Writing with the Master: How One of the World?s Bestselling Authors Fixed My Book and Changed My Life

With seven unpublished novels wasting away on his hard drive, Tony Vanderwarker is astonished when John Grisham offers to take him under his wing and teach him the secrets of thriller writing. “The beginning and the end are easy,” Grisham tells him. “It’s the three hundred pages in the middle that’s the hard part.”

To ensure his plot doesn’t run out of gas, Grisham puts Tony though his outline process. Tony does one, and then Grisham asks for another … and another … and another. As they work...