Where You End by Anna Pellicioli, reviewed by Allison Renner 6/9/2015
Are You Seeing Me? by Darren Groth, reviewed by Allison Renner 8/25/2015
Best of 2015 Staff Picks, contributions by Allison Renner 11/28/2015
A Fierce and Subtle Poison by Samantha Mabry, reviewed by Allison Renner 4/27/2016
The Light Fantastic by Sarah Combs, reviewed by Allison Renner 10/18/2016
It Looks Like This by Rafi Mittlefehldt, reviewed by Allison Renner 10/26/2016
I’m re-watching Dead to Me so I can fully appreciate the second season. I remember some things about the show, but not all, and the way it’s crafted, I can really appreciate the suspense and the slow revelations. I wrote about the show before, which I previously binged during a reading slump. I’m kind of in a reading slump again now, due to the current climate, but I’m watching the show and learning a lot about storytelling and writing.
It’s interesting, because I mostly write literary fiction and nonfiction, but I appreciate cliffhangers so much. I used to love Goosebumps books because every chapter had a cliffhanger, even if the resolutions were usually pretty hokey. If I’m not reading YA or memoirs, I like to read adult suspense novels for the cliffhangers (even though, again, the resolutions are often hokey and kind of infuriate me at this point). I’ve never tried to write my own suspenseful fiction; the one overly dramatic piece I wrote was still rooted in literary fiction. It makes me wonder if I should try to write what I seem most drawn to these days. Especially with the way Dead to Me is so artfully done, with characters (even the dead ones) being so multi-faceted. There’s something intriguing about how people can be so real, yet deceitful (which arguably makes them more real). I love how they are revealed little by little, seeming like one person until you learn a fact that casts them in a totally different light…
Camp NaNoWriMo starts on July 1st. I didn’t have a project in mind, but now it seems like I’m finding my way, and I’ll be attempting to write a suspenseful novella. If you’re participating in Camp NaNoWriMo (or any other writing challenge), what are you writing?
Allison Renner Writes 