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The literary-argument question changes the problem

• A thesis still expresses an interpretation requiring evidence and a line of reasoning.
• But on the open question you choose the work, and the text is not on the desk.
• So your thesis must be defensible from what you can actually recall in detail.

Choosing a book for the open question is like choosing shoes for a hike: a good fit beats a striking colour.

Choose the work by your evidence, not your affection

• The best novel you have read is not the best novel to write about.
• Pick the one where you can quote or closely describe four or five specific moments.
• A thesis is only as defensible as the evidence you can produce from memory.

Narrow to what you remember precisely

• A thesis about a whole novel's theme needs evidence spread across the whole novel.
• A thesis about one relationship, or one character's contradiction, needs four scenes — which you may actually have.
• Narrower is not weaker here; it is the difference between a defended essay and a summarised one.

Plot summary is the standard failure here

• With no passage in front of you, the easiest thing to write is what happens.
• The rubric gives nothing for it — the thesis must still be an interpretation, not a retelling.
• If a sentence would be equally true in a book review, it is not doing the work.

A pre-writing check for the open question

• Before writing: can I name four specific moments, with enough detail to describe them precisely?
• Does my thesis interpret rather than retell?
• Does each of those four moments serve the thesis, or did I list them because I remember them?