Related Clues:

• Novelist's need
• Novel creation
• Connive
• Cabal's plans
• Sneaky maneuver
• It sometimes thickens
• Maneuver
• 'The ___ thickens'
• Artifice
• Novelist's concern
• Paranoiac's worry
• Part of a pitch
• Confidence trick
• Novelist's thread
• Novel idea