Nerve Fiction

It's All About the... Rendering

Novel execution vs properly rendering a whole world

Jun 9 • Matthew Hicks

Wound-Logic and the Novel

What Sue Klebold's memoir teaches us about how damage shapes perception, and in turn, how that can shape our stories

Jun 2 • Matthew Hicks

January 2026

I Wrote Four First Drafts of My Second Novel

I wrote four first drafts of my second novel.

Jan 30 • Matthew Hicks

2

Querying, take two

Back in the 'trenches'

Jan 2 • Matthew Hicks

3

September 2025

The Netflixication of the novel

Letting novels be novels

Sep 13, 2025 • Matthew Hicks

2

Erasing Myself for a Job

In 2013

Sep 10, 2025 • Matthew Hicks

You're on the path

I found her on accident.

Sep 9, 2025 • Matthew Hicks

1

June 2025

The whole atmosphere

The whole atmosphere was ridden with a Biblical splendor punctuated with the tinkling bells of the ponies, the reverberations of the poison song, the…

Jun 28, 2025 • Matthew Hicks

Novel writer as casting agent

Role playing for characters

Jun 27, 2025 • Matthew Hicks

February 2020

Writing my second novel through 8 drafts

A two year love affair

Feb 5, 2020 • Matthew Hicks

June 2017

The wonder in her eyes

"People first, then money, then things," Suze Orman used to say on her television show.

Jun 17, 2017 • Matthew Hicks

February 2013

A Raucous Life

I turned around as soon as he started mooning a group of schoolchildren.

Feb 13, 2013 • Matthew Hicks