Bad Lit Friends

The Emotional Craft of Fiction Writing

This week, Meagan is away, and Kirk is joined by fantasy author Ann Wells for an in-depth conversation about the emotional craft of fiction writing: how to bring all the feels instead of just pelting readers with plot points and explosions for 300 pages. We talked about interiority, emotional layering, flawed characters, trauma done well versus trauma...um...not done well, and why you should give readers a chance to breathe (hint: so you can emotionally destroy them again.) Also discussed: horror novels, Soviet bowling alleys, Studio Ghibli, Heath Ledger’s Joker, and the deeply cursed YA Tough Girl archetype. Ann breaks down how she approaches emotional arcs in her own writing, including the challenge of balancing dread, wonder, longing, and fear. Kirk mostly uses this as an opportunity to realize he now has to go back and rewrite all his books. Again. No Hot Goss this week (booooo!) but you're gonna love us anyway! Welcome to Bad Lit Friends. We're glad you're here, even if none of us know what we're doing. Bad Lit Friends was created and is hosted by Meagan Thompson-Mann and Kirk Rafferty. Show email: ⁠⁠badlitfriends@gmail.com⁠⁠ Bluesky: ⁠⁠⁠⁠@badlitfriends.bsky.social⁠⁠⁠⁠ [https://bsky.app/profile/badlitfriends.bsky.social]  Threads: ⁠⁠⁠⁠@badlitfriends⁠⁠⁠⁠ [https://www.threads.com/@badlitfriends]  Instagram: ⁠⁠⁠⁠@badlitfriends⁠⁠⁠⁠ [https://www.instagram.com/badlitfriends/] YouTube: ⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.youtube.com/@BadLitFriends⁠⁠ [⁠⁠https://www.youtube.com/@BadLitFriends] Website: ⁠⁠⁠⁠badlitfriends.com⁠⁠ [https://www.badlitfriends.com/]⁠ Show notes: Go visit Anne's website and sign up for her newsletter so you can get her free short story! https://aewells-writes.com And give Anne a follow on Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/a.e.wells.writes/ Books: Craft books: The Emotional Craft of Fiction by Donald Maass Story Genius by Lisa Cron Kirk's recommended horror reads: The Buffalo Hunter Hunter American Rapture by C. J. Leede Anne's recommended Fantasy read: Gardens of the Moon by Steven Erikson

The Author Industrial Complex

This week we're talking about all the ways authors are pulled in opposing directions: branding, marketability, genre expectations, comp titles, platform anxiety, and the increasingly cursed reality that writing a book also requires becoming a product. We unpack the push-pull between art and commerce, why publishing wants your book to be both completely original and exactly like three recent bestsellers, and the emotional consequences of trying to stay authentic while also remaining marketable. And in Hot Goss: a querying writer decides to get a little too creative, and we remind everyone that a query letter is, in fact, a professional document. Welcome to Bad Lit Friends. We're glad you're here, even if none of us know what we're doing. Bad Lit Friends was created and is hosted by Meagan Thompson-Mann and Kirk Rafferty. Show email: ⁠⁠badlitfriends@gmail.com⁠⁠ Bluesky: ⁠⁠⁠@badlitfriends.bsky.social⁠⁠⁠ [https://bsky.app/profile/badlitfriends.bsky.social]  Threads: ⁠⁠⁠@badlitfriends⁠⁠⁠ [https://www.threads.com/@badlitfriends]  Instagram: ⁠⁠⁠@badlitfriends⁠⁠⁠ [https://www.instagram.com/badlitfriends/] YouTube: ⁠⁠⁠https://www.youtube.com/@BadLitFriends⁠ [⁠⁠https://www.youtube.com/@BadLitFriends] Website: ⁠⁠⁠badlitfriends.com⁠ [https://www.badlitfriends.com/]⁠

BLF Court Is Now in Session: Archetypes on Trial

Oyez! Oyez! Oyez! The Court of Bad Lit Friends is now in session, and the defendants have been waiting a looooong time for their day of reckoning. In this episode, we don our very snazzy judicial robes and put character archetypes on trial, because after five thousand years of showing up in every story ever told, it's time to ask some tough questions. Are these archetypes still earning their keep, or just showing up for a paycheck? Are they so trite and ubiquitous that they need to be escorted from the building post haste? The BLF tribunal will decide and while the quality of mercy is not strained, not every ruling will droppeth as the gentle rain. The verdicts may surprise you. Or not. You know what we’re like by now. Plus: Hot Goss takes a hard right turn into territory we cannot fully explain that will become immediately obvious when you listen to the episode. What we will say is this: some aesthetic choices are not defensible in a court of law or anywhere else. No further questions; the prosecution absolutely rests. Welcome to Bad Lit Friends. We're glad you're here, even if none of us know what we're doing. Bad Lit Friends was created and is hosted by Meagan Thompson-Mann and Kirk Rafferty. Show email: ⁠⁠badlitfriends@gmail.com⁠⁠ Bluesky: ⁠⁠@badlitfriends.bsky.social⁠⁠ [https://bsky.app/profile/badlitfriends.bsky.social]  Threads: ⁠⁠@badlitfriends⁠⁠ [https://www.threads.com/@badlitfriends]  Instagram: ⁠⁠@badlitfriends⁠⁠ [https://www.instagram.com/badlitfriends/] YouTube: ⁠⁠https://www.youtube.com/@BadLitFriends [⁠⁠https://www.youtube.com/@BadLitFriends] Website: ⁠⁠badlitfriends.com [https://www.badlitfriends.com/]⁠ Show notes:  RMFW Colorado Gold Rush Literary Awards – submissions open through May 25, 2026: https://www.rmfw.org/colorado_gold_rush_literary_aw.php [https://www.rmfw.org/colorado_gold_rush_literary_aw.php] Romancing the Stone trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_LX2zfbF0Rs [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_LX2zfbF0Rs] The Pirate and the Pagan by Virginia Henley – the book Meagan was convinced had a main character named Rogue, but it’s not, it’s Ruark, and Meagan probably needs to take some Prevagen: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/886620.The_Pirate_and_the_Pagan [https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/886620.The_Pirate_and_the_Pagan]

By the Pricking of Our Thumbs: On Writing Villains

Description: This week, we’re talking villains: the delicious ones, the flat ones, and the ones you love to ruin your main characters' lives with. We get into what separates a villain from an antagonist, why your best bad guys need motives beyond “mwahaha” and twirly mustaches, and how to make them compelling. We also talk about why the most interesting villains are usually just your protagonist flipped inside-out (gross). We also unpack their own resident monsters, and why sometimes the real villain is, as ever, capitalism. In Hot Goss: the deeply suspect Manning Literary Agency, its eerily static TikTok “agent,” and the increasingly plausible theory that Nigel Carlisle is involved in a water-wasting, energy-sucking, environmentally-unfriendly AI-powered romance. We have questions. Rude questions. Welcome to Bad Lit Friends. We’re glad you’re here, even if none of us know what we’re doing. Bad Lit Friends was created and is hosted by Meagan Thompson-Mann and Kirk Rafferty. Show email: ⁠⁠⁠badlitfriends@gmail.com⁠ [⁠⁠badlitfriends@gmail.com]⁠⁠ Bluesky: ⁠⁠⁠@badlitfriends.bsky.social⁠⁠⁠ [https://bsky.app/profile/badlitfriends.bsky.social] Threads: ⁠⁠⁠@badlitfriends⁠⁠⁠ [https://www.threads.com/@badlitfriends] Instagram: ⁠⁠⁠@badlitfriends⁠⁠⁠ [https://www.instagram.com/badlitfriends/] YouTube: ⁠⁠⁠https://www.youtube.com/@BadLitFriends⁠ [https://www.youtube.com/@BadLitFriends]⁠⁠ Website: ⁠⁠⁠badlitfriends.com⁠⁠ [badlitfriends.com⁠] Show notes: Meagan has a $20 off coupon code for Dabble to share! Check show notes. https://app.dabblewriter.com?referralCode=8XMRGP2P [https://app.dabblewriter.com?referralCode=8XMRGP2P]  The Manning Literary Agency: Google it, we can't bring ourselves to actually link it. The Hamspsterdance song: https://youtu.be/6WpMlwVwydo [https://youtu.be/6WpMlwVwydo] The Pikes Peak Writers: https://pikespeakwriters.org/ [https://pikespeakwriters.org/] Rocky Mountain Fiction Writers Colorado Gold Conference: https://www.rmfw.org/conference_homepage.php [https://www.rmfw.org/conference_homepage.php] BLF After Dark: https://badlitfriends.com [https://badlitfriends.com]

(Mostly) Good Lit Friends: In Conversation with Regina Robbins

Kirk is at the Pikes Peak Writers Conference this week, so Meagan has done the only possible thing and invited her best friend since college, playwright/screenwriter/cultural critic/general force of nature Regina Alexandra Robbins [https://www.reginarobbins.com/] to come hang out. And hang out they do, in a conversation about writing across forms, making an actual career out of this whole storytelling thing, the deeply unhinged world of the Yale English Department in the early-to-mid 90s, Wuthering Heights (obviously), VC Andrews (also obviously), and the miniseries Lace. And in Hot Goss: what happens when readers decide fiction should function as a mirror at all times? Regina and Meagan have thoughts and they are correct. Kirk has not been replaced. We checked. (Apologies for the occasionally funky sound issues, which Dennis from Riverside was most decidedly UNHELPFUL in helping us fix. Dennis, you may be a good person but your future is not in customer support.) Welcome to Bad Lit Friends. We're glad you're here, even if none of us know what we're doing. Bad Lit Friends was created and is hosted by Meagan Thompson-Mann and Kirk Rafferty. Show email: ⁠⁠badlitfriends@gmail.com [⁠⁠badlitfriends@gmail.com]⁠⁠ Bluesky: ⁠⁠@badlitfriends.bsky.social⁠⁠ [https://bsky.app/profile/badlitfriends.bsky.social] Threads: ⁠⁠@badlitfriends⁠⁠ [https://www.threads.com/@badlitfriends] Instagram: ⁠⁠@badlitfriends⁠⁠ [https://www.instagram.com/badlitfriends/] YouTube: ⁠⁠https://www.youtube.com/@BadLitFriends [https://www.youtube.com/@BadLitFriends]⁠⁠ Website: ⁠⁠badlitfriends.com⁠ [badlitfriends.com⁠] Show notes: Regina’s website: www.reginarobbins.com [https://www.reginarobbins.com/] Regina on TDF Stages! /www.tdf.org/author/regina-robbins/ [https://www.tdf.org/author/regina-robbins/] Regina (as Robin Monica Alexander) on Popdose: /popdose.com/author/robin-monica-alexander/ [https://popdose.com/author/robin-monica-alexander/] Regina at Time Out New York: https://www.timeout.com/profile/regina-robbins [https://www.timeout.com/profile/regina-robbins] Gigi's Gen-X Singalong (cultural meditations and whatnot from the first decade of the 21st century): https://genxsingalong.wordpress.com/ [https://genxsingalong.wordpress.com/] Lefferts House (where the provisionally-titled Sugar Shock will be staged this September): https://www.prospectpark.org/visit-the-park/places-to-go/lefferts-historic-house/ [https://www.prospectpark.org/visit-the-park/places-to-go/lefferts-historic-house/] Important cultural moments discussed: 1939 Wuthering Heights (Oberon and Olivier): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3EAbYjIGNGw [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3EAbYjIGNGw] 1987 TV miniseries version of Flowers in the Attic: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cwtcpYQeCho [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cwtcpYQeCho] LACE! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jvZKJBIeArM [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jvZKJBIeArM]