PRESENT TENSE: Suspense, Mystery, Thriller Craft and More
Subscribe
Sign in
Home
Ask Us!
Write for Us
Mentor Files
Year of Agatha
Interviews
Tool Box
Listen
The Reading List
Archive
About
Latest
Top
Discussions
Talking About Taboos, Motherhood, Narrator Sympathy, and Following a Key Question into a New Genre with Donna Freitas, author of HER ONE…
A prolific author of 20 fiction and nonfiction titles debuts as a thriller writer with a zeitgeisty new book
Nov 6
•
Andromeda Romano-Lax
and
Donna Freitas
8
2
October 2025
Expectations, Endings, and Strange Romps
In which I confess displeasing some readers and then talk to another author, Lincoln Michel, on his own genre “take”
Oct 23
•
Andromeda Romano-Lax
and
Lincoln Michel
14
3
3
24,000 Words. A Mountain of Croissants.
Which part makes you salivate more? Liz Alterman lets us ride along on her French writing residency
Oct 9
•
Andromeda Romano-Lax
and
Liz Alterman
18
6
3
September 2025
Finding the Ending: Not a How-To
Guest-poster Deborah L Williams helps us think about bows, piles, circles, and the trickiness of audience expectations
Sep 25
•
Deborah L Williams
9
6
Finding the Ending: Not a How-To
Guest-poster Deborah L Williams helps us think about bows, piles, circles, and the trickiness of audience expectations
Sep 25
•
Deborah L Williams
I'd appreciate two minutes of your time
Please take this two-minute content survey and enter to win a free book
Sep 21
•
Andromeda Romano-Lax
3
2
1
Week 8: Do the Twist. Or Don't! (But I Think You Sort of Want To)
Our 8 Week Summer School Series Concludes
Sep 4
•
Andromeda Romano-Lax
9
August 2025
Week 7: What's It About? (Theme)
Our Eight Week Summer School series continues
Aug 28
•
Andromeda Romano-Lax
11
2
1
Week 6: What a "hard corn kernel" has to do with tension (but not suspense)
Our Eight Week Summer School series continues
Aug 21
•
Andromeda Romano-Lax
12
3
3
Week 5: Containment
Our Eight Week Summer School series continues
Aug 14
•
Andromeda Romano-Lax
13
1
Week 4: Setting
Our Eight Week Summer School Series continues
Aug 8
•
Andromeda Romano-Lax
10
1
Week 3: Voice
Our Eight Week Summer School Series continues
Aug 1
•
Andromeda Romano-Lax
13
2
3
This site requires JavaScript to run correctly. Please
turn on JavaScript
or unblock scripts
