how to work with your subconscious to write a book that 'hangs together' (so an agent won't reject it)

My agent once told me about a manuscript she was considering for representation. She was enjoying it. She thought it well-written. But when she reached the final page, she knew she would reject it.

"It was too muddled at the center," she said. "I still didn't know what the book was about."

Which reminded me of something writing instructor Donna Levin said when I took a novel workshop with her a decade or so ago in San Francisco: part of the challenge of writing a novel is taking their...