Know Your Enemy…and Beat the Crap Out of It
Writing fight scenes between two human characters is difficult enough. We've all marveled at the way action movie protagonists can take massive amounts of...
Using Fear as a Weapon and a Hill to Conquer
Fear: a vital element for thriller and horror fiction, but also an emotion commonly found in stories of all types. Mastering the expression of...
Suspects are the Frame to Your Mystery’s Puzzle
A murder mystery needs a victim, a perpetrator, and a sleuth, but your other suspects are the glue that holds your novel together. They...
Every Tale is a Mystery
A sense of mystery is at the heart of every story, regardless of genre. At the outset, you don't know where the story is...
Does Your Villain Mean Well?
In a post for CrimeReads, Kerry Anne King takes a look at 10 characters who do bad things for good reasons. Whether motivated by...
More Than Invisible Ink: Advice for Writing About Spies
In an article for Writer's Digest, author Stephanie Marie Thornton offers her advice for creating believable spy characters.
Notably, she reminds writers that spycraft isn't...
Do You Really Really Know Your Villain?
In a post on the SFWA blog, writer Michael Moore (not that one), says that SF writers can create stronger villains by thinking like...
Noir and SF: A Complimentary Pairing
Classic examples of SF/mystery mashups include Philip K. Dick's Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? and its resulting film adaptation, Bladerunner, as well as...
Paula Hawkins: Mysteries Can Be More Than Black and White
Some of our favorite novels have ambiguous endings, or fail to wrap up events in the tidiest manner. Tana French's debut novel, In the...
The Rules of Magic Realism
A headline on Electric Lit promises a "master class on magic realism" and the lengthy article by Marie-Helene Bertino delivers. Bertino eschews definitions and...
