You know when it happens. The story has been built up in just the right way. You are fully invested with the characters and the plot. You keep reading “just one more chapter”. That’s when you know you’ve found a good mystery book.
Before I started writing my first cozy mystery novel, I had been a longtime fan of all types of mysteries, but I knew I needed to better understand the nuts and bolts of what goes into a mystery plot. What is happening behind the scenes to create that magic?
Here are five essential craft elements that keep a mystery ticking:
🔧 1. Tension and Pacing A good mystery walks the tightrope between suspense and reveal. You want to feel the pressure build—chapter by chapter—as secrets unravel. Tension isn’t just about danger. It’s also emotional: suspicion, urgency, grief, even humor can turn the screws.
🔍 2. A Compelling Question At the heart of every mystery is a question that demands an answer: What happened? Who did it? Why? This central mystery is what pulls the reader through the story. Subplots may swirl around it, but that core question is the lighthouse.
🧠 3. Misdirection and Fair Play Mystery readers love a challenge. They want to guess the killer but be surprised too. The trick is layering in clues that are “fair” (not cheats), while also planting red herrings. It’s a dance between revealing and concealing—just enough to keep readers guessing.
💔 4. Emotional Stakes The best mysteries aren’t just puzzles—they’re stories that matter. Maybe the sleuth is seeking justice for a friend, or the town’s peace is at risk. There’s something personal on the line. Emotion gives the mystery depth and resonance beyond the crime.
🎭 5. Character and Voice In cozy mysteries especially, voice is everything. Readers come back for the sleuth as much as the sleuthing. A quirky, determined, or vulnerable main character gives us someone to root for—and keeps the story grounded even when the plot twists like mountain roads.
What are some of your favorite mystery books? Can you identify these elements within them? Are you reading because you like the puzzle or is it more about the characters?
We’re looking to add members to Old Scratch Press! Here’s the deets: Old Scratch Press (OSP), a poetry and short-form collective sponsored by Current Words Publishing, is seeking two new members to join us starting at the end of 2025. Your book would be slated for publication in 2026–2027, pending a successful trial period.
OSP is a collaborative, grassroots press focused on uplifting fresh, bold voices in poetry, flash fiction, and creative non-fiction. We publish three books per year, along with Instant Noodles Lit Mag (3 issues/year), which is curated and edited by our members. To learn more about our work, we invite you to explore past editions of Instant Noodleshttps://instantnoodleslitmag.com/ and OSP-published books https://oldscratchpress.com/catalog/.
As a member of OSP, you will:
Receive a free publication of your manuscript (poetry, short prose, hybrid, or a mix of writing and art).
Get 10 free copies of your book and keep 100% of your royalties.
Participate in monthly OSP meetings (except December and August).
Proofread and support fellow members’ books and contribute to blog and promo efforts.
Be invited to monthly marketing meetings hosted by Current Words Publishing.
Join a supportive community of working writers committed to mutual aid, creativity, and literary growth.
We’re looking for:
Members who are kind, reliable, and team-oriented.
Writers with a completed or nearly completed manuscript ready for publication in 2026–2027.
People who can commit to at least two years of active participation.
Writers who reflect diversity in identity, perspective, or experience—including (but not limited to) people of color, LGBTQ+ writers, disabled writers, and others underrepresented in publishing.
Applicants who are not full-time creative writing faculty. We aim to support writers who do not already have institutional resources or access.
Writers who have a track record of publication (a few poems, flash pieces, essays, etc.), and a clear desire to communicate something meaningful through their work—someone we can respect as a fellow writer and collaborator.
A note about our trial period:
New members will begin with a six-month trial period before we formally commit to publishing your book. This ensures a good fit and gives everyone time to build rapport, share work, and participate in OSP activities.
To apply:
Please send the following:
A brief cover letter introducing yourself, why you’re interested in joining OSP, and how you’d contribute to the group.
A short author bio (3–5 sentences).
A brief personal essay (500–750 words) about your writing journey. Feel free to include publication history (with links or footnotes) and anything you’d like to share about the manuscript you hope to publish.
A sample of your manuscript-in-progress (up to 10 pages).
Applications will be reviewed collectively by current OSP members. Finalists will be invited for a short conversation via Zoom.
If this sounds like your kind of creative home, we’d love to hear from you!
My grandmother was widowed young, and her sister and brother never married. The three lived together in the same flat in inner-city Dublin. My gran and great-aunt Fran worked at a chocolate factory for a time. They also cleaned offices and, I think, a cinema.
Aunt Fanny, as we knew her, was basically another grandmother to us. In fact, grandmother was very much a two-sided coin: May and Fran, Nanny and Fanny. There was also our Great-Aunt Annie, who barely moved or spoke, and spent the last decade or so of her life sitting in an armchair in the corner. She paid attention though, and if I didn’t get some Jaffa cake biscuits, she’d make sure that travesty was set to rights. That corner of the flat felt irredeemably empty after she died. There may as well have been a hole in the floor.
Aunt Fran, my mother’s aunt, was an unusual-looking woman. I suspect Roald Dahl would have turned her into a character if he’d ever met her. But she was also one of the kindest-hearted people I’ve ever met, and she had a wicked sense of humor.
She also loved kids, and she had a good way with them, too; an instinctive knack at communicating with them. There were quite a few cousins on my mother’s side, and when Aunt Fran wasn’t threatening to “gobble” us all up, she’d sit us on her knee and launch into the famous, fabulous, ridiculous “Johnny on the Railway”. My mother didn’t approve, or feigned disapproval (probably the latter). She’d say this wasn’t the sort of thing you should sing to kids, but we all loved it. She’d bounce us on her knee and chant:
Johnny on the railway
picking up stones.
Along came the engine
and broke all his bones.
‘Oh’, said Johnny,
‘that’s not fair!’
‘Oh’, said the engine,
‘I – DON’T – CARE!’
That simple little rhyme, delivered with her theatrical flair, never ceased to end in cackling laughter.
I have never forgotten it. Funny and, well, cruel.
Unconsciously, I’m sure its message was installed way back then, but I recently started thinking about it, and I was actually struck by its stark meaning. This evil relative of Thomas the Tank Engine is no simple train, and if you look past the obvious questions as to what the hell Johnny was doing (a) picking up stones and (b) on the railway tracks, of all places, there’s actually a frighteningly wise message here. One that our great-aunt, a woman with little or no formal education, but well-schooled in the ways of the world, thought important enough for us to learn early doors.
Life is full of trains like this one.
They run on tracks, so they don’t—wont’, can’t—swerve. They follow their grooves, their natures, and they don’t have fast-acting brakes or the slightest inclination to slow down. They run full-steam ahead, and god help anyone who strays into their path, because they won’t stop.
Johnny is you, me, my Aunt Fran. Just people going about our business, which may be simple, perhaps even pointless—like picking up stones on rail tracks—but it’s what we do, and we have a right to do it. Rights are words, not shields. They don’t stop trains. Rights only work if they’re respected, and the trains of this world respect nothing and no-one. It could be an actual psychopath or sociopath, or a narcissist who dazzles, then destroys, or a power-drunk boss, beat cop, bureaucrat, a CEO who sees only figures on spreadsheets, or even—who knew?—a president. There are trains for every imaginable set of tracks, just as churches run on beliefs, parties on ideologies, empires on big ideas…Trains one and all. And there’s no point arguing with them, no point complaining about how unfair it is when they mow you down.
Stones and bones—there’s a beautiful parallel there. Stones are the bones of the earth. Bones are the pillars and architraves of the body. We—“bags of bones”, another of Aunt Fanny’s favorites—go looking for stones to fill our bags (because we’re still, in essence, Paleolithic), but when we meet that iron behemoth powered by steam, we get destroyed. All broken. Scissors cuts paper, rock breaks scissors, train breaks the rock, and all Johnny’s bones.
One thing I’m sure of today, looking back at all the times my Aunt Fran gave us “the Johnny treatment”, is that she probably knew, deep down, perhaps even somewhat unconsciously, that there was more to that ditty than just a funny and slightly wicked rhyme. She knew, I’m sure, that there was a brutal truth in it, a message which no end of idealism should ever gloss over, and which we’d all do well to learn early on:
Stay away from life’s trains, because they will crush you, given half a chance. And no, they will not care.
Above you see Don Paterson’s take on the titular poem, with a poem where the title is the whole poem.
A titular poem is a poem where the title is part of the poem, a line in it. In my own poetry I have really liked using this device, and often use my titles as the last line of the poem, the conclusion to the whole action of the poem. I have been described by my teachers as a narrative and magical realist poet. In my defense against these allegations I will let you know that I grew up listening to songs like “Jolene,” by Dolly Parton, “Ruby,” by Kenny Rodgers, “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald,” by Gordon Lightfoot, “Dark Lady” by Cher, and the oddest one of all, “Angie Baby,” by Helen Reddy. My formative years were two-to-three decades of songs with strange narratives in them. It isn’t my fault!
I have written many titular poems, some remarkably more successful than others, but I will share with you today one that is probably my personal favorite. This was written when I was in graduate school for my first writing degree. I had moved back in with my family. My house was helmed by two working parents, both too ready to have a drink, both too generous with money and not much else, and both not great at respecting boundaries. But I was able to go to school for my Master’s Degree and teach at the school part time, which pretty much took up 10 hours of each day, but made about one third of what a person needed for rent in those days, so, without my old room, I never could have done it. There were a lot of challenges though, one of which was a mother who was threatened by education, and really tried to impede it even as she envied it. My most repeated story, and least believed, was the one where I went up to my room to work on a paper due the next day that had to be twenty-five pages. My mother burst in to the room, my dad in tow, and began to lay out sheets of wallpaper over my (yes, I’m not kidding) word processor and desk. “We’re wallpapering the bathroom,” my mother announced. “What, now? Tonight? It’s seven,” I said in disbelief. “We have to do it now,” she said. “Right Vince?” My dad looked at me and shrugged. What could I do? I went downstairs, and waited. They finished a little after eleven, and I finished the paper a little after four the next morning. Yes, I should have probably written it sooner, but that aside, who competes with their kid with wallpaper? Sigh. No one I shared my graduation program with ever believed my stories. So, one day I wrote this poem to see if it could explain it to my fellow authors that my stories were true. As you read the poem remember… this is a titular poem, so see if you can understand how the title works as the title, and also as the last line of the poem. Yes, there are obscenities in the poem that some may find offensive. I’m a salty old girl, and, once, I was a salty young one.
A Few Dry Old Peas Rattling Around In A Waxed Paper Dixie Cup
Jesus fucking Christ goes through my mind as I sit here, trying to read the poems from my poetry workshop, and my brother, who doesn’t live here, appears suddenly at the front window like an unwelcome trio of Jehova’s Witnesses, causing my dog, who had just been whining at my leg for my bagel to bark loudly and repeatedly at the window as the phone rings, making me jump like a bean, and I answer it, all the while looking in exasperation at my beloved bother of a brother, who is unaware that I am here, and if he comes in the house will joke, as if he were the opening act for the Jerry Lewis Telethon, “Still in your pajamas? Ah you and that school racket,” while I say, “Hello” the the phone with my voice trying to sound pointed and pissed and my mother’s voice says, “Read me what the calendar says my dentist appointment is,” and says, “I know you’d like nothing better than to put my wash in the dryer—how ’bout it?” and says, “Don’t just sit around; do your windows,” and says, “You’re home todays so I won’t be home to let the dogs out,” although she wants to be ’cause she thinks I don’t do it right, and tells me again how to do it before she hangs up, but my brother has not come in, has disappeared, so I go back to reading for two seonds because here comes the dog again, whine whine bagel bagel scratch me, and I stamp at her; she looks at me—Big whoop—says her scroungy toothless expression, and I hear a loud banging, so I look up and a strange truck, a truck that would have turned up the noses of Sanford and Son and a man who obviously was designed with the truck in mind, are in the driveway, and he is pulling a gigundous lawnmower off the truck while I try to think and come up with Jesus, shit! Don’t unload that! Did I ask for that thing?! and Who the fuck is this toothless guy? and wonder for a scared second if he’s a relative I don’t recognize which is usual for me, when I see my brother coming ’round the side of the truck and I run upstairs thinking, What the hell is that guy here for? Bill is going to bring this strange man to see me in my pajamas, and the dog is lifting off the floor now in little hydraulic barks—I am thinking Christ Bill, now you’re going to wake Lee and I am giving up on reading poetry; I’ll write some instead, and I retreat to my room and start typing trying to ignore the barking of slamming truck parts and lawnmowers out front, but I am right, my brother does wake my sister, and when she gets up, by opening her door she releases another dog to bark, and it runs downstairs to join in, eager to catch up, while my sister walks into the bathroom and pees loudly with the door open, and does not flush, puts on striped spandex, and goes tour-de-fourcing down the stairs where, like a swift grifter, she switches out the tape in the VCR for an aerobics tape and turns it up up “Lift ’em up! That’s grrrreat! You can do it!” but I can’t do it because I can still hear my brother and Mister May-Be-A-Relative, so I am able to hear another voice added to theirs as my mother says, “Oh, I wondered if you’d be here. I just came home to let the dogs out,” and my friends wonder why I’m tense and why I never want to visit the zoo, and I think, Dad must be coming home any minute to tell us all the jokes he’s heard today, like, “Duck walks into a pharmacist, says gimmee a Chapstick and put it on my bill,” or the one about the Avon lady who farts in a elevator, after which he will laugh that long, wheeze, Lou Costello laugh “Hey Abbott” and somehow, in this rapidly escalating cacophony, a small sound, like a maraca gently shaken, is in my ears pulling me to it, causing me to think one final thought at the end of my morning study time, because, pricklingly familiar, I think I’ve heard that small hollow sound before, and I think I now know exactly what my brain is like.
Did you make it to the end? Could you see how the titular title ended the poem? I must admit I’ve always felt that the title must work as the title, of course, but should also resonate at the end of a poem, because our eyes, having reached the end, especially of a long poem, will zip back up to the top to refresh, remind us of what we were reading in the first place.
Have you ever written a titular poem? If so, I’d love to have you share it in the comments. Have you ever read one that you especially liked, or that flummoxed you? Let me know.
All these years later, through many different rounds of education at many schools, through being a life-long adjunct: always running place-to-place, through infertility and a trip to China to become a mother, through a few trips back and forth across the country with a full car and a moving van, through working with so many different and wildly talented authors, I do still feel a bit like I’m a plate-spinner with a brain that might like a long vacation on a deserted island. Thanks for reading! I hope you’ll share back something titular.~ Dianne
Dianne Pearce is the publisher and main editor at Current Words Publishing. She also designs and formats each issue of INSTANT NOODLES LIT MAG, and had to learn how to work computers to do it!
Don’t miss the second submission period for INSTANT NOODLES 2025. Submit today!
Every year on the first Saturday of May, comic shops across the country come alive with excitement, color, and creativity—because it’s Free Comic Book Day (FCBD)! Whether you’re a lifelong comic enthusiast, a casual reader, or someone looking to dive into the world of graphic storytelling for the first time, this day is all about celebrating comics, community, and the joy of reading.
Started in 2002, Free Comic Book Day is a promotional effort by the comic book industry to attract new readers. Participating comic book stores give away specially printed copies of free comics—completely free of charge. The event includes a wide variety of titles from major publishers like Marvel, DC, Dark Horse, Image, and smaller independent presses, offering something for every age group and interest.
Why It Matters
The world could use more heroes and happy endings. Comics aren’t just about superheroes (though there’s plenty of that if you’re into it!). They span genres—from fantasy and horror to history, science, and slice-of-life stories. They’re also a powerful tool for literacy and education, helping readers of all levels improve comprehension, vocabulary, and visual literacy.
For younger readers especially, comics can be a gateway into the joy of reading. The mix of artwork and text makes stories more accessible and engaging, which is especially beneficial for reluctant readers or multilingual learners.
Explore New Titles: Try something outside your usual favorites. You might find a new series or genre you love!
Bring the Family: Many stores host family-friendly events like signings, costume contests, games, and raffles.
Support Local Creators: Some stores use the day to highlight local artists and writers—don’t miss the chance to discover original voices.
My local comic book store had a local graphic novelist as well as comic artists in the shop signing autographs. They also work with local food pantries and offer an extra free comic for each can of food donated to the store. I always come away with comics I’ve never heard of that I end up enjoying once I get home and read them.
While free books are always amazing, Free Comic Book Day is more than just picking up a stack of comics—it’s about celebrating imagination, storytelling, and the communities that form around them. Whether you’re 8 or 80, there’s a comic out there for you. So mark your calendar, grab your friends or family, and make your way to your local shop. You never know what new world you’ll step into!
By R. David Fulcher Founding Member of the Old Scratch Press Poetry and Short Form Collective
Authors have often used religion as an inspiration for their work.
Consider such literary gems as Umberto Eco’s In the Name of the Rose which revolves around a murder that takes place in a monastery, or Hermann Hesse’s buddhist tale Siddhartha.
In my own work, I experimented with this intersection in my story “All Across the Mountain”, appearing in December 2023 on spillwords.
The story switches back and forth between the point of view of an occultist named James Blackwood, and a church parishioner named Parrish Pious. The story takes place on Easter Day, and opens before dawn with James Blackwood making preparations to destroy the town by raising ancient and powerful monsters.
The story utilizes a common literary theme – the struggle between good and evil.
It relies on juxtaposition to build tension and suspense. Consider some of the contrasting characteristics between the church (representing good, and manifested by Parrish) and the occult (representing evil, as manifested by James Blackwood):
The Church (Parrish Pious)
The Occult (James Blackwood)
Community of Believers
Acts Alone
Operates in Public
Acts Secretly/Covertly
Celebrates one person, Jesus, with two natures – one human, and one divine
Worships alien gods, cold and disconnected from human nature
The members of the congregation were on their feet, almost giddy in their Easter finery as they belted out an inspired if somewhat tuneless rendition of “Christ the Lord Is Risen Today:”
Christ the Lord is risen today, Alleluia! Earth and heaven in chorus say, Alleluia! Raise your joys and triumphs high, Alleluia! Sing, ye heavens, and earth reply, Alleluia!
Parrish felt exalted and she closed her eyes, imagining herself being lifted up on beams of bright light towards the stained glass windows at the height of the church’s apex. The lively clothing of the parishioners made it seem to Parrish like she was floating above a sea of pastels – soft pinks, bright yellows, and subtle key limes undulated beneath her. The unified voices seemed to shake the very timbers of the building itself, and the creaking and groaning of the wood made Parrish open her eyes as if the earth itself did reply with a tremble as they sang out “Sing, ye heavens, and earth reply.”
So there you have it, an example of interweaving religion and fiction. Explore this fertile ground on your own and see what amazing stories you can create!
And I bring them up today because when I was thinking about writing this blog post, I was also thinking about all the other blog posts I had to write today, which has turned out to be at least 4, plus the social media to go with it. It reminded me of this Kinks’ classic:
Give it a listen because: The Kinks.
And so that you get the tune, which is important to this post.
My blogging and posting activity made me think of this song because it aligns with my thoughts: She posts it here; she posts it there: on Instagram, and everywhere! She will just keep posting ’till her fingertips go numb ’cause she’s a dedicated marketer of books. Oh yes she is! Oh yes she is! Oh yes she is! Oh yes she is!
Sing it with me.
Are you posting here, and there?
I hope you don’t mind if I remind you of the three Ps of posting: personality, process, and product. You want to sell your books, but you have to find people who know about your book: people in Poughkeepsie, Peoria, and Portland. Have you thought of it that way? Imagine a 25 mile readius (hah! Gotcha! Radius!) around you: that’s probably where people are going to know you enough to buy your book. Imagine your social tree: your family, your friends, friends of your family, and friends of your friends, your co-workers, and your fellow attendees at church or hobbies or etc. Of those people, how many will buy a book? Of the people who buy it, how many will read it? How good is your elevator pitch to tell people about it? How “clean” is your book in terms of proofreading, editing, font choice and size, plot holes? And if you do not live in Poughkeepsie, Peoria, or Portland, how will anyone who does find out about your book and become intersted in it?
With my deepest apologies, you have to post. You have to blog. You blog the most about you, the human, you blog next about the process and proceedures of you, the writer, and lastly you make an open, not subtle, appeal on your product: “You will enjoy this book because….”
Let’s imagine a 30 day grid.
Luckily, with most websites, and certainly with WordPress, you can post them all on the same day if you like, and schedule them to go out.
Friends, if you are unknown, there is no other way to get your book out there. There is no other way.
Most of us are doing the, “La la la la I can’t hear you!” thing when I say this. But, tell me, how else does that reader in Peoria find you?
I interacted with a young author the other day whose horror novel won some book award. I asked her, “Have you posted that on the FB horror reading groups?”
“No,” she replied to me in the women’s writers group. “Those groups are fake, so I don’t waste my time.”
They most certianly are not fake, and if you’re writing horror, you oughta be on them. If you’re writing poetry or short form, are you looking for groups where people are reading those books? And the people in the women’s writers group are not buying her book, because they want to sell their book, not buy hers, but all of them are pitching to the wrong damn audience.
I am so very sorry to need to be the one who tells you Santa ain’t real.
In my experience coaching and attempting to help so many authors, from the ones I taught in college to the ones in that womens’ group, to the ones I publish in Instant Noodles, and on up, authors spend their free time writing their next book or story or poem, and then work their jobs, interact with their families, have some down time, etc. But small business owners never stop. They ask you to buy their newest T-shirt, or their revolutionary toilet paper, or come into their small shop, every single day, and they work overtime if they need to, to get it done.
If you’re a hobbiest writer, enjoy! If you want to go pro… you need to put in the practice hours, which, for this, are posting.
So sing it with me!
I post it here; I post it there: on Instagram, and everywhere! I promise I’ll keep posting ’till my fingertips go numb ’cause I’m a dedicated author of my books. Oh yes I is! Oh yes I is! Oh yes I is! Oh yes I is! And nothing can stop me, and my blog will not go mum ’cause I’m a dedicted author of my books. ‘Cause I’m a dedicted author of my books. ‘Cause I’m a dedicted author of my books!!! Ba-da-da!
In high school I watched the clock in last period, because I knew as soon as the bell rang I was heading straight to dance class, and all the teen angst and hormonal folderal of the day would be disappear once I got there.
I’ve taught dance for over forty years now, and that was the beginning of a lifetime of learning how the mind/body connection affects my creativity and well-being.
We’re taught early on that writing is supposed to come from the neck up—brain first, fingers second. We believe the words live in our head. But I’ve come to understand this: the stories I care about—the ones that ache and sing—live in my body. And if I want to write them honestly, I have to move.
Movement Makes Space for Story
When I’m stuck on a line in a poem or in a scene, walking often is my default means to address it. It might just be a walk around the block that allows my shoulders to drop and my breath to even out.
There’s something about the gentle rhythm of walking—or swaying, or stretching—that stirs the sediment at the bottom of the creative well. It shakes loose a phrase, a memory, an emotion I hadn’t thought to name.
We say “I’m working it out,” and often we mean emotionally—but there’s a physical truth there, too.
“ But I do believe very strongly that the best poetry is rooted in bodily experience. We experience reality through our bodies and senses, and truth, to the extent that it is apprehensible.” -Poet Rebecca Foust
The Dance Between Emotion and Motion
As someone who grew up dancing, I know I carry emotion in my body, and in order to gain access I have to move. In order for the reader to feel what I am writing about, I must first feel it myself, and that is not going to happen if I stay entirely in my head.
Movement helps me feel it. And when it’s a big feeling—grief, rage, shame, heartbreak—moving my body helps metabolize it. When we experience trauma or hold strong emotions, our bodies remember. They contract around those memories. Notice how we hold our breath or the body tenses up. If we don’t move them, we risk writing around the truth instead of into it. And I don’t have to run a marathon or take up kickboxing. I can simply take a deep breath, raise and lower my arms a few times, twist gently side to side–all in my deskchair.
Moving lets the emotion pass through me so it can move onto the page. Otherwise, it stays stuck in the pipes.
Stillness Is Its Own Kind of Movement
Sometimes, the writing calls for the opposite. Stillness. Not scrolling or skimming or daydreaming—but deliberate, open stillness. The kind that invites something deeper in. The kind that looks like staring out the window.
This is the space where I can hear the quieter parts of my story—the voice of a child I’d forgotten to listen to, or the image I saw in a dream but brushed off. Lying still and staring at the ceiling can be just as powerful as dancing. For me, it is my meditation practice. It’s all part of the same body-based practice.
Final Thought: You Are the Instrument Your body is not a machine that carries your brain to your desk. I tell my students of both writing and dance that the body is an instrument that vibrates with memory, story, longing, and truth. When you write from your whole body, your work carries a different kind of resonance. So move. Let the story or poem move with you. And then write like your body remembers something your mind forgot.
Click this link for a quick 5-minute seated stretch to get the body moving and the words flowing: https://youtu.be/n0VlNd3nLFw
By R. David Fulcher, Old Scratch Press Founding Member
Recently I had the honor of joining the Folkloring podcast. This podcast addresses how we can integrate folklore into our everyday lives, including our writing.
Preparing for this podcast prompted me to reflect upon the influence of folklore, myth and legend on my own writing and was surprised to discover the influence has been quite profound.
Below are some of categories of folklore I came up with in case they could be an inspiration for your writing.
1. Global folklore
By this I mean folklore that originated from a specific geographic location hundreds of years ago, but now is so well known it is generally accepted.
An example of this would be the legend of the vampire from Romania. First something that was very localized, vampires are now so common they now appear on cereal boxes and television series.
I integrate the vampire myth into my writing in several stories in my book The Pumpkin King and Other Tales of Terror in such stories as “The Night Flyer” and “The Watchman’s Web”.
2. Urban Legends/Localized Folklore
In this category would be legends still most popular in specific geographic regions, such as the legend of the New Jersey Devil that haunts the woods of New Jersey, or the infamous Bunny Man of Clifton, Virginia.
The mythology of native Americans is extremely rich and strongly connected to the natural world.
In my book The Cemetery of Hearts, I reference a native American myth from the American Southwest that claims that the majestic canyons and mesas were spun out of a gigantic spider.
In my story “The Land Spider”, a gigantic spider starts swallowing a small town in New Mexico building by building.
These are just a few ideas to get you started, but the world is full of legends and folklore, and weaving them into your writing will enrich your fiction and poetry.
You can learn more about the Folkloring podcasthere
Happy Writing!
R.David Fulcher, Founding Member of Old Scratch Press
As we often hear, and know is true, writing is a solitary endeavor. Since I find long stretches of alone-time nourishing, I love that about it. But that doesn’t mean I want to go full-on-hermit. I need human interaction, even if it’s just Tina at the grocery store telling me about her cats.
Specifically, since my need for human interaction is limited, I’ve sought to find ways to find or create a writing community that is a balance of the two. Here are a few things I’ve come up with that might seen outwardly mundane, but with an added introverted twist:
· Online Writing Group: I created Bewilderness Writing, knowing that my role would be as guide, not teacher. Each week I read a poem, offer jump-off lines that folks can choose to use, or not, and then we free write for 10 minutes. Afterwards, each person reads what they’ve written and the group does not offer comment or critique. Sounds ridiculously simple, huh? It is. And what can’t be known beforehand is just how intimate and rich the writing can be within this container. Setting aside all the “writerly benefits”, it fills my need to see and hear others figuring out life using words on the page. There is great comfort there. And the tapestry of styles and voices enriches my own writing life.
There are many “writing alone, together” online opportunities without prompted writing, as well.
· In-Person Writing Group: I created “Writers in Coffee Shops” a few years ago using the social networking website Meetup. I set it up with straightforward parameters from the get-go of “writing alone, together”. We would meet at a local coffee shop, spend a few minutes sharing what we were working on, then get to it. At the end of the hour, we could share about how or what we did for the hour. After that time, folks were welcome to share their work and invite comment or critique.
For awhile, especially in the beginning, I had people who did not get the memo and wanted to chat. With gentle reinforcement those folks either got used to our system or didn’t come back. Eventually, I found a small, committed group, and we came to know our coffee shop time as not only a standing-date commitment to our writing, but a place to commiserate on the writing life. We became friends.
Want something similar?
Shut Up and Write: https://www.shutupwrite.com/While I might prefer my more “demure” group name, this is basically the same format and you can find them, with over 400 chapters all over the place
· Collaborative Writing: Recently, I had a friend and former Bewilderness group member contact me after taking a poetry class that included “renku,” which is a Japanese collective poetry composition of collaborative linked verse. My friend asked if I wanted to give it a try together. She would send me a few lines and I would send a few back. Since we’re just starting this adventure, I can’t tell you the outcome, but I’m hopeful. It is just the right mix of connection and effort for me. It intrigues me to see what might come out of it. Think of your favorite writing form, enlist your favorite writing friend, combine the two, and see what you might come up with!
These writing groups are for messy, first-draft writing where the intention is to get “your butt in the chair” and ideas on the page. While these groups all lack the comment/critique component, I am a big believer in getting other eyes and trusted opinions on your work, and there are plenty of in-person and online opportunities for that. Whichever one is your preference, there is great benefit to having others along for the ride alongside you, and what that looks like is for you to choose.
My first mystery novel, A Fire Circle Mystery: A Witch Awakens, about an amateur sleuth discovering her lineage as an Appalachian Granny Witch, comes out in Spring 2025.
OLD SCRATCH PRESS 