So you want to write the next great American novel. First off, fuck you. No one reads those things. But, okay, I see that you’re set on this. I get it. As someone who has in fact written a great American novel, I can give you some tips.

1. Swear a whole fuckin bunch. Don’t be a pussy. You cocksucker.

2. Please, make your novel really gay. No one wants to read about straight people anymore. Straight has been done. Sure, gay has been done, too, but it’s been less done. If socially conservative logic were to be applied, one might even be able to say that the next frontier in great novels is bestiality. Maybe try that. (In your novel.)

3. Try to remember that no one cares about you or your words. You’re no Hemingway, and you never will be. This is probably a good thing. He shot himself.

4. Make your novel very Internetty. People won’t understand it otherwise. u kno?

5. Fuck with ‘structural conventions.’ They’re boring. Once upon a time, etc., was cool when your grandma’s sex part was still fresh. We’re ready for something else.

6. Don’t write about the dystopian future, or Jay Gabler will murder you (and he’ll do so with the kindest emoticon on his face).

7. Make your novel very strange but don’t be distant and ‘detached from society.’ We already have Tao Lin. He seems unhappy. Don’t be Tao Lin. Tao Lin isn’t even Tao Lin.

8. Make sure you put all of the crazy shit that happens in your own life in the novel, but lie about it to make everything seem crazier and more dangerous. Your goal is to make people think that you’re more daring and adventurous than they are. Let nose candy be your muse.

9. Most of your novel should be pictures, preferably of naked/bloody people.

10. Develop a vaguely foreign pen name that somehow feels emotionally relatable. “Vander Voom” comes to mind for guys. “Sally Go Chestnut” is another, for you females.

–Jason Zabel