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A Long Game

How to Write Fiction

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A Long Game

By: Elizabeth McCracken
Narrated by: Elizabeth McCracken
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About this listen

Brought to you by Penguin.

Warm, wise and full of practical tips, this book is the ideal companion to every writing life

Write every day
Show, don’t tell
Write what you know
Kill Your Darlings

These are some of the most popular nuggets of advice given to writers, universally agreed to be true. They are all pieces of writing advice that Elizabeth McCracken expertly and persuasively shoots down in A Long Game.

McCracken has been writing for most of her life. Here, she shares insights gleaned along the way, deconstructing received wisdom whilst playfully tackling the mysteries that are inherent to writing and creativity.

A book about the life of an artist and a guide to fiction, A Long Game is a revelatory and indispensable resource and will lead all writers, at any stage of their career, back to the page.

‘A cheering companion that makes writing a less lonely business’ Yiyun Li

'Elizabeth McCracken is one of America's finest writers' Garth Greenwell

'An irreverent, thought-provoking and ultimately inspiring book about making art' Rumaan Alam

'A world class writer and a world class writing teacher' Paul Harding

'I would encourage every writer to read it' Rebecca Ivory

© Elizabeth McCracken 2026 (P) Penguin Audio 2026

 Creativity Essays Personal Development Personal Success Words, Language & Grammar Writing & Publishing Fiction Game

Critic Reviews

[McCracken is] not your usual wise old literary hand. Instead, she is naughty, perverse, quietly exhibitionist and bracingly unashamed… This attitude will be amazingly freeing for the many rule-haunted writers
[A Long Game is] a welcome chance to spend time with McCracken’s mind, which you can feel stretching with pleasure throughout… [a] lovely and energising book (Megan Nolan)
McCracken…include[s] all sorts of gems of wisdom… For anyone who wants to write a novel, or for anyone who loves reading novels…A Long Game is a joy
Wonderful tough love, direct, and very funny advice on how to be the writer you want to be (Ann Patchett)
Elizabeth McCracken was my teacher, and it’s a joy to know that now more people will have access to her brilliance through A Long Game… A guidebook for any fiction writer, and a problem-solving and cheering companion that makes writing a less lonely business (Yiyun Li)
Elizabeth McCracken is that rarest of combinations – a world class writer and a world class writing teacher. With A Long Game she has distilled the electric, inspiring genius, enthusiasm, and wit that she has brought to the classroom for more than three decades and put it into a book that's practically a masters program in itself (Paul Harding)
Elizabeth McCracken, one of the greatest, wisest, funniest, and most humane writers you will ever encounter, has written one the greatest, wisest, funniest, and most humane books about writing you will ever read. Have a pen ready. You'll want to underline sentences on every page that make you stop and think or inwardly cheer or nod in recognition. Most importantly, you'll want to run to your desk and write. A Long Game is an absolute gift (Cristina Henríquez)
On the one hand, as a superfan of Elizabeth McCracken, I am cranky that others will benefit from her wisdom. On the other hand, any excuse to spend time with McCracken’s intelligent and unpretentious voice is a gift. This is not just an indispensable craft book but a writer's argument with herself about what, in fact, constitutes craft (Karan Mahajan)
A deeply practical book that is also beautifully written, that is also somehow a page turner. It is, like McCracken’s fiction, a crystalline distillation of her warm, funny and no-nonsense voice. When I finished reading it, I couldn’t decide if what I wanted to do immediately was write fiction or just turn back to page one and read it again (Asali Solomon)
A Long Game is the most generous, idiosyncratic, useful, and companionable book on writing I’ve ever read. It’s basically a portable Elizabeth McCracken. How did we get so lucky? (Antoine Wilson)
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