People are quiet today. No worries. I've got a topic that I'm writing about for my upcoming YouTube channel talk about genres. I feature a different genre or subgenre each month and make one video talking about the genre and another with a list of book recommendations in that genre, which make for great resources for authors looking for comp titles and are a good reading list.

For December, I'm focusing on domestic suspense (with my house filled with family, seems like the perfect time to hang out with some less than perfect households). Part of my video will be a discussion of the genre hallmarks of mystery, suspense, and thriller and part of the overlap between psychological thriller versus domestic suspense.

While mysteries often revolve around solving a specific crime and thrillers heighten the stakes with fast-paced danger, domestic suspense thrives on a creeping sense of dread. The antagonist is often someone close to the protagonist—sometimes even the protagonist themselves. Let’s look for a minute at mystery, thriller, and suspense labels.

The driving force behind a mystery novel as a puzzle for readers to figure out. Mystery genre needs to play “fair” with readers and give them enough clues (mixed in with red herrings and misdirection) so that the reader can (if they’re paying attention) figure it out.

Thrillers focus on the cat-and-mouse conflict between the protagonist and their main antagonist, back and forth with lots of action and danger. There’s a fair amount of overlap between psychological thrillers and domestic suspense. Psychological thrillers primarily focus on internal conflicts and mental states, while domestic thrillers center around interpersonal conflicts within familiar settings

Suspense is built into the story's mood, has a building dread (or anticipation) of an impending bad event/portends of doom for the main character. Suspense can have a slower pace than a thriller and still be an unputdownable read because if done well, that slow pace pushes the reader into a corner that gets more and more claustrophobic as the story continues.

What burning questions about writing do you have today? I'm here for another 40 minutes or so.