. Inciting Incident A friend of mine tells the story of her first book, about a V

What does a manuscript revision look like when you've heard back from your editor? What steps should you take for a successful, stress-free revision?

Q: Your main characters in An Artful Dodge are women thieves. This is very different from your usual book. What made you decide to write this? What's its backstory? As usual, this book began with a profound surprise, a discovery that fell in my lap. My daughter Julia studied abroad at Oxford for a semester, and I met her in London afterward. It was December, and one rainy, windy night, our umbrellas in disarray, we popped into the Great Scotland Yard hotel, in Whitehall. It’s