Getting the Word Out by L.C. Blackwell I spent more than eighteen months writing For Sale Murder. Draft after draft—researching, editing, formatting, designing a cover, finding beta readers, choosing an Indie distributor, prepping the book for upload, and more. I thought I was ready to release my very first mystery baby, all 85,000 […]
What’s the Point? by Mark de Castrique A friend of mine was standing in line at the sales register of a local bookstore. The woman in front of her was checking out, and the clerk made a suggestion for a novel. She handed her customer a display copy and the woman quickly thumbed […]
Adding a Supernatural Element to Your Thriller by Nicholas Kaufmann Growing up, I was a Monster Kid through and through. One of my favorite memories from my youth is how every Sunday morning at 11 AM, WPIX-TV out of New York City would show an old, black-and-white Abbott and Costello movie. It seemed […]
Character Flaws and the Unpardonable Sin of 12 Angry Men by Tom Seigel Some inconsistency in a fictional character is usually a good thing. Who wants to read about stereotypes, caricatures, or robots? We want complex, emotional, fallible, impetuous, and occasionally hypocritical types populating our fiction. They are the most human, the most […]
Vision and Betrayal by Ginger Bolton Like almost everyone else, I started my first novel with “What if?” There were really two what ifs. One: What if that real-life woman didn’t return my call because she had mysteriously disappeared? Two: What if I started writing, you know, just to see what happened, both […]
Imagine Me As A Little Old Lady by Parnell Hall Dropped. Desperate. Never going to write again. Been there. Done that. The scariest thing for a writer is to be dropped by your publisher. There you are, on top of the world, one of the chosen few, and suddenly it’s snatched out from under you, […]
When Mystery is Out of This World by Claire Gem Even in a world where people are suffocating under stress, many consciously and deliberately seek even more. Fans of mystery, thriller, and suspense novels not only want their reads to bring more tension into their lives, they demand it. Unless these books raise their blood […]
Controlling the Flow of Information by Simon Brett As a writer, you have one enormous advantage over your readers or audience. You know the whole story, and they don’t. Except in very rare circumstances, you don’t start off knowing the whole story. You begin with an idea, which hopefully leads on to other ideas, which […]
You Don’t Say? by Brad Harper Dialogue is an ancient Greek stage direction, meaning “action through words.” One of the first critiques I got from an agent, looking at my neatly printed manuscript was “There’s not enough white space,” meaning there was too much narrative description, and not enough dialogue. Dialogue opens up the tight-knit […]
What is a Story Without Adverbs? by Lynn Truss The question a lot of people have been asking me is, “So, Lynne, what’s the difference between writing these stories for radio and writing them as a novel?” This is because my new book A Shot in the Dark (first in a series of comic crime […]