Reimagineering Reality: A Writer’s Guide to Building Science Fiction That Feels True

By

Olivia Salter

Science fiction is not about the future.

That’s the illusion—the aesthetic of it. The ships, the cities, the augmented bodies, the artificial minds. The surface suggests distance. It suggests speculation. It suggests a world that hasn’t arrived yet.

But the truth is quieter—and more unsettling:

Science fiction is about pressure.

Pressure applied to reality—slowly, deliberately, until something gives.

Not all pressure is explosive.

Sometimes it’s incremental:

• A convenience that becomes a dependency
• A system that becomes a structure
• A tool that becomes a gatekeeper

At first, nothing seems broken.

But then something shifts.

A boundary blurs. A value erodes. A choice disappears.

And suddenly, the world hasn’t changed in a dramatic, cinematic way—it’s changed in a way that feels almost… reasonable.

That’s where science fiction lives.

Not in the leap.

In the slide.

Most writers approach science fiction by asking: What if this existed?

What if we had AI that could think? What if we could live forever? What if we could travel across galaxies?

These are interesting questions—but they’re incomplete.

Because they focus on the arrival of the idea, not its impact.

The better question is: What happens to people when it does?

What happens when intelligence is no longer rare?

Do humans redefine what “intelligence” means—or do they redefine what being human means?

What happens when death is no longer inevitable?

Do people become more careful with their lives—or more careless with others?

What happens when distance no longer matters?

Do relationships deepen—or do they dissolve under the weight of infinite access?

Technology doesn’t exist in isolation.

It enters ecosystems:

• Emotional ecosystems
• Economic ecosystems
• Social ecosystems

And when it enters, it pressurizes them.

It exposes fractures that were already there.

A world with perfect surveillance doesn’t create control.

It reveals how much control people are willing to accept in exchange for safety.

A world with memory implants doesn’t create truth.

It reveals how fragile truth already was.

A world with artificial companionship doesn’t create loneliness.

It reveals how deeply loneliness was embedded in human life to begin with.

This is why readers don’t stay for the technology.

Technology is a doorway.

Readers step through it—but they don’t linger there.

They move toward the consequences.

Because consequences are where meaning lives.

A device that can erase pain is interesting.

But a mother choosing whether to erase the memory of her child? That’s a story.

A system that assigns people their ideal partners is intriguing.

But a couple realizing their love exists outside the system—and deciding whether to trust it? That’s a story.

A machine that predicts crime is compelling.

But a person being punished for something they haven’t done yet—and beginning to become that person? That’s a story.

Consequences do something technology alone cannot:

They force characters into decisions.

And decisions reveal:

• Values
• Fears
• Contradictions

Under pressure, people don’t just react.

They transform.

Or they break.

And that’s the deeper truth:

Science fiction is not about imagining new worlds.

It is about applying enough pressure to this one…

…until it reveals what we were always capable of becoming.

Not someday.

But already.

1. Start with Reality—Then Distort It

Science fiction that resonates doesn’t invent from nothing. It mutates what already exists.

Take something familiar:

• Social media
• Surveillance
• Climate change
• Loneliness
• Capitalism
• Memory

Then push it one step further—not into absurdity, but into inevitability.

Weak concept: A city where people can upload their minds.

Stronger concept: A city where only the wealthy can afford to forget their trauma—and the poor are forced to remember everything.

The difference isn’t the idea. It’s the human cost embedded inside it.

2. Build Systems, Not Set Pieces

Amateur sci-fi builds cool moments.

Strong sci-fi builds systems that generate those moments naturally.

Ask:

• Who controls this technology?
• Who benefits?
• Who is exploited?
• What breaks when it scales?

A teleportation device isn’t just a machine. It’s:

• A new class divide
• A threat to borders
• A weapon
• A religious crisis

If your idea only creates spectacle, it will feel thin. If it creates systems of tension, your story will sustain itself.

3. Technology Is a Mirror, Not the Message

The purpose of science fiction is not to explain the future.

It is to expose the present.

Every invention in your story should reflect something human:

• Fear of being replaced
• Desire for control
• Inability to connect
• Hunger for immortality

If your story is about artificial intelligence, it is really about: What humans believe intelligence—and worth—actually are.

If your story is about space travel, it is really about: What we are trying to escape.

4. Make the World Coherent—Not Exhaustively Explained

Readers don’t need everything explained.

They need everything to feel consistent.

You don’t need to explain how the technology works in full detail. You need to understand:

• Its rules
• Its limits
• Its consequences

Bad worldbuilding: Long explanations, no impact.

Strong worldbuilding: Small details that imply a larger truth.

Example: Instead of explaining a dystopian healthcare system, show a character hesitating before calling an ambulance.

That hesitation is the world.

5. Anchor the Strange in the Intimate

The more surreal your world becomes, the more grounded your characters must be.

Give them:

• Specific desires
• Personal stakes
• Emotional contradictions

A story about interstellar war becomes real when:

• A soldier misses their child’s voice
• A pilot hesitates before pressing a button
• A scientist regrets what they created

Scale doesn’t create emotion. Specificity does.

6. Consequences Are the Engine

Every piece of technology should cost something.

If it doesn’t, it’s fantasy dressed as science fiction.

Ask:

• What does this take away?
• What does it corrupt?
• Who pays for it?

Immortality without consequence is boring.

Immortality where:

• Memory degrades
• Identity fractures
• Relationships become meaningless

—that’s a story.

7. Avoid Prediction—Embrace Possibility

Trying to “accurately predict the future” is a losing game.

Instead, explore plausible emotional truths.

Good sci-fi doesn’t say: “This will happen.”

It says: “If this happens, here’s what it will do to us.”

That’s what makes stories timeless.

8. Language Shapes the World

The way your characters speak reflects the world they live in.

• Do they use corporate language for emotions?
• Do they speak in shortened, efficient phrases?
• Are there words that no longer exist?

Language is worldbuilding.

If love is commodified, people won’t say “I love you.” They’ll say something like: “I’ve renewed my commitment tier.”

That’s not just dialogue. That’s cultural evolution on the page.

9. Let Mystery Exist

Not everything should be understood.

In fact, some of the most powerful science fiction leaves questions unanswered:

• Is the technology actually working as intended?
• Is the narrator reliable?
• Is this progress—or decay disguised as progress?

Mystery creates unease. Unease creates memory.

10. End with Transformation, Not Explanation

Your story should not conclude by explaining everything.

It should end with change.

Something must be different:

• The world
• The character
• The reader’s understanding

The best endings don’t close the door.

They leave the reader thinking: “This isn’t just fiction. This is already starting.”

Core Principle

Science fiction is not about imagining new worlds.

It is about revealing the one we already live in—by making it impossible to ignore.

Targeted Writing Exercises

1. The One-Step Distortion

Take a real-world issue and push it slightly forward:

• What changes?
• Who suffers?
• Who benefits?

Write a 500-word scene showing the impact—not explaining it.

2. System Mapping

Choose a piece of fictional technology and map:

• Economy
• Power structures
• Social behavior

Then write a scene where a character collides with that system.

3. Cost of Innovation

Create an invention that solves a problem.

Now: Write three ways it creates a worse problem.

Build a story around the unintended consequence.

4. Intimate in the Epic

Write a quiet, emotional scene inside a massive sci-fi setting:

• A breakup on a spaceship
• A funeral on Mars
• A confession in a virtual reality

Focus only on the human moment.

5. Language Evolution

Write a dialogue scene where:

• Common emotional words no longer exist
• Characters must express feelings through altered or artificial language

Let the reader feel what’s missing.

6. The Unanswered Question

Write a story where the central mystery is never fully resolved.

Focus on how uncertainty affects the character’s choices.

Final Thought

The future is not distant.

It only feels that way because we imagine it as a clean break—something that arrives fully formed, dramatic and undeniable. Flying cars. Colonized planets. Conscious machines.

But the real future doesn’t arrive like that.

It accumulates.

Quietly. Unevenly. Imperfectly.

It begins in small decisions:

• A feature added for convenience
• A policy justified as temporary
• A habit we adopt without questioning

None of these feel like turning points.

They feel reasonable.

That’s what makes them dangerous.

Because the future is not built through revolutions alone. It is built through normalization.

Something is introduced.

It solves a problem. Or appears to.

People resist it—at first.

Then they adapt.

Then they depend on it.

Then they cannot imagine life without it.

And by that point, the question is no longer: Should this exist?

The question becomes: How did we get here?

Science fiction lives inside that gap.

Not at the end of the timeline—but in the middle of the process.

While things are still shifting. While consequences are still unfolding. While it still feels reversible.

Your job as a science fiction writer is not to invent the future.

Invention is easy.

You can create anything:

• A device that reads minds
• A system that assigns purpose
• A world without death

But invention without interrogation is hollow.

It creates spectacle without substance.

Your job is to interrogate.

To look at what already exists—and refuse to accept it at face value.

To ask:

• Who does this serve?
• Who does it silence?
• What does it reward?
• What does it erode?

Interrogation is not cynicism.

It is attention sharpened into purpose.

To interrogate the present, you have to notice what others overlook.

The quiet shifts:

• The way language changes
• The way people trade privacy for ease
• The way systems become more opaque as they become more powerful

These are not background details.

They are origins.

When you write science fiction, you are not predicting what will happen.

You are tracing a line.

From now…

…to its logical conclusion.

Take something we already accept.

Not something extreme.

Something ordinary.

Something that feels too small to question.

Then follow it forward with discipline:

If this continues… If no one resists… If it scales… If it becomes policy… If it becomes culture…

What does it become?

A tool becomes infrastructure.

Infrastructure becomes dependence.

Dependence becomes control.

And control rarely announces itself.

It just becomes how things are.

But interrogation requires honesty.

Not exaggeration.

Not fear for its own sake.

Precision.

You are not asking: What is the worst possible outcome?

You are asking: What is the most truthful outcome?

Even if it’s subtle. Even if it’s slow. Even if it’s uncomfortable because it already feels familiar.

Because the most powerful science fiction does not feel impossible.

It feels inevitable.

It makes the reader uneasy not because it shocks them—

…but because it recognizes something they’ve already sensed, but never fully articulated.

To take what we accept…

…and examine it without flinching—

is to reveal its trajectory.

And once you see the trajectory, you cannot unsee it.

That’s where your story begins.

Not with invention.

But with a question, asked with clarity and courage:

“What does this become if no one stops it?”

And more importantly:

Who pays the price when it does?

Also see:

• The Craft of Writing Science Fiction that Sells by Ben Bova

The Pulse Beneath the Plot: Crafting Characters That Outlive the Story

By

Olivia Salter

What makes a story unforgettable?

Not the twists.
Twists shock—but shock fades. Once the surprise is known, it can’t be felt the same way twice.

Not the action.
Action excites—but without emotional stakes, it becomes noise. Movement without meaning.

Not even the premise.
A brilliant idea can hook a reader—but an idea alone cannot hold them.

Because readers forget plots all the time.
They misremember endings. They blur details. Entire sequences collapse into vague impressions—something happened, something big, something dramatic.

But they don’t forget people.

They remember the character who made the wrong choice—and why it hurt.
They remember the one who almost changed—but didn’t.
They remember the one who tried, failed, and tried again anyway.

They remember who broke them.
Not through spectacle—but through something quieter. More precise.
A line of dialogue that felt too real.
A moment of vulnerability that caught them off guard.
A decision that mirrored something they themselves once made—or were afraid to make.

They remember who felt real.
Not perfect. Not idealized. But flawed in ways that made sense. Contradictory in ways that felt human.
Characters who didn’t just exist on the page—but seemed to carry lives beyond it.

And most of all, they remember who stayed with them.

The character they kept thinking about hours later.
Days later.
Years later.

The one they argued with in their mind.
The one they wished had chosen differently.
The one they understood—even when they didn’t agree.

That kind of memory doesn’t come from spectacle.

It comes from connection.

Because when a reader connects with a character, the story stops being something they consume—and becomes something they experience.
The stakes feel personal. The tension feels internal. The outcome feels like it matters, not just to the character—but to them.

That is what gives a story weight.
That is what gives it longevity.
That is what gives it emotional gravity.

Not how big it is.
Not how clever it is.
Not how different it tries to be.

But how deeply it understands something true about being human—and dares to put that truth into a character who has to live through it.

What makes your story stand out is not the spectacle.

It’s the characters—the ones who bleed, hesitate, contradict themselves, and change—the ones who feel so real that when the story ends—they don’t.

Why Characters Matter More Than Everything Else

A story is not events. It is experience.

And experience requires someone to live through it.

A car chase is just noise until we care who’s behind the wheel.
A love story is empty until we understand what it costs to love.
A horror story is forgettable unless we feel the character’s fear as if it’s our own.

Readers don’t attach to what happens.
They attach to who it happens to—and why it matters to them.

This is why two stories can share the same plot and feel completely different.

Because character transforms structure into meaning.

The Illusion of “Interesting” Characters

Many writers try to make characters stand out by making them:

• More attractive
• More tragic
• More powerful
• More unique

But uniqueness is not what creates connection.

Recognition does.

A character becomes timeless when a reader says:

“That’s me.”
“I know someone like that.”
“I’ve felt that before.”

Authenticity will always outlast novelty.

The Core of an Authentic Character

At their deepest level, compelling characters are built from four interacting forces:

1. Desire (What They Want)

Not surface-level goals—but emotional hunger.

• Not: She wants to win the competition
• But: She needs to prove she is worthy of being seen

Desire drives action.
But more importantly—it reveals vulnerability.

2. Fear (What They Avoid)

Fear is the shadow of desire.

• If they want love → they fear rejection
• If they want power → they fear powerlessness
• If they want truth → they fear what it will cost

Fear creates hesitation, contradiction, and tension.

Without fear, characters feel artificial—because real people are never fully aligned with their desires.

3. Contradiction (What Makes Them Human)

Real people are inconsistent.

Your character should be too.

• The honest person who lies when it matters most
• The strong character who avoids emotional confrontation
• The loving partner who self-sabotages intimacy

Contradiction creates depth.
It forces readers to engage, not just observe.

4. Change (What It Costs Them to Grow)

A character who doesn’t change may still be interesting—but they won’t be transformative.

Change doesn’t mean becoming better.
It means becoming different in a meaningful way.

• They face what they avoided
• They lose what they depended on
• They accept a truth they resisted

The story ends, but the character evolves.

And that evolution is what lingers.

From Surface to Depth: The Three Layers of Character

To create characters that feel real, you must build beyond the visible.

Layer 1: The Exterior

What the world sees.

• Appearance
• Dialogue style
• Behavior
• Social identity

This is the mask.

Layer 2: The Interior

What they experience privately.

• Thoughts
• Emotional patterns
• Insecurities
• Beliefs

This is the truth they live with.

Layer 3: The Hidden Core

What they don’t fully understand about themselves.

• Repressed fear
• Misbelief about the world
• Emotional wound

This is where your story lives.

Because the plot is not about what happens externally—

It’s about what forces this hidden core to the surface.

The Secret to Multi-Genre Characters

A truly strong character can exist in any genre.

Why?

Because genre shapes events—but character shapes meaning.

Take the same character and place them in:

• A romance → their fear affects intimacy
• A thriller → their fear affects survival
• A horror story → their fear becomes literal

The external stakes change.

But the internal conflict remains the same.

That’s what makes a character portable, adaptable, and timeless.

The Character Test: Will They Be Remembered?

Ask yourself:

• If I remove the plot, is this character still compelling?
• Do they want something deeply human?
• Are they in conflict with themselves—not just others?
• Do they make choices that reveal who they are under pressure?
• Do they change in a way that feels earned?

If the answer is no, the story won’t hold.

Because plot can entertain—

But character is what endures.

A Workbook Approach to Character Creation

To move from concept to authenticity, treat character-building as exploration—not invention.

Step 1: Define the Emotional Core

• What do they want emotionally?
• Why haven’t they gotten it yet?

Step 2: Identify the Internal Barrier

• What belief, fear, or wound is stopping them?

Step 3: Create Contradictory Traits

• What makes them unpredictable—but believable?

Step 4: Design Pressure Points

• What situations will force them to confront themselves?

Step 5: Track Their Transformation

• Who are they at the beginning?
• Who are they at the end?
• What did it cost them to change?

Final Thought: Characters Are Not Created—They Are Revealed

You don’t build a character by stacking traits.

You build them by uncovering truth.

By asking harder questions.
By allowing contradiction.
By refusing to simplify what is complex.

Because the stories that last—the ones readers carry, revisit, and feel—

Are not remembered for what happened.

They are remembered for who it happened to.

And more importantly—

Who they became because of it.

Character: Exercises for Building Timeless, Authentic Characters

These exercises are designed to move you beyond surface-level character creation and into emotional truth, contradiction, and transformation. Treat them like a workbook—write, explore, revise, and discover.

Exercise 1: The Emotional Core (Desire vs. Reality)

Goal: Identify what your character truly wants beneath the surface.

Instructions:

1. Write your character’s external goal:

   • “They want to…”

2. Now go deeper. Ask why five times:

   • Why do they want this?
   • Why does that matter?
   • What happens if they don’t get it?

3. Rewrite the desire as an emotional need:

   • “They need to feel…”

Challenge:
Condense their emotional desire into one sentence that could apply across genres.

Exercise 2: Fear Mapping

Goal: Define what your character is avoiding—and why.

Instructions:

Complete the following:

• If they get what they want, they risk:
• The worst thing that could happen is:
• This fear comes from a past moment where:
• Because of this, they believe:

Twist:
Now write a scene where your character almost gets what they want—but their fear makes them sabotage it.

Exercise 3: Contradiction Builder

Goal: Create layered, human complexity.

Instructions:

Fill in both sides:

• They are the kind of person who __________
• But they also secretly __________

Examples:

• “They are fiercely independent… but crave validation.”
• “They value honesty… but lie when it protects them.”

Application: Write a short moment (150–300 words) where both sides of this contradiction appear in the same scene.

Exercise 4: The Mask vs. The Truth

Goal: Separate who your character pretends to be from who they are.

Instructions:

Create two columns:

The Mask (What Others See):

• How do they present themselves?
• What do they want people to believe?

The Truth (Internal Reality):

• What are they hiding?
• What are they afraid will be exposed?

Scene Prompt:
Write a dialogue where another character almost sees through the mask.

Exercise 5: The Hidden Core (The Misbelief)

Goal: Identify the internal lie driving your character.

Instructions:

Complete:

• Because of their past, they believe:
  (Example: “If I rely on people, I will be abandoned.”)

• This belief causes them to:

• This belief protects them from:

• But it also prevents them from:

Deepening:
Write a symbolic object or memory that represents this belief.

Exercise 6: Pressure Test (Character Under Stress)

Goal: Reveal who your character really is.

Instructions:

Place your character in three escalating situations:

1. A minor inconvenience
2. A personal conflict
3. A high-stakes crisis

For each, answer:

• What choice do they make?
• What does this reveal about them?
• Does their behavior align with who they think they are?

Exercise 7: The Breaking Point Scene

Goal: Force confrontation between desire and fear.

Instructions:

Write a scene where:

• Your character must choose between:
  • What they want
  • What feels safe

Requirements:

• Include hesitation
• Include internal conflict
• Show the cost of their choice

Exercise 8: Transformation Tracker

Goal: Map meaningful change.

Instructions:

Fill in:

• At the beginning, they believe:
• By the middle, this belief is challenged when:
• At the climax, they must decide whether to:
• By the end, they now believe:

Reflection:
What did they lose to gain this change?

Exercise 9: Genre Shift Test

Goal: Prove your character works across genres.

Instructions:

Take the same character and place them in:

• A romance scenario
• A thriller scenario
• A horror scenario

For each:

• What do they want?
• What do they fear?
• How does their internal conflict shape their decisions?

Insight:
Notice what stays the same—that’s the core of your character.

Exercise 10: The Memory Test

Goal: Ensure your character lingers with readers.

Instructions:

Answer:

• What is one moment where they are most vulnerable?
• What is one moment where they are most flawed?
• What is one moment where they change?

Now ask yourself:

If a reader remembers only one thing about this character—what should it be?

Exercise 11: Write the “Almost” Moment

Goal: Create emotional tension through near-success or near-failure.

Instructions:

Write a scene where your character:

• Almost confesses something
• Almost leaves
• Almost tells the truth
• Almost becomes who they need to be

But doesn’t.

Focus:
The power is in what doesn’t happen.

Exercise 12: Character Without Plot

Goal: Test raw character strength.

Instructions:

Write 300–500 words of your character doing something ordinary:

• Sitting alone
• Driving
• Cooking
• Waiting

Rule: Nothing “important” happens.

Question:
Is it still engaging? If yes—you’ve built a real character.

Final Exercise: The Truth Statement

Condense everything into one statement:

“This is a story about a person who ________, but must confront ________ in order to become ________.”

If this feels honest—not perfect, not polished, but true—

You’ve found your character.

Closing Thought

You don’t create unforgettable characters by making them extraordinary.

Extraordinary fades. It impresses in the moment, but it rarely lingers. A flawless hero, a perfectly witty protagonist, a character who always knows what to say or do—they may be admired, but they are rarely felt.

Because readers are not looking for perfection.

They are looking for recognition.

You create unforgettable characters by making them recognizable—in the quiet ways that matter. In the hesitation before they speak. In the choice they regret the moment it’s made. In the way they want something deeply but don’t fully understand why. In the way they hurt others while trying not to be hurt themselves.

Recognition lives in:

• The fear they can’t explain
• The desire they can’t suppress
• The contradiction they can’t resolve
• The change they resist until they no longer can

This is what makes a character feel real—not their uniqueness, but their truth.

Because readers don’t connect to characters who are better than them.

They connect to characters who are like them in the ways they don’t always admit.

The selfish thought.
The moment of weakness.
The need to be chosen.
The fear of not being enough.

When a reader sees that reflected back—clearly, honestly, without judgment—it creates something deeper than entertainment.

It creates ownership.

The story stops feeling like something they’re observing…
and starts feeling like something they’ve lived.

That’s why readers don’t remember perfection.

Perfection is distant. It cannot be entered. It cannot be shared.

But truth—especially the kind that is messy, uncomfortable, and unpolished—feels like it belongs to them.

It slips past the surface and settles somewhere deeper.
It echoes.
It stays.

And long after the plot is forgotten—after the twists blur and the details fade—

What remains is not what happened.

It’s who it happened to…
and the quiet, undeniable feeling that somehow—

it happened to them too.

Also see:

• Character Workbook for Fictional Writing: The most extensive and detailed character development guide for writers and authors

 

The Subconscious Novelist: A Professional Novelist's Guide to Subconscious Story Development and Systematic Outlining by A. M. Blanco

What if the greatest obstacle between you and your novel isn't writer's block, but the wall between your conscious and subconscious mind?

Every writer knows the feeling—that sense that there's a story within us yearning to be told, if only we could access it fully. Drawing on years of experience as both a novelist and certified hypnotist, A. M. Blanco has created this groundbreaking guide that reveals a powerful truth: your subconscious mind already knows the story you need to tell. What's missing is the bridge between your deeper creative wisdom and your conscious writing practice.

THE SUBCONSCIOUS NOVELIST presents a revolutionary system that transforms how you develop your novels. This isn't just another book about outlining—it's a complete framework for accessing your creative depths while maintaining professional-level structure. Through a carefully crafted sequence of exercises, you'll learn to:

Access your subconscious storytelling wisdom through proven hypnotic techniques

Learn to use the Tarot to tap into your Subconscious Storytelling mind

Harness the power of the Tarot-36 system—a groundbreaking integration of the 78 tarot cards with Polti's 36 dramatic situations—to unlock infinite story possibilities

Develop multidimensional characters and compelling plots that emerge organically from your creative unconscious

Learn how to use the 3 act story structure, the 8 sequences approach, the 12 universal story beats, and the 30 chapter model to create powerful stories

Create detailed, workable outlines in less than two weeks without sacrificing spontaneity

Transform vague story ideas into coherent, marketable novels with psychological depth

Use archetypal storytelling patterns to create narratives that resonate universally while remaining uniquely yours

Build a sustainable writing practice that honors both structure and inspiration

While geared primarily toward novelists, this book serves equally well for screenwriters seeking to deepen their storytelling craft and access their creative unconscious.

Whether you're a natural plotter looking to deepen your stories, or a pantser seeking a reliable system that won't stifle your creativity, this comprehensive guide offers something unprecedented: a repeatable process for accessing your infinite creative potential while maintaining the structural integrity your narrative demands.

The Tarot-36 system—found nowhere else—creates a direct channel to your storytelling subconscious, revealing character dynamics and plot structures that feel both surprising and inevitable. By mapping the dramatic situations that have powered stories for centuries onto the rich symbolic landscape of tarot, you'll discover narrative possibilities beyond what conscious planning alone could create.

Discover the power of systematic creativity. Turn your story ideas into fully developed novels and screenplays with confidence, consistency, and professional polish. Your subconscious already knows the way—let THE SUBCONSCIOUS NOVELIST show you how to listen.

About the Author 

A. M. BLANCO is a novelist, screenwriter, and author residing in South Florida. A dramatist and prose stylist with a poetically hypnotic and cinematic voice, he combines dramatic storytelling with noir, crime, suspense, and horror to create visceral narratives that fuse cosmic horror with psychological tension.

He is the author of Vulture and The Mortician. His fiction appeals to fans of True Detective, Supernatural, and Millennium, and is ideal for readers who enjoy the work of Thomas Harris, H.P. Lovecraft, John Langan, Tim Waggoner, Haruki Murakami, George Romero, Guillermo del Toro, Lars Kepler, and Stephen King.

As a professional writing coach, hypnotist, astrologer, and metaphysician, Blanco also writes non-fiction on the craft of writing and spirituality. His titles include The Subconscious Novelist, The Subconscious Novelist Workbook, Tarot for Novelists and Screenwriters: A Pocket Guide (The Subconscious Novelist), Tarot 36: Unlocking the Subconscious Storyteller Within, The Kingdom of God Within: Transformation through the Twelve Sacred Houses of Divine Consciousness for Spiritual Manifestation, and A Hypnotic Realization of Oneness.

He can be reached directly through the 9th House Books website.