March 15, 2025

Dash of Love: Romantic Subplots for Any Genre
Mysteries, thrillers, fantasy, sci-fi, historical, contemporary – novels of any genre can appeal to more readers (who beg for a sequel) with a solid romantic subplot (see “romantasy”). Learn tips and tricks from the romance genre to make sure your romantic subplot is enhancing the story, adding tension, and not landing flat. Learn about such topics as:

• The difference between a romance and a love story,
• How to avoid the dreaded “insta-love” label,
• The 12 stages of physical intimacy,
• A description of heat levels and how to avoid the cringe,
• Common romance tropes (and why tropes are a good thing), and
• Writing tips the keep readers enchanted with the “push and pull” of a compelling romantic subplot.

Miranda Darrow is an author, freelance fiction editor, and #RevPit online revision contest board member and contributing editor. She’s also a frequent presenter to writing groups, conferences, and online writing events. Miranda’s Concise Fiction Academy series of writing craft books and courses combines her experience as a freelance editor and a corporate attorney into an executive summary of complex writing topics. Miranda grew up in Wisconsin and now lives in Minnesota with her husband, teen boys, and a bossy little dog.

The History of Mystery – The Craft of the Murder Mystery from Godwin to Christie focuses on discovering the origins of the murder mystery genre before Agatha Christie.  The presentation provides a broad knowledge of many pre-Christie authors and their infamous works, which contributed to and influenced authors then as well as now.  The presentation will broaden your understanding of the development and background of the murder mystery genre by discussing the many works of the early murder mystery writers, leading up to the best of the best, Agatha Christie.  Come and enjoy learning more than ever about the wonderful world of murder! 

Judith Maupin openly and enthusiastically discusses the lifelong pursuit, fascination and appreciation of murder in its many forms from real life, television, movies, acting and in our beloved books. Not a great conversation starter, but it has been, however, a mainstay of Judith’s. While not pursuing murder, Judith enjoys her murder free real life with her twelve year-old twins and husband (who seems to need to sleep with one eye open) while imagining attempting to write a series of fiction murder books. locally based, fine tuning her murder mystery play and ongoing acting on stage in local theatrical murder mysteries. 

The Lakefly Writers Conference and Book Fair are sponsored by the Oshkosh Public Library in partnership with the Oshkosh Area Writers Club. Other sponsors include the Wisconsin Writers Association and Lake Literary Center, Fond du Lac.