PRESENT TENSE

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Book report: lessons from judging a lit award
Covers, publishers, and getting down to DNF
 • 
Caitlin Wahrer
6
Reverse outlining lessons from an Edgar winner
PLEASE SEE US author Caitlin Mullen shares one of her essential craft tools for developing and revising suspense fiction
4
Hamptons Whodunit: A new East Coast mystery and crime conference
Guest blogger Shana Wilson brings us a report from the April conference's star-packed premiere, including thoughts on reveals vs. twists, character vs…
3
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Missing Girls, Monsters, and the Emotional Stakes of Genre
2
Notes on the Execution of Good Character
 • Caitlin Wahrer
7
Reverse outlining lessons from an Edgar winner
4
Agatha Christie, Life Lesson #3. “I embarked lightheartedly”: Be Open to Challenges
 • Andromeda Romano-Lax
2
What Your Characters Don’t Know...Could Kill Them
 • Caitlin Wahrer and Jen Waite
7
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Agatha Christie, Life Lesson #3. “I embarked lightheartedly”: Be Open to Challenges
What’s the last thing you did simply because someone dared you to do it? (Not stick your tongue to a frozen pole. We’re talking about interesting…
 • 
Andromeda Romano-Lax
2
Notes on the Execution of Good Character
Wants, needs, and Danya Kukafka
 • 
Caitlin Wahrer
7
Missing Girls, Monsters, and the Emotional Stakes of Genre
Good as Gone author Amy Gentry digs into some common plot tropes to help us understand the real anxieties and questions pulsing below the surface
2
What Your Characters Don’t Know...Could Kill Them
Using Dramatic Irony to Build Tension in a Novel
 • 
Caitlin Wahrer
 and 
Jen Waite
7
Agatha Christie, Lesson #2: "The importance of books, re-reading, solitude and time"
The Victorians hot-housed flowers, but they didn't necessarily hothouse their children. What we can learn from Agatha's low-key, unschooled childhood.
 • 
Andromeda Romano-Lax
4
How to Gone a Girl in 3 Steps
Using the three-act story structure to maximize suspense
 • 
Caitlin Wahrer
7
The One with Some Thoughts on Voice (re: I Have Some Questions for You)
In which we have no questions for Rebecca Makkai but will gladly compile thoughts from interviews she has given elsewhere, in order to discuss a tricky…
 • 
Andromeda Romano-Lax
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PRESENT TENSE
PRESENT TENSE
A Gathering Place for Writers and Readers of Suspense Fiction
Recommendations
View all 12
Before and After the Book Deal
Before and After the Book DealCourtney Maum
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I Can Barely Play This ThingSamantha Garner
Agents and Books
Agents and BooksKate McKean
No Failure, Only Practice
No Failure, Only PracticeMatt Bell
What To Read If
What To Read IfElizabeth
Books by Caitlin Wahrer
The Damage“Pulled me in from the first page... Put this one high on your summer list.”—Stephen King
Books by Andromeda Romano-Lax
The Deepest Lake (2024)A mother investigates the suspicious disappearance of her daughter at a writing retreat in Guatemala
Annie and the WolvesA modern-day historian finds her life intertwined with Annie Oakley's in an electrifying novel that explores female revenge and the allure of changing one's past
Plum RainsCanada Sunburst Award Winner; a tapestry of science fiction and historical fiction, set in Japan and Taiwan, spanning a century of empire, conquest, progress, and destruction
BehaveThe harrowing story of Rosalie Rayner Watson, forgotten psychology pioneer and wife of John Watson, the Father of Behaviorism
The Detour “A gently haunting work of subtle and surprising wisdom" (Booklist) about a Nazi-era art curator tasked with obtaining an Italian statute that represents the Third Reich's warped ideals
The Spanish Bow A NYT Editor's Choice novel translated into 11 languages; Andromeda's debut about a Spanish cellist's coming-of-age in war-torn Europe
© 2023 Andromeda Romano-Lax and Caitlin Wahrer
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