The novel thirty-nine made a moving picture (5)
I believe the answer is:
steps
'a moving picture' is the definition.
The answer and definition can be both man-made objects as well as being singular nouns.
Maybe you can see an association between them that I can't see?
'the novel thirty-nine' is the wordplay.
I cannot quite see how this works, but
'the' could be 't' (the is pronounced as a 't' sound in some dialects) and 't' is found in the answer.
The remaining letters 'seps' is a valid word which might be clued in a way I don't see.
This explanation may well be incorrect...
'made' acts as a link.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for steps that I've seen before include "stair" , "Paces; measures" , "Footfalls" , "Buchan's 1915 novel has 39 of them" , "See 23" .)