Kelly Shade

My Actual Writing Process (Not the Romantic Version) There is no candlelit desk. No perfect routine. No soft blanky. No sudden inspiration where everything suddenly makes sense. There is coffee. Half-formed sentences. Arguing with fictional people. Deleting good paragraphs. Pretending I meant to do that all along. Tons of sticky notes and notebooks. A thousand interruptions from my children. Loud music blasting either from my AirPods or JBL Speakers. And a whole lot of smoke

Why “Trust Me” Is the Most Dangerous Line in Fiction (and in Real Life) There are scarier phrases than “I love you.” Scarier than “I promise.” Scarier than “everything will be fine.” Two words beat them all. Trust me. In fiction, it’s a warning. In real life, it’s usually a lesson. Because “trust me” is rarely said by people who deserve trust. It’s said by people who need it . In thrillers and mysteries, this line is an alarm. Not obvious but somehow... kind. And that’s exac

The “Suspect Board” Method: How I Plot Mysteries Without Losing My Mind I don’t plot mysteries in straight lines. I plot them like crimes. With motives, contradictions, timelines, and people who are absolutely lying to me on paper. The suspect board is how I keep my stories in organized chaos. It is not pretty. It is not aesthetic. It is not Instagram-friendly. But it works. A suspect board is exactly what it sounds like. A visual map of everyone who could be guilty, why they

Best Mystery / Thriller Tropes, Ranked by Chaos (for me) Not all tropes are created equal. Some are comforting. Some are predictable. And some are pure chaos in the best possible way. You know, those that make you whisper “oh no” while smiling. Those that ruin your sleep schedule and feed your trust issues at the same time. I’m ranking these tropes not by popularity, but by how emotionally dangerous they are. (in my opinion). 1. The Character You Trusted Is the Problem Nothin

Morally gray women don’t exist to inspire comfort. They exist to reflect reality. Because real strength doesn’t look perfect. It looks like a contradiction. And readers don’t fall in love with flawless characters. They fall in love with the ones who scare them a little. Jane Blake is not the nice one. She is the one who knows how to survive. To manipulate. To protect. To choose the wrong thing for the right reason. And that is exactly why she works. For years, female leads w

What I’ve Learned About People by Writing Fiction Writers are often asked if their characters are based on real people. The short answer? No… but also, kind of. See, I’m fascinated by psychology - why people think the way they do, what makes them tick, how they justify their actions. I want to see through the tiny cracks in their carefully constructed facades. And when I write, my characters become my personal psychology experiments. They don’t know it, of course (because, we

What It’s Like Moving to Different Countries Some people love stability. They plant roots, settle down, and build a life in one place. Me? I’ve lived in five different countries in Europe - Bulgaria, Denmark, Sweden, Spain, UK, and now Portugal - with my two kids and a dog in tow. So at this point, I’m basically an expert  in packing up our lives, throwing us into a new culture, and figuring out how to survive without looking like total tourists. The truth is, I’ve never felt

Some writers like to keep things light, happy endings, heartwarming moments, and a general sense that the world is mostly  a good place. I am not  one of those writers. I gravitate toward the dark, the unsettling, the raw emotions people don’t like to talk about. My stories explore trauma, fear, loss, psychological struggles... the things that linger in the back of your mind. And there’s a reason for that: I write what I know. Because life isn’t always lighthearted. People ar

Let’s get one thing straight: I did not  plan to be a writer. If you had asked me as a kid if I wanted to spend my life crafting stories, I would have laughed in your face... loudly, dramatically, probably with an eye-roll for emphasis. Writing? No, thanks. That was for sensitive, dreamy types. And where I grew up, creativity was basically a liability. You either built an armor of toughness, or you got crushed. So, I built the armor. I was the rebel. The badass. The one who d