#96 Writing and Elevating a Suspense Novel Featuring Jessica Strawser

Description

Jessica Strawser is editor-at-large at Writer’s Digest and the USA Today bestselling author of suspenseful book club novels, including Almost Missed You; Not That I Could Tell (a Book of the Month pick); A Million Reasons Why; The Next Thing You Know (a People Magazine Pick), and her latest, The Last Caretaker, an instant USA Today bestseller. Her seventh novel, Catch You Later, is forthcoming October 22, 2024. She has written for The New York Times Modern Love, Publishers Weekly and other fine venues, and is a popular writing instructor and freelance editor specializing in helping writers with their submission packages. She lives with her husband and children in Cincinnati, Ohio, where she was named 2019 Writer-in-Residence for the Public Library of Cincinnati & Hamilton County and awarded an Ohio Arts Council Individual Excellence Award for 2024.

In this episode:

How Jessica came up with the concept for her novel based on her life experiences [3:27]
Writing about domestic violence and underground networks in an empowering way [6:47]
Using nature as a setting [10:28]
Her decision making process for writing the POV of one character, when many are available [12:48]
Ending chapters with emotional beats [18:28]
How to keep raising the stakes in a book by bringing out the tension in relationships [22:32]
Dealing with the “muddle in the middle” [21:18]
Secrets of writing using dialogue, action and reflection [24:55]
Thinking of a book in terms of an arc, not an outline [28:24]
Using time as a device to create a sense of urgency and move the story forward [29:26]
Jessica’s role as Editor at Large at Writer’s Digest [29:44]