Writers in the Storm

by Lynette M. Burrows

Relationships are a large part of what your readers relate to because we can’t escape them. We all have relationships with other people. Whether they are friends, acquaintances, enemies, or lovers, your characters’ relationships can break a reader’s suspension of disbelief or indelibly mark your reader’s heart. This is the second of a two-part series to help you treat relationships in your story as their own entities and how to create character relationships that will make your readers want more.

In Part One, we discussed treating your primary character’s key relationships as an entity of its own, types of relationships that are possible, how many relationships to cover in your story, and how to make the most of those relationships. This month we’re discussing what makes the relationships you create between your characters believably real to your readers. 

Please note: I use the phrase parties or pair when discussing the relationship. Be aware that this is for clarity, but relationship entities can have any number of individuals with in it.

Commonality

In any relationship, the two parties have something in common. It’s often the reason they are together, why they like each other. Commonalities can be they’re interested in the same esoteric art. They share a hobby, a craft, or a skill. Perhaps they bonded over being the “new kid” in school, or a dislike of the same thing or people. The stronger or more bonded the relationship, the more things they share in common. 

For each significant relationship you show on the pages of your story, know what that commonality is and what it means to each character. It does not need to mean the same thing to both parties. In fact, it’s often more interesting in one character has a stronger feeling about that commonality than the other. 

You can also increase tensions. Perhaps the bond happened in the past and during the story, one of the two parties realizes she no longer feels the same way about their relationship.

The Glue Between Them

The commonality between the parties in a relationship is mostly about “why they connected.” Differences in personalities, trials and tribulations, growth of an individual, and outside influences challenge every relationship. If the relationship you’ve created is a long-erm or a forever-more relationship, there needs to be a sense of what keeps the parties bonded. What is the glue that binds characters together?

There are many things that can bind a relationship, including:

Family relationships

Family relationships are often determined by marriage or shared parentage. Families are also people with whom you have no shared genetics, but you grew up together (Foster kids, adopted, the sibling from another mother). Sometimes the friends you make become family. Think about how family relationships work in your life.

Psychological (and sometimes physical) needs

There are three universal psychological needs all humans have: autonomy, competence, and relatedness. They are necessary for our well-being. Often we have difficulty identifying our psychological needs correctly, but our needs steer us to make connections in order to fulfill those needs. In this, opposites really do attract.

John Watson and Sherlock Holmes are bound by their need for each other. Watson provides Holmes with a sense of humanity, a voice of reason, and occasional inspiration. Watson also has medical knowledge that Sherlock lacks. Holmes is a source of fascination and excitement for Watson. But Watson also needs a sense that he’s serving a greater purpose. He not only helps Holmes, he helps keep the greater community safer, and he records the cases Holmes solves to inspire and teach others.

In Lord of the Rings, Sam has been Frodo’s gardener for a long time. As they journey, Frodo depends on Sam to care for him. Without Sam’s loyalty and hope, Frodo wouldn’t have finished his task. Without Frodo’s example, Sam would not have developed the courage to try new things and neither of them would have survived.

In the movie, Rear Window, Jimmy Stewart’s character has both legs in a cast and depends on his nurse’s help. He physically cannot do most personal care tasks by himself. The thing to remember about this kind of relationship is that both parties need to derive something from the relationship. In this example, at first the nurse does not have psychological needs that get filled by the relationship, but she gets gainful employment and a client she likes and respects.

Time Already Invested 

This refers to those situations where two parties have been together so long that neither of them can think about separating from the relationship, even when it’s not the same as when it started. Think old married couple type of relationships. You know, the friendships where you’ve known each other so long that you complete each other’s sentences. 

Routines and Rituals

Routines and rituals are not the same thing. Routines are regular and necessary interactions for the relationship to work. A ritual is something significant to the relationship and each of the parties.

For example, for a busy working couple, one partner may be in charge of fixing breakfasts through the week, because the job doesn’t start until later in the morning. The other partner then fixes breakfast on weekends. Or in a relationship between friends, their routine may include gathering at one of the parties’ homes for a card game every Thursday night.

Rituals are things like a certain birthday toast made between friends. For a romantic couple, a weekly ritual might be date night or a candlelight dinner.

Shared History

Shared history can include shared trauma, an experience they shared that makes them feel disconnected from everyone else, or the day-to-day struggles of life. Friends might share the same teachers throughout elementary school. Or they might have worked the same after-school job. Perhaps they served in the army together.

Meaningful Differences

You don’t want any pair or group of characters to be too similar. Their differences in style, speech, and behaviors help your readers identify them. This is true particularly in relationships between your characters. You don’t want the individuals in a relationship to be alike, but making them different just to be different isn’t enough. The differences must be meaningful. 

How do you make meaningful differences? Let the differences between your individuals complement or challenge the relationship in ways that reflect the theme or are integral to the plot. You can express their differences in many ways, including in their strengths and weaknesses, their personalities, their skills, the way they resolve conflicts or approach new experiences or idea and their typical way of reacting to people and events.

Give Them a History

Every relationship, even new ones, has a history. This is more than a shared history. This is the history of how they met, things they did together, and times they bonded more or they parted ways for a bit. The reader needs to understand the history of the relationship, but if you dump in the whole history, it will distance your reader instead of draw her in.

There are many ways, other than using an info dump, to reveal the history of a relationship.

An Inside Joke or Code

We humans look for shortcuts everywhere, even in relationships. In a relationship, the shortcut is often an inside joke or a code word or phrase. 

An Ongoing Thing

Many relationships have an ongoing thing they do or say. It can be an argument, typically over something silly. Such as a memory a couple repeatedly shares with others, but one party always insists the event happened in the winter and the other party always replies, “but it was June.” 

 Familiar behavior

This refers to how the parties in a relationship address one another. Maybe they use nicknames like honey-bun and Tweety. Or they may use a formal way to refer to one of the party who isn’t present, such as “Me and the Missus.” It’s a way of addressing one another that no non-group member uses.

Familiar behavior also includes the tone of voice used, how often they touch (or don’t touch) one another, how they touch—is it intimate or casual? 

In long-term relationships, the parties know each other’s likes, dislikes, and habits. You can convey this by having one party cut the other’s sandwich into asymmetical parts because she knows that’s how party B likes it. 

Nonverbal Communication

We humans use nonverbal communication every day. Parties that have known each other for a long time have developed several ways to communicate nonverbally. You can use sustained eye contact or a “knowing look” to convey that two parties have known each other for a long time. A pat on the hand can mean calm down.

Doing something uncharacteristic for that person can also be a form of nonverbal communication. Think about things like how your character would feel if the partner who is habitually late every time, shows up early to an event that is important to her. 

How the Relationship has Changed

Time changes us all. Friends, frenemies or enemies…no relationship is remains unchanged either. Hint or show your reader how the relationship has changed since your characters first met. Don’t tell us about every minute change, only give your reader the significant ones. Sometimes a hint that it has changed is all you need.

Meaningful Scenes

A meaningful scene can be a big event or a tiny one. The meaning or significance comes from what your viewpoint characters think and feel about the event and how it influences the relationship between the characters and or the plot. A small but significant scene happens between Frodo and Sam at Bilbo’s birthday party. Sam pines after Rosie from a distance and Frodo encourages him to ask her for a dance. The scene in Little Women where Amy burns Jo’s manuscript is a more significant event to both characters. They each have to grow enough to move past their own hurt and anger.

Complicate Things

The members of any relationship do not always get along. In any good relationship, there is tension, minor and major disagreements, and moments where the platonic or sexual love between the parties is strong. 

For example, Frodo and Sam didn’t agree on whether to bring Gollum along on their journey. Frodo grows to distrust Sam and Sam grows more determined to protect Frodo from Gollum. When Gollum betrays Frodo, Sam does everything he can to save his friend and Frodo gains a new understanding of friendship.

You can also add incorrect assumptions, misunderstandings or conflicting motives to complicate the relationship. 

Time Apart

Testing your character relationships with time apart gives you opportunities to deepen character development, create tension, explore how each individual grows, and how time apart plays with their emotions. Make the time apart about the relationship. 

Give the characters time to reflect on their feelings about the relationship. Use that to help your characters get new perspectives on themselves as individuals and as part of a relationship. Use uncertainty and longing, internal conflict, and / or external obstacles to heighten the stakes, add complexity to their understanding of the relationship, and test their commitment and resilience.

Make the Relationship Matter

Making the relationship matter to your characters will make it matter to your readers. But how do you do that? 

Develop an understanding of the deep-down needs of the individual characters in the relationship.

Figure out how the other party in the relationship will meet that need.

Make the relationship challenge the individual members of the group.

The key to making the relationship matter is to let the relationship develop over the course of the story. Use dialogue and body language to convey what the relationship means to the individuals. Show the growing intensity of connection and meaning through changes in the dialogue and body language. 

The bottom line is connection. Connect your reader to your characters and show how the connections in your characters’ lives matter to them. Since your reader cares about your characters, they care about the people important to your characters.

Create a Relationship Arc

Finally, when you treat a relationship as its own entity, it needs an arc similar to a character arc. Figure out if the relationship will fall apart or still be strong at the end of the story. No matter the fate of that relationship, it does not need to have all the above attributes to be irresistible to your reader. In fact, too much detail may work to make the relationship appear unbelievable. Whatever you determine is the glue that holds your story relationships together, be certain it is strong enough to be believable within your story world. 

Ask yourself the following questions.

• Does the relationship get stronger or get destroyed by the end of the story? 
• What situation will make or break the relationship?
• How has the character of the relationship changed at the end of the story? 
• How has each party’s feelings and understanding of the relationship changed?

Creating Irresistible Relationships

Readers know their real-life relationships are complex so when they find fictional characters in similar situations, they can't get enough. 

Even in a story about a man alone on an island (Cast Away) there is a complex relationship. Tom Hanks plays Noland, whose connections in life are superficial. When he gets stranded alone on an island, his need for a relationship grows so intense, he turns a ball into a companion named Wilson. We infer Wilson’s personality from the dialogue and behaviors of Noland. We relate to Noland and feel his desperation not to lose his only companion. We grieve with Noland when he does lose Wilson and we cheer when after Noland is rescued he realizes he has hope and the skills for a better, more connected life in the future.

For your story to matter to your reader, they must care about your characters. Seed in bits and pieces that hint of complex relationships that matter to your characters and you will have character relationships your readers find irresistible.  

How do your favorite character relationships (in something you’ve written or read) show their complexity?

About Lynette

Lynette M. Burrows is an author, blogger, creativity advocate, and Yorkie wrangler. She survived moving seventeen times between kindergarten and her high school graduation. This alone makes her uniquely qualified to write an adventure or two.

Her Fellowship series is a “chillingly realistic” alternate history in 1961 Fellowship America where even the elite can be judged a sinner and pursued by the Angels of Death. Books one and two, My Soul to Keep, and  If I Should Die, are available everywhere books are sold online. Book three, And When I Wake, is scheduled to be published in early 2025.

Lynette lives in the land of OZ. She is a certifiable chocoholic and coffee lover. When she’s not blogging or writing or researching her next book, she avoids housework and plays with her two Yorkshire terriers. You can find Lynette online on Facebook or on her website.

As an indie author you will have a tool kit. Whether it is for writing, publishing, formatting, or advertising, there are so many ways to do what needs to be done to publish your book. Today we are going to talk about part of the publishing tool kit.

One of the things you’ll be asked when you start publishing a book on KDP (Kindle Direct Publishing) is what keywords and categories you want your book listed in. This is where it comes in really handy to know your genre and other authors you want to target. This is an important step because it tells Amazon where to place your book on their shelves. And you want to be on the right shelf.

Note: When you publish with a publisher, whether they are a small press or a large press, you will never see the KDP dashboard, only the publisher can see it, so you won’t have any control over where they place your books. As a self-published author, not only do you have control, but if your book is not doing well in one category, you can go in and tweak it and put it in another.

How do you find the "right" keywords and categories?

You’re allowed 7 keywords and 2 categories. So, what is the best way to find those categories and keywords?

There are two ways to go about this…

1. You can go to Amazon and type your genre in the search bar.

I did a search for Vampire Urban fantasy. You can see in the screen shot below that along the left side there is a section called Departments. You can click in those departments and look at the books that show up on the main screen. This will help you narrow down your search and find the books and authors that yours would fit in with. By clicking on books you think yours is similar too, you can look at what categories they are placed in.

That’s the hard way…

2. The easy way. You can purchase an app called Publisher Rocket.

It is a one-time purchase of $199.00. If I could only buy two programs to help me publish, this would be one of them. We’ll get to the other in another post. Publisher Rocket takes all the work out of searching for keywords and categories.

I am going to add a bunch of screen shots to show you how easy it is.

Some Definitions

When you open up Rocket this is what you will see. I’m going to go through what each of those items means.

Keyword Search

The name says it all. This is where you would type in your genre and have Rocket generate some of the keywords you can place your book into. But as you can see in the screen shot, it not only gives you the keywords, but allows you to click on Analyze and it will show you a whole bunch of other information.

Competition Analyzer

This one will show you how much other authors are making in the specific search you typed in. So, I typed in Vampire Urban Fantasy and this is what came up. There was a lot more, but I cropped the picture.

Now if you want to go deeper, I would take the highest ranked and highest selling books and click on them. See what categories they are in, what their blurb looks like, and try to mimic what they are doing.

Category Search

This one will help you find your categories on amazon. It does help to have a basic idea of where you want to start with this one. Screen shot one shows you the front screen before you start digging in.

This second screen shot shows you what happens when you enter a search term. I picked science fiction and fantasy because it is what I write.

Now my book doesn’t fit in all of those categories, mostly the romance, so I wouldn't use those, but I would go through this list and find the best ones that fit my book.

AMS Keyword Search

This the section you would use when you are running AMS ads through Amazon. Once again, some great information in here. It gives you the titles, authors, AISN numbers, and the ability to export all of this into a spreadsheet to use for your ads.

I come to this section often to get new keywords for ads.

Final Thought

I am not trying to sell Publisher Rocket, but like I said it is one of my favorite tools. If you enjoy research, then you can skip Rocket and do all the same in the Amazon search bar. You will not get all the sales information, but you can get everything you need to set up your keywords and categories.

Note: Amazon says you can only have two categories on KDP, but if you email Amazon with a list of other categories you would like your book to be placed in, they will add up to six more.

This seems like a lot of information, so I am going to end this post here and take a nap.

Are there any other authors out there who have some other handy tips and tricks to help find categories and keywords? Please share them down in the comments!

About Jenn

Sass. Snark. Supernatural Sizzle. 

Award winning author of Urban Fantasy and Paranormal Romance. Vampires, Greek gods, and a bit of Demon Destroyer fun for everyone.

Jenn Windrow loves characters who have a pinch of spunk, a dash of attitude, and a large dollop of sex appeal. Top it all off with a huge heaping helping of snark, and you’ve got the ingredients for the kind of fast-paced stories she loves to read and write. Home is a suburb of it’s-so-hot-my-shoes-have-melted-to-the-pavement Phoenix. Where she lives with her husband, two teenagers, and a slew of animals that seem to keep following her home, at least that’s what she claims.

Website: https://jennwindrow.com/

Top photo purchased from Depositphoto. All others are from Jennifer Windrow.

By Kris Maze

World-building is often seen as something exclusive to fantasy or sci-fi, but in Young Adult (YA) fiction, it’s essential for every genre. From gritty contemporary urban settings to imaginative adventure worlds, every YA book needs to immerse its readers into a believable reality. A reality based on a teen's world view, whether that’s in a high school, a fantastical kingdom, or a futuristic city.

In part two of this YA writing series, let’s dive into examples from some popular YA novels and break down how they build their worlds. Want to read about YA characterizations? Read part one of this series here.

Worldbuilding examples for YA Writers

1. Reflect Social Structures Through Setting

In contemporary settings, the world teens inhabit often revolves around school and social dynamics. Like in One of Us is Next, the high school environment can be a breeding ground for tension and secrets. In this novel, the high school becomes a world of its own, with social politics and the tension of constantly being watched. See how these descriptive examples about the book’s setting bring the suspense?

“The school is full of secrets, and everyone’s trying to figure out everyone else’s. It’s like a live-action mystery game.”

“There’s an unspoken rule at Bayview High: if you’re not part of the in-crowd, you’re invisible.”

“The cafeteria’s like a chessboard, where every move—who you sit with, who you talk to—has consequences.”

Social hierarchies are integral to YA contemporary stories and writers can use this to heighten the tension in their stories. When you create contemporary worlds, one option is to use the school setting as a microcosm. The high school setting can become a character itself, filled with unspoken rules and hidden motives. Reflect the social pressures and hidden drama teens experience, whether it’s academic stress, cliques, or one’s reputation.

Try it:

• Map Out Social Landscapes: Define the cliques, rivalries, and hierarchies that shape your characters' world. These structures can influence how characters act and interact.
• Build Hidden Tensions into the Setting: Use locations (like jungle-like cafeterias or narrow, student-filled hallways) to symbolize unspoken rules or power struggles.
• Turn the Setting into a Character: Make the high school, neighborhood, or city an active participant in the plot, with rules and dynamics that influence the characters’ decisions.
• Use Public vs. Private Spaces: Highlight how characters behave differently in private (home, quiet corners) vs. public (school, social events) spaces.

2. Let Emotions Shape the World Around Your Characters

In All The Bright Places, Jennifer Niven uses physical locations to mirror the emotional states of her characters. The world feels simultaneously beautiful and heavy, creating an affecting backdrop to Finch and Violet’s emotional journey.

“The top of the Ferris wheel was a different world, where everything below looked like a miniature model, and for a moment, the pain of life seemed distant.”

“The back of the library is a sanctuary of forgotten stories and hidden dreams, a place where time feels suspended.”

“In the middle of the river, we are weightless, like we’re floating above everything that’s trying to drown us.”

The settings reflect the characters’ emotional landscapes—places of both escape and suffocation, reflecting their internal struggles. This not only grounds readers in a vivid, relatable place but also adds an emotional depth that makes the setting resonate long after the story ends. Whether it’s a sanctuary or a place of tension, let the world mirror the inner lives of your characters.

 

Try it:

• Match Mood with Setting: If your character is feeling overwhelmed, describe their surroundings as oppressive or claustrophobic. If they’re feeling hopeful, open up the setting—wide horizons, airy spaces.
• Emphasize Shifts in the World: Let the character’s emotional journey affect how they perceive familiar spaces—what once felt safe may become threatening as their feelings evolve.
• Use Physical Landmarks to Reflect Change: A character’s evolving relationship with a specific location (a treehouse in their backyard, Grandma’s kitchen, or museum once visited) can show their emotional growth or descent.
• Weave in Nature or Weather: Use changes in weather or nature to symbolize internal conflict or peace.

3. Engage the Senses to Deepen World-Building

In I’ll Give You the Sun, the world is experienced through the characters' artistic eyes. This makes the setting feel like living, breathing canvases. Sensory details make a setting immersive and emotionally charged. Jandy Nelson’s novel stands out in contemporary YA novels because the setting feels like a piece of art, building not just a physical space but an emotional one.

“The world is a canvas, and we’re just splashes of color trying to make sense of the chaos.”

“Every corner of the house has its own story, like a gallery of our lives and memories.”

“The beach is endless, stretching toward an ocean that’s both wild and serene, just like us.”

Nelson creates a vibrant, sensory experience for the reader. The world is full of color, sound, and feeling, making it resonate and linger with readers. Think beyond just physical description—layer in sensory details to make your world feel alive. This is especially effective if your character sees the world through a unique lens, like an artist or musician.

Try it:

• Describe More Than Just What’s Seen: Include sounds, textures, and smells to make a setting come alive for the reader. How does the world feel against the character’s skin? What does the air taste like?
• Use Artistic Language When It Fits: If your character has a creative background, let that influence how they perceive the world. A painter might notice colors and light, while a musician might be attuned to sounds.
• Make Settings Reflect Creativity or Despair: Show how the state of the world (organized vs. chaotic, vibrant vs. dull) reflects your characters’ internal state, especially in emotionally charged moments.
• Balance Detail with Action: Ensure sensory details don’t slow the pacing—let them heighten the world without overshadowing the story.

4. Use Contrasts to Add Depth to Your World

In Shadow and Bone, Bardugo’s fantasy world is rich with contrasts—between wealth and poverty, light and dark, for example. Leigh Bardugo’s book introduces a rich fantasy world where contrasts in the setting reflect the larger conflict within the story. These contrasts create tension and reveal underlying themes.

“The Shadow Fold was a place where the sun’s light was swallowed by darkness, and monsters prowled the empty, blackened land.”

“Ravka is a country of contrasts, where the opulence of the capital city stands in stark contrast to the poverty of the outskirts.”

“The Little Palace was a thing of beauty, gleaming with golden domes, while the rest of the kingdom seemed to crumble under the weight of its own despair.”

In Shadow and Bone, the stark contrasts in the setting reflect the tensions between characters, highlighting divisions of class, power, and danger. Fantasy, dystopian, or even contemporary settings can benefit from placing stark differences side by side. This sets up a world that feels real, full of tension and high stakes. Use contrasts in your world-building to reflect the themes of your story.

Try it:

• Highlight Class Divisions: In dystopian or fantasy worlds, sharp differences in wealth, power, and status can be reflected in the settings—luxurious castles vs. run-down villages.
• Contrast Light and Dark: Symbolize hope and despair through physical spaces—bright, open areas for safety or optimism; dark, confined places for danger or fear.
• Create Geographical Opposites: Use contrasting locations to deepen the world, such as cold, distant mountains versus warm, bustling cities, to reflect opposing forces or ideologies.
• Layer Social Conflict into the Setting: Let the geography itself serve as a battleground for conflicting values—urban vs. rural, rich vs. poor, controlled vs. wild.

5. Make Future Worlds Feel Relevant to Today

In Burning Bright, futuristic world-building is grounded in themes and issues relevant to the present. Think of present day themes important to us today, such as technological advancements and environmental change. Alexa Donne’s Burning Bright uses futuristic settings to offer a glimpse into a possible future that still feels grounded in the present.

“The floating city is a marvel of technology, suspended in the sky like a beacon of hope and innovation.”

“The remnants of Earth’s past are scattered like relics, and the new world we’ve built is a testament to our resilience and ambition.”

“The artificial sun bathed the city in light, but beyond its glow lay the darkness of an uninhabitable world.”

The setting is awe-inspiring but rooted in concerns we face today, like sustainability, innovation, and survival. This makes the world relatable, even if it’s set in the far future. If you’re writing futuristic or sci-fi settings, tie them back to current concerns. This not only grounds your world but makes it easier for readers to connect emotionally.

Try it:

• Link to Current Global Concerns: Base your futuristic world on today’s real-world problems, like climate change or societal inequality, so readers can draw connections.
• Show the Evolution of Today’s Tech: Incorporate familiar technology that’s advanced, but recognizable—drones, AI, or environmental tech—to make your futuristic world relatable to the needs humans have and predictably would have in the future.
• Demonstrate Human Adaptation: Show how humans in your world have evolved to survive (mentally, physically, or culturally) in a new environment.
• Highlight Cultural Continuity: Even in a futuristic setting, include remnants of today’s culture to ground the reader—traditions, pop culture, or language changes.

Effective world-building in YA fiction is about more than just creating a backdrop. It’s about immersing readers in a space that feels as dynamic and complex as your characters’ emotional lives. Remember to let your setting shape the story just as much as your characters do!

Resource List - YA Novels List

The books used in this deep dive in YA series were chosen based on popularity with students (determined by how often they were checked out and how many copies were in circulation). These titles are all within the YA bounds primarily because of the main character's age, but also for the themes, topics, and other important aspects of Young Adult writing. See the details below for each novel.

Title	author	year pub	genre (ya)
One of Us is Next	Karen M. McManus	2020	MTS
All The Bright Places	Jennifer Niven	2015	contemporary YA
I'll Give You the Sun	Jandy Nelson	2014	contemporary YA
Shadow and Bone	Leigh Bardugo	2012	Fantasy
Burning Bright	Alexa Donne	2018	Sci-fi, gothic mystery, romance
Don't Ask Me Where I'm From	Jennifer De Leon	2020	Contemporary YA
The Last True Poets of the Sea	Julia Drake	2019	Romance
Just Listen	Sarah Dessen	2006	Contemporary YA
The Mary Shelley Club	Goldy Moldavsky	2021	horror, mystery, romance
Gravity	Sarah Deming	2019	sports novel, contemporary
A Girl Named Disaster	Nancy Farmer	1996	coming-of-age, survival fiction
The Knife of Never Letting Go	Patrick Ness	2008	Sci-fi

Creating Worlds That Teens Want to Live In (Or Escape From)

World-building in YA is about more than just describing a place—it’s about creating an environment that feels as emotionally rich and complicated as the characters themselves. Whether you’re crafting a dystopian society, a fantastical kingdom, or a high school filled with secrets, your world should be vivid, immersive, and reflective of your story’s deeper themes. Keep these examples in mind as you create your next YA masterpiece, and let your setting become a character in its own right!

About Kris

Kris Maze is an author, writing coach, and teacher. She has worked in education for many years and writes for various publications, including Practical Advice for Teachers of Heritage Learners of Spanish and the award-winning blog Writers in the Storm where she is also a host. You can find her horror stories and young adult writing on her website. Keep up with future projects and events by subscribing to her newsletter.

Find her newest collection of spooky stories HERE .

A recovering grammarian and hopeless wanderer, Kris enjoys reading, playing violin and piano, and spending time outdoors. And sometimes she chaperones a Homecoming dance.