Hello, writer! If you want to learn more about the ins and outs of writing mystery, thriller, or suspense, then this episode is for you. Today I'm interviewing author and certified book coach Samantha Scull because she is the perfect person for this topic. Sam is a fan of the scary, mysterious, and suspenseful.
She is the co director of Thriller Fest, the co founder of Shadow and Secrets Writing Retreats, and an author accelerator certified book coach who specializes in coaching mystery, thriller, and suspense. Spence authors from novel planning all the way through revision. Sam is an enthusiast of homemade sourdough and cheese of all kinds.
I love that. She lives in the Pacific Northwest and when she's not working with writers or co directing these amazing events, she is busy writing stories that keep her up at night. Hey, Sam, thank you for being on the show today.
Hi, Stacy. Thank you so much for having me. I could not be more pleased to talk about this with you.
Will you please share a bit more about your journey to becoming a writer and a book coach with our listeners? Yeah, of
course. So I started writing a book right before COVID pitched it way too early, got rightfully rejected found Author Accelerator, hired a book coach, got an agent opened my coaching business, found Thriller Fest, volunteered there.
And then wrote another book and it's all a big journey. Like the short version of that. But yeah, I've made all the mistakes. I've done all the things wrong. I thought I was a special snowflake and it turns out I'm not. I'm just another one of us just trying to write my best version. And you know, I, I found this work which I like to refer to as kind of my, my soul work.
I didn't realize that. You could be a book coach. And as soon as I saw Author Accelerator, Stacey's making a heart face at me I just was like, Oh my God, this is, this is what I want to do with my life. And I dove in head first and haven't looked back. Thank you. Yeah,
I am. I'm like giving her big hearts here, like with my hands, because our journeys are so, so similar, Sam.
And I totally know what you mean about soul work, Helping other people bring their stories into the light and I had no idea either and I went on the same trajectory How do I do this? Found a book coach, drank the Kool Aid, was like, Whoa, I'm in this. I love this. I want this. And I want to give this to other people.
So wonderful. So you are, you coach specifically in the mystery, the thriller, and the suspense genres. I sure do. Yeah. What draws you to that work? And what is it
like? So I love this question. So first of all, I'll say I do have some other genres that I coach to including romance, particularly because I like to have the balance of the dark and the light.
And I think it's necessary when you, when you rate, when you read and write and do everything in this genre. But what draws me to is I'm really fascinated by what Would force someone to make a bad decision or to do a bad thing, you know, like what set of circumstances would lead a normal person, quote, unquote, to go and have to make a terrible choice.
And then how would that affect them psychologically? And so I'm really fascinated by the psychology of all of it. Sometimes this is like me exploring the protagonist and them having to make a terrible choice. And then what does that do to them? Sometimes it's the villain, you know, like, what if somebody does a bad thing and they have a very good reason for doing it?
The reveal of that why, I find to be just like, completely delicious. Even if the bad thing is something just truly awful. And so, you know, that's part of what MTS is, is exploring these horrible things without actually having to live through it, thank goodness. And I just find the dark side of human nature to be endlessly fascinating.
Not sure what that says about me, but it's who I am.
I tell this to writers all the time because work in the, with similar genres and sometimes they come to me with , that worry of what does this say about me? And they know, they know, fellow weirdos, they need to write darker.
And, you know, I think. Just as human beings we all have dark and light in us. Yeah. It's, but it doesn't say anything about us as people. It just, you know, it's I know writers who are just the most, , straight laced upstanding total solid people and they write about bodies in the basement, you know, and butchering.
And it's, yeah. Yeah. So it doesn't say anything about us, you know,
we, we like, yeah, when the crime writing community, like the thriller writing community, we like to say that we get our, get our shit out on the page. And so we're really, really nice, kind people that are very welcoming because we have dealt with all of it.
I love that. Well, the, this podcast is dedicated to helping writers discover and learn the tools they need to craft and publish stories that they are proud of, as well as work through the variations of self doubt that hold them back. So, from the perspective of a book coach who works in this genre what are the major things a writer needs to
consider?
Yeah, great question. So I think knowing the genre and the expectations and tropes is one of the biggest things. So read, read, read, read, read, read as much as you can. Read widely. There's, you know, the, the broad range of sub genres and MTS mystery, solar suspense is quite wide. We go all the way from cozy to, you know, slasher to noire to all of it.
And thriller has its own range. It's psychological all the way to hardcore action, you know, like Jack Reacher and so knowing, you know, What that looks like, and kind of where you want to position yourself is really important. So that you can twist it around, right? You can combine, you can pull elements from all of it, but the reader expectations for MTS, like all genres are quite strong.
And so if you don't have those twists, if you don't have that journey, if you don't have that dead body on page 1 in a mystery your readers are going to be disappointed. So that's a big one. Some of the other things is that Mystery Solar Suspense is a puzzle. So pantsing does work for a certain percentage of it.
I myself am a, I would call myself a plantser. I like to plan, but I also like to pants as I write and I'm okay. Yeah. Like twists and turns and, you know, not the twists and turns in the story, but just taking a hard left and seeing what happens. But at a certain point you need to view the story as a whole, so you can make sure it's actually working.
And that, you know, because twists are the reveals of the villain's truth. That's how I define it. You really need to know your villain's motivations and why, what were they doing up until the day the protagonist came in and ruined everything. I think that's kind of a really big overlooked thing with people who are new to MTS is that we all approach it by just looking like, okay, the protagonist is moving through the story and they're the ones that are the most important.
In MTS, they're not. The protagonist is the one experiencing the villain's story. And so we've got to know who the villain is.
That is such a good point, and I am a writer who is guilty of focusing on my protagonists too much. I mean, maybe not too much, but not focusing on my antagonistic force when writing in this genre.
So yeah, me too. It's hard.
Yeah. Yeah. And we're going to get into why it's hard. I would say also follow your curiosity, follow what it is that you enjoy about that. Think about what you enjoy because that's going to help you craft like why this book is, is unique to you.
Oh, absolutely. Like the books I write are the ones I want to read. I don't try to match what the. What the, I don't know, the industry is calling for at this particular. Yeah. It's not writing to market. That's not what we're doing here. It's, it's the, you know, I'm, they're scary and there's people doing horrible things and there's usually some spunky female protagonist in there.
So. Yeah.
And so remember writing and when we say MTS, it's mystery, thriller, suspense. So for anybody listening, who's like, what's MTS? It's mystery. It's okay. Mystery, thriller and suspense. It takes less time to say but it's, it's a puzzle. And eventually you're going to have to come up high level and take a look at the whole picture and to, to, to see it in its entirety and see if the story's working.
Okay. So from your perspective as a book coach, what are some of the common struggles that writers have when crafting these stories? You identified definitely the first one. We want to make sure we know reader expectations and we honor those. And then, you know, another is the understanding that the villain is the star and the protagonist is the mouse kind of going through the maze, right?
The villain is the one who creates the trap and the mouse is your protagonist. So tell tell me more about, about common struggles that writers might have when facing these stories.
Yeah, I mean, that's kind of the biggest one is not knowing the villain well enough. I think that new writers to this genre picture like a serial killer or, you know, somebody in the woods just waiting to trap the unsuspecting campers or whatever.
And that can work, but the MTS genre has evolved over time and that may have worked 50 years ago, 100 years ago, even 20 years ago, we're getting we're getting a little more complex now. And the readers myself included. Want an interesting villain. I want to know why they're doing what they're doing, and it's not just they got dropped off as a baby or something.
Like, there has to be more than that. We've got to understand why they're actually doing what they're doing, what they think they're accomplishing by doing this bad thing. I think Dexter is one of the most interesting villains we've had in the last 20 years because we took the villain's perspective, and he is a serial killer, but he does it for a very good reason.
He has a code, and therefore we are highly engaged, right? We are rooting for him even as he's murdering people. And so obviously that's been done. You know, that, that, that story worked really well, but you can come up with something for why the villain is doing what they're doing and giving them a reason that your story is going to be much more engaging.
And that's the biggest single thing that I see that people struggle with when they're entering this genre is just not knowing that. Yeah.
Coming up with motivations that make sense for them. I don't think readers need to particularly like or have empathy or, or root for the villain like they do in Dexter, but they, they have to understand their
logic
very well said. Yeah. I mean, Dexter's and Dexter is a side case where we are rooting for him, but there's so many villains and books. I've read recently and I won't give you any spoilers. But Taylor Adams, no exit or not. Oh, exit the last word. Taylor Adams. The last word is 1 of my favorites in the recent time.
That's come out, you know, like the last 6 months. Just fabulous villain. And you don't see it coming and it's just amazing. And so read that book.
I am going to, that's, that has just flew to the top of my TBR. Yeah. I particularly love it when the villain is in plain sight the whole time and that, yeah, that, and you do have empathy for them, but you have empathy for them for other reasons.
Totally.
Okay, what about the emotional side of writing in this genre? What do you see writers
struggle with here? Yeah, well, it's the same thing I struggle with when I write, which is getting into the villain's head, you know, I'm not someone who murders people.
So I need to imagine what that's like. And so it's, it's hard. I set a timer when I do this, because you really have to get to know this person. You have to understand. what they might be thinking when they're doing these things and that is heavy. And so set a timer for 10 minutes and then go, you know, hang out with your cat or whatever, like do something that's nice.
It's also harder and more complex than people expect. I think when people approach, you know, like we all, not we all, a lot of people love Agatha Christie, she's incredible. Right. And those locked room mysteries are classic for a reason. They look on the surface like they're very simple. It's like, oh, there's seven people in a room, one person dies, and it's like the clue game, right?
You're just trying to figure out who did it. It is so complex to figure out how to do that well and get it on the page and have the reader not guess until you want them to guess. And so , the author is kind of the cat and the reader is the mouse, but the mouse knows that the cat is trying to mess with them.
And so there's this back and forth We all know what's going on, and so how are you going to successfully mess with me so that when I get to that climactic reveal, that climactic twist, I'm surprised and delighted and really happy that, I didn't see this coming. But it all makes sense.
Yeah, personally, from writing in this genre, I agree. Like, that's really hard for me to get behind, like, get into the headspace of someone who's willing to commit atrocities and, and do horrible things. That is, that is really hard. The other thing that comes up for me is that, I just get to a place where I'm like, this is, this is obvious.
This is boring. They're gonna know. This is stupid. Why am I
bothering? Yeah, we chatted about this briefly right before we started talking here today and I love the way that you phrase that because that's so, so true. And there's not really a whole lot you can do about it because as the author, you have to know all these things and it will feel obvious.
So my best advice is just accept it. It's going to feel obvious. And this is what beta readers are for, you know, like do your best to think about what clues you introduce when, how the protagonist receives them, you know, what the villain's truth is that's being revealed because that's how you gun, how you create a twist is it's the reveal of the villain's truth.
And so, but we want to be. Very intentional about where that shows up so that we're not giving it away too early. And we also are leading the protagonist on some very logical red herring journeys as they move through this. And also giving the reader just enough so that the villain clues are on the page, but they're being ignored for logical reasons.
It's tough. It's a lot, it's a lot to hold in your head. And it often feels very obvious and dumb. And I totally I'm there myself right now with my work in progress.
Yeah, me too. Me too. I, and I think there's just a lot you can't know or discern about the story until the first draft is out.
Until you've written to the end. So we need to give ourselves a break.
Yeah, give yourself some grace. And again, have have those beta readers just lined up, you know, because they can only read it once. And so they're such a precious resource, especially with mystery solar suspense. So find your people find your genre lovers.
And yeah. Take good care of them.
That is a really good piece of advice. I've heard you say that before, and that stuck in my head. So yeah. Okay. So are there any myths about the thriller mystery suspense genre that you want to bust?
Ah, what a good question. So I think that there is this sort of expectation that MTS does not have characters with emotional arcs.
And I really would love to bust that because I think that without an emotional arc, we don't have a satisfying engaging protagonist, right? Like you can have someone who has an outward change. That's where like most of the action solos said is you have a protagonist who's really good at everything. And there might be like a little moment of emotional gain or loss or whatever.
There's going to be some kind of change, but the stories that I personally engage with the most are the ones where the character has a misbelief and they believe. You know, something about themselves that will be proven wrong in an aha moment that happens right before the climactic scene that allows them to conquer the villain in the climactic scene.
And this can be something, I mean, usually it's universal. It's like, oh, I don't deserve love, or I don't think I can do this, or I'm not strong enough, or, you know, people always told me I couldn't, I was weak or something. And that, that emotional change and, you know, drawing on that. Well, of what people are actually capable of, I think is one of the things I love about MTS is seeing what happens to a person when you throw them into the fire and how, who are they really, you know, and that's that aha moment.
What do you think about this? I, you know, when I look around. You know, the breadth of genres we have available to us. I see thriller as the spine in so many of them. I see mystery as the spine in so many of them. I mean, if you think about it the first Harry Potter book, that's a mystery.
A hundred
percent. Yeah. And possibly even a thriller. Yeah. You know, like we have this, we have this villain that's known, which is one of the hallmarks of it being, you know, a classic thriller is that the villain is known and we have a protagonist who's trying to fight them. And that's Harry and Voldemort, right?
Through all of those books.
One hundred percent. So no matter, if you're writing, you know, a middle grade fantasy or if you're I, I, even a like a romantic suspense or I just, I think studying these genres is, will do nothing but make you a better storyteller.
Oh, a hundred percent agreed. So well said.
Well, and I think it was, I think it was Sean Coyne who wrote story grid. He has kind of, well, his perspective is that the thriller is kind of the, The story of today, like that threads. into so so much of the of the media that we take in today, be it movies or books. It's in there. It's baked in there.
So understanding like these, these principles of, of who's your villain, what do they want? How are they going after it? And what kind of trouble is that causing for your protagonist or vice versa? Right. That. Right there is in the spine of a ton of different things. It's in, it's an action adventure. It's in Western.
It's, you know, it can be in mystery. So yeah, I think that this is a really cool genre to study and apply. And also what you're speaking of is that readers are very sophisticated these days, right. Versus, you know, Agatha Christie
again, fabulous writer, but the world has changed a little bit,
but the world has changed our, our interpretation of story and how we come to it is different.
And like the anatomy of genre written by John, John Truby is a really great book to take a look at how current works of fiction are actually blending all these genres together. I mean, I think there is still a spine. There is still something that guides the through line of the book.
But you can play with a lot of things and make it fun. And I think that that's what, I mean, draws us in as readers because, yeah, so it's just thick and it's rich. Also makes it damn hard to write. But not impossible. But not impossible. Not impossible. Okay. So a lot of writers struggle with the accountability and finding time to write.
So as a writer yourself, you know, how do you deal with this? You're a very busy person. I mean, you're co hosting all these amazing events and these writing retreats and you work with writers. So how do you find the time to write?
So I guard as fiercely as I can my writing time and as I can is the key word phrase in there because sometimes there are days where I have to have other commitments that take precedent, right?
One of the biggest things I've learned about myself is that I'm not a daily writer. I'm a sprint writer and I do way better if I block off like 4 hours and fiercely guard that and go and knock out however many words I can knock out in that time. Whereas I find that There are other people who do really well with like the 15 minutes at a time every day practice.
And I think that that was a big learning for me because I really felt like I was doing it wrong for a long time. And then somebody, I can't remember who was like, you don't, you don't have to write every day. You can do it however works for you. And so if that helps anybody out there, just know that you, you just need to make progress.
And maybe that progress is You know, stealing away for a weekend day once a month and knocking out 10, 000 words. Maybe it's 15 minutes in the morning before your kids get up. Maybe it's, you know, late at night after everybody goes to bed. Whatever it is, whatever works for you, I think is the most important thing.
But prioritizing your writing over the other things in your life. If you don't, it will fall down the ladder because we all have things that we You know, we have to do, we have to be, we have to eat, we have to care for the people in our lives. We've got to do our jobs. And, you know, it's hard, but prioritization is my answer to that.
And I don't always don't always win, but I do my best. It's an ongoing
battle. Absolutely. Yeah. Same. So when you look back at your, your own writing life, what did self doubt look like for you initially?
What a good question. So I did that thing where I compared myself to books on a shelf and then doubted my ability to ever get there.
I was lucky enough not to doubt my own writing ability. Like, the writing comes pretty easily to me, but I would get stuck. I'd get like, you know, 30, 000 words because I was pantsing again. And I, you know, wouldn't know where to go from there. And then be like, well, there must be something wrong with my ability that I can't do this.
Not realizing that writing a novel is easy. a really challenging thing, and it takes a lot of hours to learn how to do it, and the very best way to learn how to write a novel is to write one and have it be terrible, right? Just get through the whole thing and understand the mistakes you made and then start again.
And whether you have that first story be something that you ultimately try to sell or take out there or go into print in some fashion, or you move on to the next thing. Comparing yourself is, you know, I still do it. I still find myself reading things and being like, Oh my God, it's just amazing. And I'm never going to get there.
But also that person is doing their thing. And what I do is going to be hopefully amazing in a different way. And so, you know, we all have our own talents and we can admire things and not want to be exactly like them or want to be exactly like them. But We just all have to be on our own journey and comparison is just really a negative thing.
So highly recommend doing that.
You know, swimming in our own lane is, is very difficult. It's the human nature to compare. Oh, for sure. So if you're doing it, it doesn't mean anything bad about you. It just means that you're human. And, you know, catching those thoughts and restructuring them, reframing them so that you can get back on track.
And now as a writer with more experience under your belt what hangs you up these days, would you say?
Honestly, finding time. That's probably my biggest hang up. I, I wish I could clone myself. So the other Sam had a whole lot of time to write books that she wants to write. But, you know, I, I love being so immersed in this industry and the ways that I am.
It's an absolute joy to be here. stellar delight to get to work with other people on their books. And when someone else has a breakthrough, it honestly feels like almost better than when I have a breakthrough. It's just the most incredible thing. I love Thriller Fest and conferences in general. Like, these are my people and I highly recommend going to a conference near you or Thriller Fest if you can swing it.
It's just, it's just incredible getting to be in the writing community and making friends who get it. And, you know, the thing that I kind of view differently now is I know what it takes and how the sausage is made, and so I'm not beating myself up for not finishing a book in like three months, which is what I kind of thought I was going to do when I first started.
It takes a while, and you have to give yourself some time to think and to look at the outline, you know, several hours over before you even start writing and then be willing to kind of scrap the things that aren't working or save them in a different file for future stuff. But also revision is life, you know, I know that my zero draft is my zero draft and I'm going to revise it and it's okay if it's absolutely terrible because I know I'll get back to it.
So all that makes it a lot easier.
That was amazing. So absolutely. And it is hard. Like if you're just focused on the, on the outcome, on the final product of a finished book, and you're just racing to get there, it's going to be miserable. Totally. And I've done it that way. And it sucks. Oh
yeah.
Me too. It does suck.
A book is going to take as long as a book is going to
take. Yes. It certainly will. And I do think that people can get faster over time. Like I'm definitely a little faster now than I was when I started. But I have friends who can now knock out a book in, you know, six months or whatever it is, but that's, that's what they're doing, right?
That's their full time job. And that's an amazing life and I strive to get there.
What's the best piece of writing advice you think you've ever received?
Ah, so zero draft, then revise. Calling it a zero draft really resonates with me because I feel like I put a lot of pressure on myself for first draft.
First draft feels like you have to have something that's good. In my brain, I don't know where this came from, but zero draft is like, ah, whatever, you know, we'll just see what happens. High level plotting. Jenny Nash's from Author Accelerator, her inside outline tool broke my brain in the best possible way and opened it up to the possibility of having a very high level outline that did not take away the joy.
I'm definitely one of the pantsers who finds the muse and I love it. you know, as do we all when it feels like it's just flowing through you and onto the page. But this is where I would write 30, 000 words and then be like, how did I end up with aliens in my mystery? You know, like where, where did we come from with this?
And so having bumpers on the lanes for me, it makes a really big difference and actually makes me sort of effective at, you know, writing in general and getting to where I need to go. And then I'll add my own advice in here, which is to focus on the villain first, and then figure out how the protagonist experiences it.
That's been instrumental with my own writing, and I'm noticing in my client's stuff, too, it's, people are really resonating with that, and it can really help if you're stuck, it can help to look at your story from a different perspective. And hopefully unblock a lot of that, because we all get blocked, and it sucks, and it's hard.
And so, if you can find a different way around that, you know, take a little detour maybe that'll help get you to the end. Yeah, and
it is incredibly helpful and I have worked with Sam and been through your group coaching and your methodology. Incredibly helpful. And I would not be where I'm at with my book without
you.
That brings me an intense level of joy to hear that.
Yeah. I think the secret of book coaching is that we know book coaching
works. Yes. Oh my gosh. Yeah. It just, I have a book coach. I talk to book coaches all the time. The book coach community is full of book coaches who have book coaches because we all believe in this so much.
Yes.
Yes. What wish would you like to impart to your fellow mystery, thriller, and suspense writers?
Please finish your book and get it out there so I can read it. There will never be enough mystery thriller and suspense for me. And I, I'm a voracious reader when I can find the time and can inhale a book a day easily on vacation.
So there's just never going to be enough. And I think my mother would agree with that. She even reads, she reads even faster than I do. She's like two books a day. So,
wow. Yeah, that's amazing. So please finish your books. Yes. And the way to do that. Is to know your villain and start with your zero draft.
Yes. And finish your zero draft. Right on.
Okay, so please tell us where, where we can find you, what you're up to, what fun things or offerings you have for writers to work with you or experience being in your world.
Amazing. So the biggest thing right now is shadows and secrets, this writing retreat series that I have co founded with a fellow book coach, Carrie Savage.
You can find us on shadows and secrets retreats. com. And we are super excited for our inaugural event this year in 2024. September in Salem, Massachusetts in supposedly Salem's most haunted hotel. So, stoked about that. It's going to be a very coaching, intensive, super fun group of weirdos who also love murder stories.
And we totally can't wait. So that's a big thing. Thriller Fest, if you have not heard of it or you're curious, thrillerfest. com. It's an incredible conference. You will arrive and not sleep very much and just have the very best time and you'll make about 50 new friends and it's the best. I know I'm biased because I helped direct it, but it's honestly really cool.
And then, you know, I'm on samanthaskoll. com. I'm also on Instagram. I post very sporadically. I'm not one of these people who's really good at that, but I occasionally will post fun things about sourdough and or book coaching. And that is author samanthaskoll on Instagram.
Great. Thank you, Sam. I will put all those links into the show notes and thank you so much for your time and for your honesty and authenticity and vulnerability.
You are a delight. You're a delight to work with. So anybody who is writing in the mystery, thriller, or suspense genres who is in need of a book coach I can highly and personally recommend Sam. Oh, thank
you so much, Stacy. This was so fun.
Yay. All right. See you next time.