I was grateful when an editor at Harper Muse, Lizzie Poteet, invited me to revise and resubmit. I followed her excellent advice while doing my own deep dive into the topic. When she offered me a contract, I felt elated not just from the two-book deal, but also the knowledge I’d gained. Obstacles like this often push us to elevate our craft.

(The Keys to Conflict.)

Here are the top eight insights I gleaned from my adventures in raising narrative tension. Since The Alchemy of Flowers is an upmarket fiction genre blend—weaving elements of magic, mystery, romance, horror, and thriller into a woman’s healing journey—I explored strategies from far and wide. No matter your genre, I hope these tips spark ideas for you.

1) Plant “Curiosity Seeds” and Clues

In early versions of The Alchemy of Flowers, my narrator showed her cards at the beginning, not leaving room to build readers’ curiosity. Realizing readers might feel bored, I revised to make sure they’re always asking small and large questions to keep the pages turning: How did Eloise end up in locked castle gardens in France? Why did she end her marriage? Her friendships? Her job?

Following the advice of agent CeCe Lyra, I sprinkled in “curiosity seeds” and clues that prompt readers to wonder and engage—then I let the seedlings grow into satisfying reveals. In your own story, how can you drop mentions of intriguing elements that you’ll explore later?

2) Create Mini-Mysteries Through Strategic Backstory

My editor helped me understand that Eloise’s big chunks of flashbacks were slowing down the narrative. She encouraged me to break these up and captivate readers by drip-feeding relevant bits of Eloise’s past—her infertility and losses, the strange job ad that led her to the gardens, her mystical divination ritual.

Think about your own work—can you parcel out backstory in ways that engage readers as they try to piece things together? Experiment with strategically revealing glimpses of the past that relate to events in the present. Invite readers to puzzle out the significance.

3) Foreshadow and Create an Intriguing Atmosphere

Setting and imagery are golden opportunities to increase tension. Let them be as multi-sensory and multi-purpose as possible. In the first quarter of The Alchemy of Flowers, I wanted Eloise to feel enchanted by the walled Gardens of Paradise as she bonds with new friends—but I needed to raise the tension to keep readers engaged. Still, I couldn’t let Eloise be too worried about the dark underbelly of paradise during her first weeks—otherwise, it wouldn’t make sense for her to stay. I had to figure out ways to make the reader feel worried, even as Eloise was enjoying herself.

Thanks to my editor’s suggestion to draw on horror story structure, I had Eloise notice vivid setting details like eerie goddess statues and poisonous flowers, which created an ominous atmosphere and hinted to readers that danger was around the bend. In your story, how can you add touches of foreshadowing that promise readers high-stakes excitement to come?

4) Externalize the Internal Conflicts

Show us the drama! In parts of my early drafts, the emotional conflicts were too interior, which lowered the tension and slowed the pace. I realized that by letting conflicts play out externally, readers would feel more engaged.

In my revision, Eloise voices her battling emotions through conversations and confrontations, creating a more high-energy dynamic. Think about slow, interior parts of your story, and play around with how your narrator might express these feelings to another character in a way that heightens tension.

Click to continue.

5) Make the Stakes Clear, Big, and Escalating

Readers crave high stakes that keep rising. With my editor’s guidance, I clarified how Eloise’s internal and external stakes build to an urgent, life-and-death situation in the climax. In the beginning, her stakes involve succeeding in this gardening job in France, since she’s burned down her previous life. Her internal stakes grow as she opens herself to love and realizes she could emotionally lose her newfound family. Her external stakes escalate as she understands that she—and those she loves—could be in immediate physical danger.

Note that stakes don’t have to be life or death, depending on your genre. At one point, when I sensed the romantic stakes were sagging, I added a ticking clock element: Eloise’s love interest had to leave in one week. In your work, how can you clarify and raise internal and external stakes?

6) Increase Conflict, Distrust, and Secrets

In real life, I love when people get along, so I always have to remind myself that in stories, this dynamic is boring. In early drafts of The Alchemy of Flowers, despite the over-arching danger, Eloise and her co-workers were getting along swimmingly—their scenes lacked tension, conflict, and interest. In my revision, I layered in distrust and secrets among them, adding a sense of unease.

If there’s a relationship in your story that’s bobbing along peacefully, can you inject some conflict? For example, maybe the characters have opposing strategies for the same goal, creating frustrations, anger, or sorrow. If you’re using multiple points of view, you could strategically alternate narrators to highlight tensions.

7) Add Twists, Turns, Reveals, and Reversals

Predictability is your enemy! If you feel your narrative plodding along a well-worn path, ask yourself what unexpected turns your story might take. At my agent’s and editor’s encouragement, I added a near-death poisoning, an unexpected visit to the forbidden castle, a furtive spying adventure at the market, a dagger stabbed into a threatening note, a letter revealing a missing person, and a buried body.

I made sure that each of these incidents served multiple purposes—increasing tension, forwarding the plot, developing characters, and deepening relationships. My story’s twists have gothic and thriller overtones, but you can choose ones that fit your genre. What surprising yet believable events could you add to your story?

8) Use Cliffhangers and Tipping Dominoes

My editor suggested that whenever possible, I end each section and chapter on a cliffhanger, or at least a compelling question. During a late revision stage, I experimented with moving around chapter endings to maximize suspense. I also made sure that a series of cause-and-effect events continually reel in the reader.

Try going through your own story and brainstorming possible section endings. How can you emphasize the tipping dominoes and ratchet up suspense?

Final Thoughts

As writers, we aim to engage readers’ minds, hearts, and emotions through story—and keeping tension high is key to this mission. I invite you to read through your draft and note where tension sags, then have fun playing around with these strategies to see which ones your story needs. Keep readers hooked for the whole wild ride!

Check out Laura Resau’s The Alchemy of Flowers here:

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I had the good fortune to be raised by a father who shared with me what my mother referred to as his “morbid curiosity.” He was an avid reader, almost exclusively nonfiction, and he found the real world as fascinating and unpredictable as our imaginations. I think the reason why I always had a story going on in my head or how my favorite question was always “what if” was because of him. His endless curiosity brought us to visit places like Stonehenge, the Lizzie Borden house, the Gettysburg battlefield, and a trip to DC to see the supposedly cursed Hope diamond. 

It’s no surprise to my family and friends that I always seek out the weird and the unusual and the kinds of things that despite them being absolutely true are actually stranger than fiction. (Which, by the way, was the title of one of the books my dad would read to me as a small child and was also the singular reason why I was afraid to sleep in my own bed at night.) This unwholesome interest is how the idea germ for That Last Carolina Summer sprouted during one of my sessions of procasta-scrolling through the Internet.  

Both of my parents were from Mississippi and every summer I would spend a few weeks with my maternal grandparents and assorted cousins. Mississippi experiences frequent thunderstorms and ensuing lightning strikes in the hot summer months because of its location in the warm, moist air mass of the Gulf Coast region. My grandmother lived in a tiny house with a metal roof, and during those almost daily storms, the rattling boom of the thunder would shake pictures from the walls while the blue-white lightning lit up the night. My grandmother would try to calm me by saying it was the angels bowling in heaven, but I never really bought into that. I’m still not a fan of lightning storms and the havoc they can wreak.  

Which is probably why during an Internet scroll I latched on to a story about people getting struck by lightning and suddenly claiming to have premonition. This outcome is hotly debated by experts, but as a writer of fiction, it didn’t matter if it was true or not. What mattered to me was that if people had claimed it enough times that it could be true.  

Being a writer, my imagination began to spin. What if a child was born without any supernatural power but acquired it after a catastrophic event? And what if the child was old enough to know that her new gift made her stand out as being different? And maybe for a while standing out was a good thing because it made her the center of attention when before she had hidden in the shadows created by the brightness of a beautiful older sister. But what would happen when the gift shows her something dark and foreboding in a relentless dream that follows her night after night until she flees across the country to escape it? 

And that is how the story of Phoebe Manigault begins. Set against the luscious backdrop of the South Carolina low country where storms seem so much closer to the ground because of the flat and watery landscape, I pictured the terrifying opening storm scene for Phoebe at age nine where she is crabbing off the deck behind her house and is struck by lightning. She is left with a jagged scar on her back and the ability to see the future in her dreams. 

Her premonitions are always about people she recognizes and occur before the event itself. But there’s one lingering dream where she doesn’t recognize any of the participants, and she doesn’t know if it’s something that has already happened or something that will happen. It’s a dark and disturbing chain of events and it haunts her almost nightly into early adulthood. It is one of the reasons why she fleas to the West Coast, where she finds the dream and her gift become dormant. It also puts needed space between Phoebe and her sister and mother. She thrives in her new Oregon home until she is summoned home again by her sister saying their mother is ill and she needs Phoebe to come home.  

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Reluctantly, Phoebe returns to South Carolina, and the dream returns with her. Except now every time she has the dream, a little more information is revealed, each bit opening up a Pandora’s box into her family’s past until it is thrown wide open, revealing a dark secret that was meant to stay buried. 

As a child I used to wish I could see into the future. What kind of a career would I have? Would I get married? How many children would I have? Would I be happy? As I grew older, I began to see that knowing the future might not be the gift I’d once imagined. Because a positive outcome isn’t guaranteed, nor can mere knowledge alter the future. While creating Phoebe’s character, I tried to envision what it would be like for her to be able to see an approaching disaster, but be powerless to stop it or give warning. 

Do I still want to see the future? I don’t know the answer. It’s one of the reasons why I wrote the book—to explore the possibilities. Through Phoebe, I wanted to imagine what it would be like to be gifted the knowledge of foresight, and if it would be considered a gift or a curse. Or maybe a little bit of both. And what I might do with the knowledge. 

That Last Carolina Summer is primarily a story about the bond between sisters, mothers and daughters that begins with a single strike of lightning that informs and illuminates the characters’ life choices and shines a spotlight on the difficult path toward forgiveness.

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But like any descent into the underworld, I returned changed, and I brought back Salt Bones.

(Are We Over the Hero’s Journey?)

As a Mexican-American and Indigenous poet and novelist from the Southern California desert, I’ve never written in straight lines. Mesoamerican mythology taught me that time doesn’t move forward; it spirals. Our stories don’t progress in neat arcs but circle what we cannot or should not let go.

Although I plot like nobody’s business and for this novel filled five journals cover to cover with my purple pen scrawlings, this story came not from a plot outline but from a wound. It is structured in myth, genred by voice.

I’m often asked how I braid genre, as a poet novelist who writes in the borderlands of mystery, psychological thriller, lyric and literary family saga, and monstrous magical realism. Here’s my truth: I don’t braid genre. I braid a rope and climb it down into the underbelly where everything alchemically mixes in the sopa pot. 

When I was a girl we used to go to the New River in the basin a few blocks from my house where people would fish but my mama told me never to swim or even dip my toes and never eat the poison fish.

Years later, after I’d moved away when a toxic relationship nearly killed me and which I wrote about in my first novel Jubilee, I returned for a cookout at my comadre’s house. Over carne asada, she told me that the Salton Sea beside our town was drying up, releasing arsenic, lead, and DDT from the pesticides that crop dusters had sprayed over farmworkers in the fields—our neighbors, familia, and comunidad. This toxic dust had aerosolized and was fishhooking into our lungs. Lawmakers up in Sacramento or DC had said things like, No one lives down there anyway. My comadre said if nothing was done, our home would become a ghost town.

I knew I had to break my writing open and excavate my memory where deep myth resides. 

I recalled how Juan Rulfo’s Pedro Páramo revisits the town of his father, ghosted and otherworldly, how he speaks to the long dead. While sitting on a beach in San Diego with my husband and beloved dog Bebe, who has since passed, I was revising a story I’d rescued from the compost heap, called “Salt Bones,” about siblings growing up on a toxic lake.

My protagonist, Malamar, or bad sea, her mother named her, like bad seed, is the final girl grown up. She’s the badass butcher mama who descends back into her own girlhood to save her daughters. I’d lent Mal some of my mother’s childhood, some of my own, and I was at a crossroads. Should I write a literary family saga, an ecological swansong for the land that had raised me? Or a murder mystery, for which I’d had just a small taste of commercial success and platform growth with my third novel, River Woman, River Demon?

My soapbox was made of driftwood and seaweed. It was crackly and adrift. But if I wrapped my ecological desert monstrous mama heart in a murder mystery like a burrito, maybe people would listen since who doesn’t love a good whodunit?

I had the bones of a mystery ready. But how to braid them?

Later, we entered the ocean, not noticing the warning signs that the water was infested with sewage. I got so sick—as sick as when I caught Covid toward the end of our time in San Diego. When I recovered, I began the new draft in earnest, developing the voices that became the final iteration of this novel that had taken a decade to live and write. Not memoir but something on the edges, in the borderlands. Not fiction either, although it is fictionalized. I’d curled up with the duende for this story. We’d wrestled, yes, but then we’d found a tentative relief, together, a truce, in the underbelly.

The duende is the force deep inside us that must be dredged up from the dark, murky recesses. The psychic and emotional toll for uprooting the duende can sometimes be devastating, and it’s in that shattering that some of our most powerful writing can emerge. Does all writing need to take us to the brink of the wreck, and sometimes even shove us over the edge into the abyss? No, absolutely not. But I called upon the duende and asked it to do my bidding. And it asked me only this: Let go of nothing. Hold everything tight. Bring it all back with you.

Readers, editors, and critics may ask you to let go of this or that like flotsam and jetsam, warning that you could sink. That you’ve taken on too much dead weight.

But you must trust the story. Trust your own voice.

Click to continue.

Early 20th century Spanish poet Federico García Lorca envisioned the duende from the Spanish word meaning little goblin who guards “the mystery, the roots that cling to the mire that we all know” and “all ignore.” It’s a dark energy residing deep within the writer, the spirit of creation who “won’t appear if he can’t see the possibility of death and haunt death’s house,” says Lorca. And that’s precisely where my braided rope took me.

Like Pedro Páramo in his descent through the underworld, I dug deep into my experiences and those of my beloveds, and through listening, stillness, and connection with my Ancestors, I tapped into the collective unconscious, the dreamworld, the mythmaking fabric, the great Storyteller in the Sky, and dredged out my heartwork.

“The story of a daughter lost in hell. / And found and rescued there,” so goes Eavan Boland’s recounting of Persephone and Demeter in her poem “Pomegranate,” which prefaces my novel.

A daughter disappears. A mother grieves. The seasons turn. A world is reshaped by maternal love and loss. I hadn’t abandoned poetry when I’d turned to fiction—I’d carried it with me. The semiotic chora, as linguist Julia Kristeva calls it, that prelinguistic womb-space of rhythm and scream and music. Syntax as heartbeat. As first cry. And last. The poem is the story.

The underbelly shows me how to steep a work in magical realism, psychological suspense, and horror through my motherhood poetics. The arc is Persephone’s and Demeter’s—not only descent, darkness, transformation, return, but doing it all again and again as motherwork, as reclamation, as cyclical as life itself, and death in El Valle, the apodo or nickname for my hometown near the Salton Sea, where the land is poisoned, where Malamar’s grief carves through her body like her knives through bone. She is a butcher, a mother, a daughter, a sister who descends into her own memory and trauma and that of her daughters, that of her whole community, to dig out the sick root. To battle the monsters. To make peace with them. To learn from them.

Carl Jung says myth connects us, tapping us into the collective unconscious where we become part of the unseen world. I’m using it to bring the unseen world I grew up in to the consciousness of those who have unknowingly benefited from it. Our labor. Our culture.

The journey in Salt Bones isn’t the classic hero’s or heroine’s quest, not a linear or individual reclaiming of self or breaking free of expectation. What I’ve written is the mother’s journey: recursive and embodied through lineage, it’s the story of a mother digging not only for her daughter but for the girl she once was and bringing all of her familia back with her. That slipping between selves of mother and daughter and self is its own mythic territory. As D’Arcy Randall writes in an anthology of Adrienne Rich’s feminist work on motherhood, “For maternal poets the [Persephone]/Demeter myth is like a passport freeing them from the stasis of ‘motherhood’; they gain access to a dual identity as mother and as daughter.”

And as a Chicana and Indigenous woman, I would add the layers of familia y comunidad y cultura to this passport.

Salt Bones leans into the liminal motherdaughterness of the land and its people, deeply interconnected. The Chicana motherdaughter returns to her childhood in recursive, transgressive cycles, holding tight to everything she’s created and everything that’s created her, stubborn, relentless, and badass.

She knows that myths are archaeological digs into what’s shaped us, offering insight into what’s been buried, layered into the strata of history, culture, silence, and survival. And they can be found in the underbelly, the vulnerable margins, roiling and dark, where stories ferment. Like the Salton Sea, saltier than the ocean, rank with the smell of rot, which became my underworld. A place that warned us not to swim. And yet, we not only swam and survived, we transformed.

Check out Jennifer Givhan’s Salt Bones here:

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(The Fallacy of “Show Don’t Tell” in Writing.)

While I agree, I also believe that if we stop there, we might be overlooking other rich, profound material. When we write something with which we are intimately involved, a subject nearly second nature to us, we might ask ourselves if there is something else, something insightful, we’ve overlooked—something we don’t know we’re missing.

In other words, write what you know in a way you would write about something you don’t.

Frequently because we’re so ensconced in our topic, we trust our reader is on the same page, so to speak. We assume our understanding and viewpoint of the subject are automatically shared and understood by our reader. But that reader doesn’t come equipped with the same baggage, experience, or background we do.

The point is not to pander to the unaware reader, but to meet them the level at which we can authentically tell our truth in a way the reader will comprehend, with both reader and writer sharing the written vision. Now, the reader doesn’t need to agree with your interpretation, just understand it.

When we write about what we don’t know, we start from scratch. We research, observe, assess, compare, deduce, and study until we’re comfortable with our ability to convey our story, characters, and thoughts clearly, coherently, comprehensively, and creatively. We notice details not recognized by the casual observer. We can write more deeply and intensely because we’ve gathered additional, insightful material that makes a qualitative difference in our dramatization and dialogue.

Searching for what we don’t realize we don’t know can lead to unexpected discoveries. A rather shocking example took place during the trial of E. Jean Carroll, who was sexually assaulted by Donald Trump (convicted); he then went on to defame her (also convicted).

In her book, Not My Type, Carroll shares what her topnotch lawyer confidently knew to be tight, tough, and winning arguments—based on how Carroll and her sharp legal team experienced the world. They presented their terrific arguments at mock trial exercises, in which ordinary folks are asked to be unofficial jurors to decide how they would vote if this were an actual trial.

Carroll and her legal team were stunned. Their presentation failed. They learned they lost the mock cases because they based their arguments on treating women, as a class, fairly. Doesn’t everyone want equality for both sexes? Fair play? Justice?

No. The Carroll crew got an unanticipated dose of reality. Outside their dome of enlightenment, gender equality in our society-at-large was not a shared interest of the mock jurors.

Because Carroll’s crew did a deep dive on what jurors would *not* care about, they found what the jurors from all backgrounds *would* be open to hear without bias: the personal story of suffering and pain an individual woman was forced to endure. Based on evidence, of course.

Forget the idea that social justice should be their legal argument. Stick with verified facts of the tormented abuse Carroll had to bear.

So, Carroll’s personal truth became the focus of her case, and it went on to be a winner with jury after jury. I highly recommend Carroll’s just released book—especially the audiobook version, which she narrates, liberally displaying her sense of humor.

Here’s another example of how making an assumption about your audience might lead to errors: A TV sportscaster interviewed the new star of a winning baseball team. “A grand slam victory! What a way to end your first game!”

The athlete looked at him quizzically.

The sportscaster wondered what he said that wasn’t clear.

The player’s translator stepped in with, “Jonrón con bases llenas.” Of course. The player just arrived in the US from the Dominican Republic. The player smiled, laughed, and responded… in Spanish.

Writing what you know from your heart, your soul, your gut, is what readers cherish. The key is to find ways to go much deeper with your material. Readers always want to know and learn how other humans deal with this journey called life, even if it’s only to discover how they survive.

One way to access a deeper understanding of writing what we know by discovering what we don’t know is to use my imaginary light exercise.

Imagine walking into a pitch-dark room, let’s say a kitchen. Your kitchen. Now flip the light switch ON. BAM! The room is brightly lit, illuminating everything, everywhere, all at once. Details can’t be distinguished because our senses have been overwhelmed. Living in developed nations, we’re not aware of being overcome because everyone has electricity. It might be normal for us, but our senses are still overloaded with an information attack, instantly. We recognize where we are, what our story is, but details are missing because we can’t yet access them.

Now re-enter that same dark room. Only this time, light a match. Notice the difference in perception. Your vision is limited with the low luminosity, but you can slowly distinguish details. Um, you may want to light a candle with that match, so you don’t burn your fingers. Incrementally, you will recognize details, taking them in linearly. Particulars you missed with the onslaught of the light bomb will now draw you more deeply into your relationship with the environment and the emotions that pop up.

Notice the shadows, the nuances—that you can only see now.

Click to continue.

Your movements are slower so you can take in every element, recalling memories created in that room. Marks on the wall where the kids’ growth was measured. What fun that was. The egg timer your mother gave you that you thought you lost.

Police find evidence by turning lights out and using their flashlights to carefully cover each inch of a room, also using UV-A (“black”) light to find any trace of bodily fluids. I do this when I’m looking for something I’ve misplaced. As I’m not interested in finding bodily fluids, I do not use a UV-A light. I turn the lights off, the flashlight on. It works!

I meditate with a candlelight image in mind, envisioning what my imagination is illuminating. My mantra: “Show me what I am missing. Show me what I need to know.”

By drawing your readers more deeply into the details, heart, and characters of your story, they will enjoy being immersed. Conversely, you will understand when you need to flip the powerful light switch to impact a scene for a dramatic turn, distraction or red herring.

Can you see how this differs from a system of simply listing external “characteristics” like age, hair color, school majors, religion, economic class, and other exterior factors that may not reflect the true nature, demeanor, depth, reality, or attitudes of your characters?

Even if you’ve worked with them awhile, ask yourself, “What if I just met my character—and didn’t know anything about him/her/them? Could their upfront story be a cover for a deeper experience or journey? Did they lie? Could my impressions be wrong or misleading?”

Be thoughtful about what you do and don’t know, realizing you may not immediately identify what you don’t know.

Coming from a broadcast and newspaper journalism background, I’d always been rushed to complete stories and columns on tight deadlines. That doesn’t work for quality fiction, nonfiction, or screenwriting. Today, I take my time, go further. I take that extra step.

So, light your imaginary match. Slow down. Let the details and shadows imbue your senses. Trust yourself to know when it’s time to check your assumptions, to take a deeper look so you can tell your truth, your story, in the very best way possible—your way.

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I let ideas percolate in my imagination for weeks, sometimes months, before I start writing. And even then, I find that the physical effort of drafting—the art of weaving previously unrelated words into a cohesive narrative—is the hardest part of the process.  

Conversely, revising and editing—which are labors of art as well—are delights.  

Why?  

Because revising and editing provide opportunities to layer additional details into the work that make it richer, more enticing, and, even for genres like science fiction and fantasy, more realistic. 

Revising and editing are also the steps in the writing process where I add a real secret or two to my narrative. It’s like adding a pinch of magic that helps characters and their situations come alive. 

But what do I mean by a real secret? Well, let’s start with what it’s not. Since I write fiction rather than memoir, I don’t add anecdotes from my actual life. I don’t slip in closely-held family secrets. And I don’t reveal moments from someone else’s life that I observed or were told to me in confidence. 

What I do, and keep in mind this process can be different for everyone, is re-examine an experience that aligns emotionally with a character’s situation and reveal exactly what I felt during that moment. Giving unfiltered emotions to a character is an act of truthfulness and vulnerability. 

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Here’s an example: My latest middle-grade novel, The AI Incident, is about a battle of wits between 12-year-old Malcolm Montgomery, the unluckiest kid in Colorado foster care, and FRANCIS, an autonomous AI program designed to improve standardized test scores. The battle heats up when FRANCIS promises to help Malcolm find his forever home if Malcolm will look the other way while FRANCIS takes over the school. 

That’s the plot. But the emotional core of the story is equally important, and that is about loneliness. Malcolm and all of the supporting characters experienced that feeling to one degree or another…as do we all. 

The secrets I tapped during the revision and editing process involved times when, for one reason or another, I felt deeply and profoundly alone. What I realized was that not feeling connected to other people changed the way I thought, walked, talked, and even the way I breathed. 

During the first revision, I explored those situations in my novel journal. Then I wrote a short synopsis of one situation, listed the resulting emotions and added both to my manuscript-in-process. I’d scribble in the margins, scrawl on Post-It notes, or flag them in some other way. 

During each subsequent revision, I trimmed away my personal experience (remember, I don’t write memoir) and finessed the manner in which those emotions were expressed until they felt real for the characters. 

Here are three reasons why I suggest exploring real secrets and adding their emotional residue to your fiction. 

Journaling about a real situation allows you to explore how that experience affected you physically, mentally, and emotionally.  

This is particularly profound if the experience is one you haven’t shared extensively with others.  

Exercise: Journal about a time you were deeply embarrassed by something that you did. How did you feel in that moment? Were you acutely aware of other people watching you? Did your vision sharpen? How about your hearing? Did your skin prickle? Did your shoulders slump? Now, look for a situation in your manuscript where your character is embarrassed. Which of your emotions or physical behaviors can you add? 

Infusing aspects of a real situation into your fiction helps sharpen dialogue.  

Creating dialogue that sounds realistic can be a challenge. Emotionally-charged situations often lead people to speak differently.  

Exercise: Journal about an emotionally-charged situation and re-create the dialogue to the best of your ability. Study things such as sentence length, punctuation that mirrors how people actually spoke, and when/if words overlapped. Now, take a look at a passage in your manuscript in progress that has emotionally charged dialogue. Compare the dialogue in your journal to the dialogue in your manuscript. What can you improve? 

Surprisingly, this process can give you some separation between your characters and yourself.  

Have you ever worked on developing a protagonist who seems very much like you? If so, has that protagonist been overly sympathetic, unusually witty, or profoundly kind? Delving into a real situation where you weren’t necessarily at your best and giving those reactions and emotions to a protagonist can help you view your character in a different light.  

Exercise: Deliberately select a situation where you could have acted better. Now, enhance the actions and dialogue of supporting characters who provide that perspective to your protagonist. 

Ultimately, you decide if, how and how much of a secret to add to your fiction. And rest assured, you can always shred the pages of your writer’s journal that you use to explore your secrets! 

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When we think about writing a story, especially in genres like mystery and thriller, our instinct is to begin with the protagonist. We picture their strengths, flaws, and motivations, carefully crafting the character we’ll spend months, or even years, developing. Louise Penny no doubt delved deep into the character of Chief Inspector Armand Gamache—not only his moral integrity but also his love of literature and poetry—before embarking on her beloved series. Lee Child no doubt had a clear sense of Jack Reacher—his defense of the underdog as well as his obsession with coffee—before embarking on that series. 

Knowing our protagonists inside and out is crucial, not only for crafting their journey but also for engaging readers. We need to give our protagonists agency, not allowing them merely to be buffeted by the events of the story or by the other characters. We need to ensure that, in the end, the protagonist is the master of their own fate.  

But what if we flipped that perspective? What if, instead of starting with our hero, we began with the villain? In an issue focused on confounding expectations, it’s worth exploring how shifting the narrative lens can lead to more engaging and dynamic storytelling. 

THE CASE FOR STARTING WITH THE VILLAIN 

Focusing exclusively on the protagonist can lead to plot challenges, especially in mysteries and thrillers. In these genres, the protagonist’s actions are often a reaction to the antagonist’s schemes. Gamache won’t investigate a crime that hasn’t been committed; Reacher won’t intervene unless he stumbles upon someone being mistreated by a bad player. 

To construct a seamless and believable plot, we must acknowledge that, in many cases, the protagonist is the victim of circumstances created by the villain. Starting the construction of your story from the villain’s perspective ensures that the events the protagonist faces are logical and coherent, avoiding the need to retrofit the antagonist’s actions to match the protagonist’s responses. 

For instance, starting a mystery solely from the sleuth’s perspective can lead to narrative pitfalls. In my Ann Kinnear Suspense Novel The Falcon and the Owl, if I had plotted Ann’s actions without first understanding the murderer’s motives and methods, the story would have felt contrived. I might have wanted Ann to explore a hangar at a small general aviation airport where she stumbles upon evidence that implicates airshow pilot Gwen Burridge. But without knowing what crime occurred in the hangar or how it tied into Gwen’s actions, I would have struggled to devise credible evidence for Ann to find. Instead of guiding the narrative naturally, I’d be forcing elements into place, which could lead to implausible scenarios that break the reader’s suspension of disbelief.  

Instead, I mapped out the villain’s actions first: 

Bryan is working in a hangar when the airport’s owner, Hal arrives, drunk and angry. Hal accuses Bryan of having an affair with Hal’s wife, Gwen, and attacks Bryan. In the ensuing scuffle, Bryan hits Hal in the head with a tool from his workbench, and Hal falls to the ground, unresponsive. Gwen arrives, and she and Bryan perform CPR, but to no avail. They decide that Bryan will fly Hal’s body to a remote area of the Pennsylvania Wilds and bury it. They load Hal’s body into Bryan’s plane. 

(This isn’t too much of a spoiler because this scene occurs “on-screen” in the first dozen pages.) 

With this scenario established, I don’t have to guess what Ann encounters in the hangar or what directs her suspicions toward Gwen. Because I know that the blow to Hal’s head didn’t break the skin, Ann isn’t going to find blood on the floor. Because I know that the tool used in the attack is part of a set and that Bryan and Gwen decide that removing it from the hangar might raise suspicions, I know that the murder weapon will still be in the hangar. Because a beer bottle was knocked over during the altercation and that Bryan swept up the glass as he and Gwen covered their tracks, it’s unlikely Ann will see broken glass on the floor but possible that she might see a stray shard under the workbench. 

By understanding the villain’s actions first, I can ensure that each clue Ann uncovers feels logical and cohesive, grounding the mystery in a believable progression. 

Especially in mysteries, starting with the villain’s actions allows you to weave in clues and red herrings more effectively, as you have a clear understanding of what the villain did and didn’t do, knows or doesn’t know, at each stage of the story.  

By first understanding the actions your villain takes, the protagonist’s actions and discoveries flow naturally from that groundwork, ensuring that they respond in ways that feel organic and authentic. The villain becomes the engine driving the plot forward, and the protagonist’s actions become meaningful responses to the villain’s moves, creating a dynamic interplay that keeps readers engaged. 

Starting with the villain’s perspective allows you to plot a tight, cohesive story, but it also forces you to think deeply about your antagonist as a character, ensuring that they are as engaging as your protagonist. 

CRAFTING AN EMPATHETIC VILLAIN 

One of my favorite villains in my own work is Louise Mortensen, a doctor whose experiments on Lizzy Ballard’s mother, disguised as fertility treatments, led to Lizzy’s extraordinary abilities. Initially, Louise was merely a plot device to explain Lizzy’s powers, but as I spent more time developing her character, she grew into a fully realized and complex figure. 

Louise is a villain because she believes that the ends justify the means, but her goals make her more empathetic. She’s not seeking personal fame or fortune; she’s driven by a desire to advance science. While she does employ henchmen for unsavory tasks, she’s not above doing the dirty work herself, especially when necessary for her goals. However, she never inflicts harm unless she believes it’s unavoidable, as illustrated in this exchange with one of Lizzy’s allies whom she’s holding hostage: 

As Louise tightened the bindings, he asked, “Why did you do this? Bringing me the tape to splint my fingers. Letting me use the bathroom.” 

“Because,” Louise said, “not doing so served no purpose.” 

CREATING A WORTHY ADVERSARY 

A great villain must be a worthy adversary for your protagonist. If they are weak or shallow, the hero’s victory will feel inevitable and unearned. If the villain lacks depth, you may have to weaken the hero to maintain balance, which can dull the narrative. 

Instead, ensure your villain has clear motivations, a backstory, and a moral code, preventing them from becoming mere caricatures. This will enrich your story and make your villain a formidable obstacle for your protagonist. 

In fact, Louise became so compelling to me that she earned her own book, Kill Box Checkmate. But even if a villain doesn’t become the focus of a standalone work, treating them as “the hero of their own story” will make them more fascinating and intensify the conflict for your protagonist. 

PROVIDING A FOIL FOR THE HERO 

Starting with the villain’s perspective not only strengthens the plot but also allows for a deeper exploration of your protagonist’s character and motivations. The protagonist is not merely solving puzzles or reacting to events but is engaged in a complex dance with the antagonist, where each move and countermove ratchets up the tension.  

For instance, even if Ann didn’t suspect Gwen Burridge of involvement in Hal’s death, their fundamental differences would still place them at odds. Both women, as leaders in their respective fields, have contrasting views on professionalism: 

“I don’t know why you’re unhappy about someone setting up a YouTube channel about you,” said Gwen. “It shows that your fans appreciate you. You’re a public figure, you owe the public a good show.” 

“I’m a professional, not a performer,” said Ann. “I have clients, not an audience.” 

“We’re all performers for an audience, some of us are just more comfortable with it than others.” 

Gwen’s profession and her philosophy about public visibility underscore the tension between her and Ann. Had Gwen been a corporate CEO or a reclusive artist, the nature of their conflict would have shifted dramatically. Their professional values and how they see their roles in the world serve as a central source of their friction, driving the emotional stakes of the story. 

THE BALANCE OF CONTROL 

As we’ve discussed, the villain’s actions often catalyze the story, but the protagonist must ultimately be the agent of resolution. For example, in Lee Child’s Jack Reacher novels, Reacher typically stumbles into situations created by the villain. He doesn’t actively seek out wrongs to right; instead, he reacts to injustices that come his way. However, it’s his sense of justice and morality that dictates his responses, and his decisions and actions are what drive the narrative to its conclusion. 

Similarly, while Louise Mortensen’s actions are continually upending Lizzy Ballard’s desire for a normal life, it’s Lizzy’s decisions about how to deal with Louise’s interference that shape the course of the story. In fact, as Lizzy matures over the series (starting quite young in the first book), the dynamic shifts—Louise increasingly finds herself reacting to Lizzy’s growing agency and strength. This evolution highlights Lizzy’s transformation from reactive to proactive, a key indicator of her character growth and the story’s progression.  

APPLYING THIS APPROACH TO OTHER GENRES 

While this method is particularly effective in mysteries and thrillers, it can be adapted to other genres as well. In any story where the protagonist faces external obstacles, understanding the source of those obstacles can help you create a more coherent narrative. 

In fantasy, for example, the villain might be a dark sorcerer whose quest for power threatens the protagonist’s world. Understanding the sorcerer’s goals and the steps they take to achieve them will help you create a plot that feels epic and inevitable. 

In horror, a well-developed villain transcends typical scare tactics, adding depth and psychological tension to the story. Consider how Psycho would lose its impact without the unnerving complexity of Norman Bates, or how Misery gains its terrifying edge through Annie Wilkes’ fully realized personality, making her unpredictability all the more frightening. These richly crafted villains amplify the stakes, as their personal motives make the danger to the protagonist feel more immediate and unsettling. 

In some genres, the antagonist might not even be a character in the traditional sense. In romance, for instance, the “villain” could take the form of societal pressures that keep the lovers apart. By exploring these obstacles in depth—understanding how external factors or internal flaws affect the protagonists—you can craft a love story that feels authentic and emotionally resonant. This approach allows the “villain” to be just as impactful, even if it is not a person but a circumstance or barrier. 

CONFOUNDING EXPECTATIONS: CRAFTING STORIES THAT CAPTIVATE 

Shifting focus from the protagonist to the villain in the early stages of constructing your story can revolutionize your plotting and character development processes. It prevents awkward narrative adjustments, enriches your antagonist’s character, and ensures that your story remains tight and compelling from start to finish. By balancing the perspectives of both the protagonist and the antagonist, you create a narrative where each character’s actions feel authentic and impactful, driving the story forward in a way that keeps readers hooked until the very last page. 

So, as you sit down to plot your next novel, consider confounding your own expectations. Don’t ask yourself what your protagonist will do—ask what your villain has already done, and what they will do next. Embrace the unexpected, and your readers will, too. 

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(5 Things Writers Should Know About Tween and Teen Mental Health.)

And yet. Social media has arguably become the central if not the defining feature of modern life. For good or ill, how can a novelist engage with the present moment without incorporating it into our stories?

From a craft perspective, this is not exactly a new problem. Communications technologies evolve and work their way into the literature. The epistolary novel has been with us since the 1600s, letters being that age’s core communications technology. E.M. Forster famously opens Howards End with an exchange of letters, which receives a witty update into email form in Zadie Smith’s novel On Beauty. John Dos Passos’s modernist masterpiece, his USA trilogy, inserts newspaper headlines and article fragments to help thematically frame the historical moment. Today, booksellers are awash in novels that incorporate texting, email, and yes, social media.

Having just completed a “social media novel” (for lack of a better label), I’m thinking a great deal about how novelists can usefully incorporate these platforms into our storytelling. There are, I think, two key pitfalls for writers to avoid.

The first is relying on social media as some kind of short cut or easy signifier of the times we live in. I talk about this to my UCLA students all the time in the context of pop culture references—the importance of remembering that (a) they are not universally shared and (b) tend to age out within hours. So, leaning on a pop culture reference to do your explaining for you—saying that your protagonist is a macarena kind of guy—may leave a large block of your readers in the dark and will likely not stand the test of time. It’s shorthand, and shorthand is lazy, and it shortchanges your readers.

The bigger pitfall—and I acknowledge that my novel @UGMAN may appear to run afoul of this one—is that these platforms should serve, at best, as supporting architecture. Which is to say the platform is not the story, is not the thing itself.  It’s just another device to support your characters and their stories. We are always reckoning with the impact of technology on our narratives; there is no Romeo and Juliet with cell phones and texting. (“Yo! Dead thing is a fake out, be chill.”) The trap for writers is this kind of stuff can be fun to write, and I see them leaning on it because it’s fun and easy and fills pages, not because it deepens our understanding of character.

Click to continue.

@UGMAN has been described as a social media novel and a Twitter novel, and there is certainly truth in that. But it is also worth noting that there are only 12 actual tweets in the entire novel.  And that tweets that do appear either function to clearly move the story along or to add character emphasis to something already in the text, in character.  

So those are the pitfalls. What social media also gives writers is a kind of velocity; and a different way of thinking about sentences. We all know that social media voice—a bit arch, knowing, edgy. Or super earnest. There are so many fascinating new language conventions that are a result of social media (amirite?) and the novelist with an ear for the rhythms of voice and prose can have a field day playing with these strange new melodies. There’s much written about how social media corrupts our attention span, how it weakens our capacity for critical thinking (first thought is not best thought), and all this has some truth. But there’s also a wonderful challenge for the writer to capture this new flow of our time in a form that can suggest the fractured, rushed, but inarguably vital and vivid energy of the interwebs.

We are living through the first phases of so-called internet novels, of which @UGMAN is my modest entry. And although it’s easy to dismiss these books, they are hooking into something urgent and relevant, and I’m personally excited to see how the form develops as new writers bring their own particular and individual responses to this brave new world.

Mic drop.

Check out Mark Sarvas’ @UGMAN here:

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(How Writers Can Apply Business Tools to Their Writing.)

I discovered long ago that I’m not a novelist. I love short stories too much, with their compression and emphasis on sentence-level artistry. I’d be the last one to say a writer should work their way up to longer lengths, as I firmly believe there is no one-size-fits-all with stories. But it doesn’t hurt to keep your options open.

After all, I wrote a novella by accident. One might say I hacked my way to that longer length (“hacked” in the sense of improvising a solution, not of commoditized writing). Here’s what I learned along the way.

Let Smaller Layers Add Up

To reach a length outside of your comfort zone, you can tackle vaster, more drawn out plots, sure. Or you can rely on accretion, stacking up smaller parts to equate to a bigger whole. I once heard a writer describe a story as bloating like a marshmallow in a microwave. Perhaps some of us prefer to create s’mores, smushing sweet layers together into manageable, delectable bites.

My novella, Thrice Petrified, started off as a novelette (“A Petrified Heart”). Like all my other stories, it was a standalone piece, one and done. Or so I thought. I had put together what I considered a satisfying ending, yet the characters and world lingered in my mind. I hadn’t solved everything for them. Honestly, I felt a bit guilty about that. I realized they needed to conduct a root cause analysis of the string of curses affecting their homelands.

Truly Listen to Your Characters

You never know who will champion your story, even from within. See if your characters have more to reveal to you, new facets of their growth and new corners of their world to explore. Some authors conduct imaginary interviews with the people springing to life in their head. What questions can you ask of your protagonist, antagonist, or other characters to wring more from their experience?

Sometimes you don’t need to be the one initiating the conversation. I have one character to thank for spurring me to tell the full story that became my novella. Early on, he was supposed to be a walk-on character—enter a scene, deliver a message, and leave. But he stuck around, brought secrets with him, and developed his own emotional arc. After I’d completed that initial novelette, he continued to prod. Talk about a character taking on a life of their own!

Click to continue.

Be Open to Unconventional Story Structures

Let’s examine those s’mores layers a little more. Some writers eschew the typical story beats and formulas, such as by linking tales in a shared setting, or having a side character from one part take center stage in another. Another approach is a fractal pattern, where individual sections share a familiar shape, and all those pieces together form a larger version of that same shape.

Rather than set out to write a novella off the bat, I wound up approaching the project as a trilogy of novelettes. The first part found a home in Wyngraf, a cozy fantasy magazine. The editor, in his introduction to the issue, described my story as the darkest one he’d included. (I’d debated whether even to submit it there—don’t self-reject!) As elated as I was to see that first novelette in print, I knew the sequels would be too dark for that publication. I’d already toed the line.

I would have to get creative to bring the full trilogy to readers. But who would want a trilogy of novelettes, featuring a cast of fairies (without a human in sight), and one-third of it a reprint?

Be Considerate of Reader Expectations

The flip side of experimenting on the page is the risk of alienating readers. If you subvert their expectations too much, or in ways they dislike, you’ll throw them out of the story. Granted, no writer can please every single reader out there. But it pays to set your writing aside, slip into a reader’s perspective as you might don a pair of glasses, and see what comes newly into focus.

In the case of Thrice Petrified, I had a revelation: My three novelettes added up to novella length. I could package them as one longer story told in three parts. That’s what a trilogy is, after all. I sent my newly christened novella to a beta reader, who noted that she enjoyed the triptych structure. Each section has its own arc, building upon what came before it to contribute to a greater whole. It doesn’t conform to a typical plot formula as you might find in many novellas. I guess I like toeing the line.

When I saw a publisher looking for standalone fantasy novellas, I saw my chance. I was upfront in my cover letter, explaining the reprint situation and emphasizing how I would love to bring the full arc to readers. Later, during the developmental editing phase, I expanded the first part and wove new details into the rest, aiming for the scope and scale that readers of longer lengths might expect. It was the final push in my unanticipated, twisting, years-long journey to bring this novella to readers.

I hadn’t set out to write a novella; it happened organically. It comes down to caring deeply about the characters and adopting a generous, daring view of how to deliver an immersive experience to readers. Let your stories embody the form and length they want to be. If you write short lengths by default, like me, but you feel called to tackle higher word counts, larger casts of characters, and more epic scopes, you have options.

Check out Katherine Quevedo’s Thrice Petrified here:

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(The Balancing Act of Fart Jokes and Difficult Topics.)

But because I write middle grade (for ages 10 to 14), I knew that this darkness needed to be offset with light. Especially in children’s books, it’s an author’s job to make sure we’re not leaving kids in the dark without a flashlight. Middle grade needs hope, even in the face of insurmountable odds.

It’s no easy task to remain truthful about these grim and pertinent themes while also giving kids enough optimism to find their courage. There were a few craft techniques I used to maintain that delicate balance.

Use Setting as a Buffer Zone

For context in the book, regular humans who call themselves Incorruptibles have banded together to form a resistance movement to fight the tyrannical sorcerers with nothing more than technology and grit. Adults are the full-fledged Incorruptibles out in the field; kids are Junior Incs, who are being trained at an academy for seven years before they graduate.

I use the setting of Inc Academy to bring peace and cheer into the story. While the world outside feels like a dark, ominous shadow, the Inc Academy campus feels like a warm, welcoming hug. It’s a bubble, a safe space, a shelter. And the campus is described as literally bright, on top of a mountain with sunshine beaming down, filled with multiple gardens of vibrant flowers. Each squad at the academy wears bright cloaks in every color of the rainbow, another physical contrast to the metaphorical darkness.

And at one point, when a character delivers a particularly gruesome account of a violent scar he received from sorcerers, he and the main character are walking through the flowers, taking in the warm breeze, and smelling the fresh blooms. It’s about balancing contrast.

Build Tension and Release Tension

In one scene, the main character Fiora is waiting by the academy gates as an injured squad is being carried to the school’s hospital on stretchers—in perhaps one of the darkest scenes in the book. As they watch the horrible event unfold, there are many pauses and asides between characters that act as moments to release the reader from tension.

With tension, you want to hold your reader in, so that you keep them glued to the page. But eventually, you have to allow the reader to breathe. Imagine tension like holding a reader’s feet under water; you don’t want to pull them down until they drown. You have to let them come up for air. This takes the form of a sidebar conversation, internal narration, or any moment that might elicit a laugh or a sigh. Give the reader a quick breath, and they will dive back down for more voluntarily.

Click to continue.

Use Humor and Voice

Serious moments are broken up by moments of levity. For example, early in the book, Fiora fires a lightning blaster inside her home, aiming for a sorcerer who is bullying her uncle. She accidentally destroys the house. In the aftermath of the explosion, the Incorruptible who had given her the weapon finds her in the rubble and says, “That tech has enough pent-up power to knock down a house!”

In the ruins of her home, Fiora sarcastically replies, “Yes, I can see that.”

Just a few pages later, it isn’t the dialogue that’s snarky—but the narrative itself.

The Incorruptible convinces Fiora and her uncle to flee while the sorcerers are still licking their wounds. The text reads: “Uncle Randal began throwing all sorts of odds and ends into a suitcase; some reasonable (fabrics and needles), some a little less reasonable (a sewing machine), and some outright outlandish (a full-length fitting mirror, which would never fit into his suitcase, not even in her uncle’s wildest dreams). But Fiora had no time to argue the basic principles of spatial awareness. She was busy with her own frantic packing.”

There are many moments in The Incorruptibles where the narrative voice says something sarcastic, or when there is a humorous, quippy line to breathe joy into the story. Humor is human. Even sarcasm, even dark humor, even gallows humor. Any touch of humor in dialogue or voice brings reprieve and buoyancy.

Let Characters Be Positive

Sometimes, when a character is seemingly zigging toward darkness, you find the light by making them zag. When Fiora asks one of her squadmates if he’s seeking revenge, the reader’s expectation is that yes, he would want vengeance for what happened to him. Instead, this character laughs out loud and says that revenge is looking backward, and he can only move forward. He simply seeks strength to protect his family. It’s his optimism—his belief that people are inherently good—that often pulls the protagonist (and by proxy the reader) from the brink of darkness.

And that similar positivity is found in characters who might not be as idealistic—but who believe in an ideal. Fiora’s instructor isn’t inherently optimistic, but she upholds a luminous vision for the dystopian world she lives in: “We’re not looking to turn back the clock, and we’re not looking to idealize the past. It was a time without demon sorcerers, yes, but it had its own problems. Our goal as Incorruptibles is to secure a better, fairer future.”

When characters are the vehicle for hope, it can rub off on the reader—and make them feel it too. Though the journey is tough and overwhelming, having characters that rise to the challenge creates space for lightness.

Have Straight-Up Fun

The Incorruptibles fight sorcerers with cool gadgets and weapons, like lightning blasters, wind swords, force-field shields, acid gloves, and more. There’s nothing that brings more playfulness into a narrative than straight-up fun.

~~

How we find light among the dark in fiction is a good mirror for how we find light among the dark in life too: by finding a good community to surround us (setting), by releasing tension, through humor, by carrying hope, and with fun.

Ultimately, to have fortitude enough to push through darkness, there needs to be something worth fighting for, and the stakes have to be personal. In The Incorruptibles, Fiora eventually realizes that it’s the people in her life that bring her light: “It had been so long since she’d had a loving family, and yet—as she looked around at them, she realized they’d been here all along.”

Check out Lauren Magaziner’s The Incorruptibles here:

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(How to Create Synergy in a Split-Time Novel.)

And, once we accomplish that feat, we need to protect the “voice” we uncover if we hope to grow in our craft and something original to say—and sell. For, as “perfect” a forger Han van Meegeren was, and he is often considered the world’s greatest, he wasn’t Vermeer—and once someone took the time to look past the charisma of his person, they recognized that in his art.

At the most basic level, a writer’s “voice” is the tenor, cadence, and even form of language, in which that writer is most comfortable and through which their stories command the greatest strength. While it seems simple, as it comes from within, discovering one’s “voice” can be elusive—difficult to find and challenging to hone—yet, once found, it’s powerful and it’s as unique as a fingerprint. After all, we each see and feel things like no one else in the entire world.

A few years ago a friend shared with me how, upon graduating from an MFA program, she struggled to sell her work. She eventually took a part-time job writing a humor column for a local newspaper and, for that column, adopted a street-smart, bold, and sassy voice she’d been yearning to explore. The column became a hit and, a couple years later, she sold a book—in that voice—to Random House. Her take-away was that once she stopped trying to emulate other great writers and her professors, she uncovered and honed her own style and Random House picked up on that confidence.

So how do we find that unique voice?

1. We read and study the masters. We don’t copy them, but we do explore them. Find novels with a strong narrative voice. The Book Thief, by Markus Zusak, is one of my all-time favorites. Death has a fascinating voice in that novel. To Kill a Mockingbird, Hamnet, The Frozen River, Where the Crawdad’s Sing, The Catcher in the Rye…  The selection is endless as there are so many fantastic writers and books out there. Get immersed in the worlds they create and ponder how they accomplish it.
2. Write. Don’t think. Don’t edit. Tell yourself you’ll throw away whatever you write so there is no pressure to make it “perfect.” Simply sit down for a few minutes here and there, or every day for a while, and write whatever comes to mind in whatever tone and texture that feels natural. You may be surprised at what you find on the page in terms of both voice and content. Many published novels began just this way.
3. At some point, when you feel comfortable, share your writing. This is a tough one, but I do recommend you find a couple people you trust and ask what they think. This is how the writer I mentioned above found the courage to complete an entire novel in the new sassy voice she found and loved. After reading her columns and other writings, friends asked, “What more do you have?”

Finding your “voice” is not complicated so much as it’s intentional. It takes time and effort, but the work will pay off.  Thoughts and words, emotions and drama, will flow faster and more freely because they come from something creative, organic, and exciting within you. Not only that, but the emotional distance between you and the reader will evaporate as you authentically pull your audience in. And that’s what good writing is all about—drawing the reader close and not letting them go until the final page.

Check out Katherine Reay’s The English Masterpiece here:

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