genre / 45 posts found
21 Popular Horror Tropes for Writers
One fun thing about writing horror fiction is that the genre is loaded with several popular tropes that are acceptable for writers to use. In fact, readers expect at least a few of these elements to appear in every story. (Playing With Common Horror Tropes for Comedic Effect.) The main reason for this, I expect, is that tropes help set expectation and expectation (in horror anyway) starts building suspense. When are bad things going to happen? How will they happen? Who will make it through to the end? Will I be able to fall asleep tonight? (OK, that last one […]
The WD Interview: Elizabeth Acevedo
A poet, an aspiring chef, a healer, and a chess player: Elizabeth Acevedo writes about creative teen girls making their own way in a world that isn’t always kind. It didn’t come as too much of a surprise that Acevedo herself took up a creative hobby during the pandemic lockdown. But the way she brought it back to writing, however, was the revelation. While discussing having patience during the revision process, Acevedo noted that she had started making candles, and she learned that each candle has a curing time during which it sits untouched before it can be burned. This […]
How To Write About Love While the World Is Falling Apart
I wrote what I hoped would be a slightly unconventional novel that would ideally be really accessible. It took me a long time to figure out how to do this! Part of the problem was that when I was in middle school and they tried to get us to write short stories, they would tell us to write a summary of what was going to happen and then write the story. This is great! Here’s the problem: If I write out what’s going to happen in the story, then I already wrote the story. I have no idea how to […]
Starting Your Romance Novel off With a Bang
My first manuscript went through four years of intense, alone-in-a-basement-cluelessly-banging-on-a-keyboard level work. I was passionate about that book. Adored that book. I just knew that, if people could just get 40 pages in, they would see it for what it was. (5 Keys to Writing a Slow Burn Romance) And so, after a careful vetting process of determining an agent’s merit based on the quality of their website design and font choices, I began to send out emails, full to the brim of naïve optimism. One day passed without reply. One week. One month. Four. Why didn’t they like it? […]
Research and Storytelling for Successful Historical Fiction
“It must be easy writing historical fiction. You already know what’s happened.” That comment always makes me laugh. When you write historical fiction, you wonder what really happened. According to historian Patrick Collinson, “It is possible for competent historians to come to radically different conclusions on the basis of the same evidence. Because, of course, 99 percent of the evidence, above all, unrecorded speech, is not available to us.” That 99 percent leaves a lot of gray areas. Happily, those gray areas are where historical novelists get to play. That’s where our imagination fills in what might’ve happened behind and […]
Writing Dark Fiction
People seem to like their content with a healthy side of darkness if you go by the books that linger at the top of bestseller lists and the TV shows that consistently draw big audiences. Personally, I am way too soft for actual horror (no thank you Stephen King or Stranger Things,) but I am attracted to stories that have an undercurrent of something frightening or shocking and, possibly, just a bit evil—especially if there are real people involved. Devil In the White City, The Girls, Dr. Death. (5 Tips for Writing a Domestic Thriller) When I first told the […]
Alana Quintana Albertson: On Giving a Tragedy a Happy Ending
Alana Quintana Albertson has written 30 romance novels, rescued 500 death-row shelter dogs, and danced 1,000 rumbas. She lives with her husband in sunny San Diego with her two sons and too many pets. Most days, she can be found writing her next heart book in a beachfront café while sipping an oat-milk Mexican mocha or gardening with her children in their backyard orchard and snacking on a juicy blood orange. Find her on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. Alana Quintana Albertson © Berkley Jove (TR) 2021 In this post, Alana discusses how she reimagined Romeo and Juliet with a happy […]
Try One More Thing: An Award-Winning Fairytale
Once upon a time, there was a writer staring at computer screen and an open email message for the Sisters In Crime Eleanor Taylor Bland Award for Emerging Writers of Color selection committee. (Rachel Howzell Hall and Alex Segura Discuss the Eleanor Taylor Bland Award for Emerging Writers of Color Award.) A million thoughts went through the writer’s mind. What was she doing? Why was she sending this email? Did she really think she could win? No, she didn’t think she would win because until now, every attempt she’d made to query her story about a Ghanaian female assassin—really a […]
How to Make Tough Topics for Adults Into Experiences for Children
Here’s the thing about tough topics: they may feel tough for you, but for someone else they are just life. In Alphabet Rockers, we write and create for children, from two Grammy-nominated albums about racial justice and gender justice to our first published picture book, You Are Not Alone, which is about empathy and inclusion. Our work invites us all—adults and children—to create the world of belonging and equity we need. Our writing is not just for kids, but inclusive for generations. We’re here to build a new cultural foundation, and it’s our responsibility to evolve and do the work […]
Paul Vidich: On Romance in Espionage
Paul Vidich is the acclaimed author of The Mercenary, The Coldest Warrior, An Honorable Man, and The Good Assassin, and his fiction and nonfiction have appeared in the Wall Street Journal, LitHub, CrimeReads, Fugue, The Nation, Narrative Magazine, Wordriot, and others. He lives in New York City. Find him on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. Paul Vidich Photo by Bekka Palmer In this post, Paul discusses the inspiration behind his new literary spy novel, The Matchmaker: A Spy in Berlin, the drafting process and his beta readers, and more! Name: Paul VidichLiterary agent: Will Roberts, The Gernert CompanyBook title: The Matchmaker: A […]