Writer Room

Questions? I've Got Answers!

June 2022

First off, I wanted to thank all of you for taking the time to read my Writer Room! It means a lot to me that you're interested in hearing what I have to say about writing. I don't consider myself an expert, but I have written for quite a while as a journalist. I'm also a lifelong reader, and if you take away any one piece of advice from me, it's this:

Read. Read widely and often. Read genres you love and ones you don't. Read on Wattpad, but also read books and yeah, the classics. I had to sit through a lot of classics in high school. I hated most of them (I still loathe Great Expectations), but reading them made me realize what kind of writer I wanted to be. Also, there is a lot of value in dissecting books that generations have analyzed. It helps your brain pick up on patterns, which you can then put to good use in your own fiction.

Also take the time to read quality narrative non-fiction — some of the best writing comes in the pages of your newspaper, in magazines, and even from the world of sports. If you can read from publications such as The New York Times, The Atlantic, The Washington Post, do so. Reading about real-life conflict can help you craft more authentic fictional conflicts.

Before I was a fiction writer, I wrote a lot of this kind of long-form, narrative journalism, stories that were between 3,000 and 5,000 words. I'd research and take weeks to write these articles, and  doing this sparked a deep interest in writing books. It would take me years to finally plunge into the world of fiction, but writing nonfiction helped me immensely.

One of my favorite stories that I wrote involved an FBI agent who helped take down the Irish Mafia in Boston — but was later charged with helping that same organized crime group. The beginning of my article starts this way:

John Connolly didn't look dangerous sitting there in Room 7-3 of the Miami-Dade County Courthouse alongside the carjackers, rapists, and robbers.

No, Connolly looked exactly like what he was: a short, stocky 66-year-old guy in handcuffs. His wide face was puffy and red, as if his blood pressure were a touch high. His hue almost matched his attire — a tomato-color jumpsuit.

His mouth and brow were frozen in a perpetual, skeptical scowl. Saggy jowls hung from his jaw. His hair was the only attractive thing about him — thick, gray, and perfectly coiffed.

While waiting for his hearing, Connolly sat motionless, barely blinking. He didn't fidget with his black wire-rim glasses or look at anyone in the audience. The other prisoners were bodies in motion: throwing gang signs to their friends, blowing kisses to their girlfriends, sighing audibly. They were toothless, tattooed, and goateed, all wearing bright orange jumpsuits.

Connolly soaked it in with Zen-like calm. He eyed the judge as she called each case, followed every lawyer's word with a slight turn of his head. Occasionally he glanced at the other inmates, and his scowl deepened. He kept his hands folded neatly in his lap.

He stood when the judge called his name.

His was one of 60 cases on Judge Barbara Areces's docket that day. The room was packed with defense lawyers, prosecutors, criminals, probation officers, mothers, and a couple of reporters. Almost no one in the room paid attention to the proceedings. The din was so loud that Judge Areces — a smiling brunet with brick-red lipstick — finally pursed her lips: "Shhhh."

Soon Manny Casabielle, a tall, thin lawyer for Connolly, piped up. "My client is a former FBI agent," he said.

Reads like a book, right? It was around the time I wrote that article that I realized I wanted to write creatively, and to make up my own tales.