Jun 16, 2026 · 43 min · 16 segments
Welcome back to the **Write Club Podcast** with Mary and Beth from the *Writing Magazine* and *Writers Online* team! This week, we are taking you behind the pages with the brilliant **Matthew…
Matthew SullivanGuestBethHostMaryHost
yeah yeah completely people using those those myths those urban legends to their own advantage Like the devil.
Yeah.
You wrote an article for a writing magazine and you discuss genre writing and you say that genre writers, we can set out to scratch the itch of familiarity for readers, but once we've learned the rules, we can break them.
And Midnight in Soap Lake has been described as cozy horror, one of the many new emerging sub-genres.
How do you feel about these less restrictive classifications?
Yeah, I feel like we should not be thinking too much about genre as we're writing.
So formulas are there for a reason, right? We're supposed to hit these particular beats, we're supposed to follow these particular patterns in storytelling.
Some of that is marketing and publicity, and some of that is kind of just the tradition of a particular genre.
But I think when we're writing, of course, we want to, you know, for writing a mystery, we want to have a body or what have you.
And I think that, you know, we were just talking about stories that can be somewhat forgettable.
that maybe are sticking so close to formula that they're not differentiating themselves from other stories, that they kind of blur together.
And I think as writers, when we have the opportunity to kind of use these formulas or these patterns as almost like a scaffolding, that we return to, but also force ourselves to be creative.
This is creative writing and to take risks and to innovate and to ask readers to kind of go along for the ride.
I mean, it's really like we live in this really amazing time for genre fiction.
There's so much being published that is just kind of Blurring the distinctions, blurring the lines between genres.
And I think that when we allow ourselves kind of permission to kind of go where the story tells us it wants to go, rather than thinking too much about like, where is the librarian going to shelve this? Then we're opening up an aspect of the creative process that is really wonderful.
It's about being creative and imaginative and kind of tapping into those things that got us to sit down in front of the computer in the first place or the pad and paper or the cave where we're doing cave painting, right? This is the creative act and we should be kind of immersing in that and digging into that rather than feeling like we have to kind of stay in our lane, otherwise we get published.
Like that's not really, you know, if the story is telling you to go somewhere, go there.
rather than thinking of the end point all the time.
Yeah.
Yeah,
yeah yeah completely people using those those myths those urban legends to their own advantage Like the devil.
Yeah.
You wrote an article for a writing magazine and you discuss genre writing and you say that genre writers, we can set out to scratch the itch of familiarity for readers, but once we've learned the rules, we can break them.
And Midnight in Soap Lake has been described as cozy horror, one of the many new emerging sub-genres.
How do you feel about these less restrictive classifications?
Yeah, I feel like we should not be thinking too much about genre as we're writing.
So formulas are there for a reason, right? We're supposed to hit these particular beats, we're supposed to follow these particular patterns in storytelling.
Some of that is marketing and publicity, and some of that is kind of just the tradition of a particular genre.
But I think when we're writing, of course, we want to, you know, for writing a mystery, we want to have a body or what have you.
And I think that, you know, we were just talking about stories that can be somewhat forgettable.
that maybe are sticking so close to formula that they're not differentiating themselves from other stories, that they kind of blur together.
And I think as writers, when we have the opportunity to kind of use these formulas or these patterns as almost like a scaffolding, that we return to, but also force ourselves to be creative.
This is creative writing and to take risks and to innovate and to ask readers to kind of go along for the ride.
I mean, it's really like we live in this really amazing time for genre fiction.
There's so much being published that is just kind of Blurring the distinctions, blurring the lines between genres.
And I think that when we allow ourselves kind of permission to kind of go where the story tells us it wants to go, rather than thinking too much about like, where is the librarian going to shelve this? Then we're opening up an aspect of the creative process that is really wonderful.
It's about being creative and imaginative and kind of tapping into those things that got us to sit down in front of the computer in the first place or the pad and paper or the cave where we're doing cave painting, right? This is the creative act and we should be kind of immersing in that and digging into that rather than feeling like we have to kind of stay in our lane, otherwise we get published.
Like that's not really, you know, if the story is telling you to go somewhere, go there.
rather than thinking of the end point all the time.
Yeah.
Yeah,
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