Introduction by KJ Howe: Writing one dynamic book is a real accomplishment. Keeping a series fresh is a monumental task. It takes a creative mind and an endless amount of energy. Learn from iconic author Tess Gerritsen how to keep your series sparkling. Welcome to the Rogues, Tess! Keeping A...
by Lisa Black Young people today must have no idea why children of the 1970s had an irrational fear of quicksand—the colloidal of saturated loose sand by which one would die slowly and inexorably without hope of rescue. Even though it is impossible for a human to actually drown in quicksand, any...
By Tosca Lee The Line Between, my novel about a young woman who escapes a doomsday cult on the American Prairie just as a pandemic is sweeping across the nation (yup, I wrote a pandemic duology that released in 2019), was my tenth published novel. It taught me more lessons than I wanted to learn…...
by Alex Kava Spoiler alert! It’s a good thing. It was nine years ago this summer when I decided to write a new series. The latest installment (#11, Stranded) in my long-running FBI profiler series was scheduled for release in August that year. Pre-orders outpaced previous books. The publisher even...
by Karna Small Bodman Many authors say they get ideas “ripped from the headlines” and then do a “what if” to craft a tale. But what if, instead of following headlines, the author actually predicts them? Have you ever read a novel and later discovered that an event, historical reference, attack —...
I’ve always been a fan of classic movies. “Sorry, Wrong Number,” “Gaslight,” “Rear Window.” Talk about building suspense. The classics definitely knew how to do it. I’m a visual writer, so I need a scene to play out in my mind before I can put it into words. But to build suspense, it’s not just...
I am delighted to introduce an old friend I first met at Thrillerfest many years ago, Mike Lawson. He began his career working for the US Navy as a nuclear engineer. While keeping his “day job” he began writing a terrific series centered in the US Congress. Now he has a new thriller, Redemption,...
What we Rogues talked about, researched, and revealed in March... March may be the start of spring, but it began in a frozen wonderland. Our extraordinary guest author ERICA FERENCIK went rogue, leading us on an adventure beneath the auroras and into the permafrost of Arctic Greenland, where she...
Writing is a perilous business. At its best, the writer journeys through a portal deep into a fictional realm, and lives a multi-verse away from their nearest and dearest, causing all sorts of glitches like burnt dinners, or no dinners at all. At its worst, said fictional world does not appear on the page, causing said writer to turn into a roaring, demonic creature seldom seen outside of a William Peter Blatty novel.
Never talk to a writer on a day when the writing isn’t going well.
