Becky Flade, Author

Since this post was first published, I've released a total of 7 books (comprising two separate series of romantic thrillers: The Fated Series and Philly Heat), 4 erotic novellas, a collection of noir short stories, a young adult zombie apocalypse novella, and two audio books. And Fall to Pieces the second book in my Philly Heat Series recently won the 2022 RONE Award for best thriller/suspense. But still each new submission, each new release, inspires more nerves. 😳 If you ever meet an author who claims to not be insecure... they're lying.

I’m a proud member of the boob-tube generation. I love television. I love movies. Having grown up during the eighties, I have a childish love of action flicks and tend to deride the romantic comedy. Luckily, for me, my reading and writing pleasures don’t necessarily conform to my viewing preferences. In point of fact, I don’t enjoy reading westerns but ♥ watching them. Legal dramas are compelling entertainment, but I am reluctant, despite my day job, to try my hand at writing one as I don’t enjoy reading them. The show Longmire, in my opinion much under-rated, wonderfully combines law and order with cowboy sensibilities. You wouldn’t think it would work, but dear Lord it really does. After A&E cancelled the show, Netflix grabbed it up & new episodes will air! The characters are complex, flawed and heroic. The storytelling is top-notch. And I can’t find fault with the cinematography – it’s visually stunning. There are times when the setting and the score speak volumes tho...

I’ve been running a book versus movie theme lately, ha, didn’t even realize it. But I’ve got another one. Love Joss Whedon [except for Buff-me – I wasn’t a fan] and my favorite work of his is Firefly/Serenity. The slash is because I equally love the movie and the short-lived television show. When I’m on a good run with my writing, I like to pop in the tv show; I have the box set. The rhythm, the pacing, the score, I find it soothing, even with the gunshots. [I don’t do silence well. For some reason, when working on something, anything, that I want to devote my attention to, I need noise to concentrate. Too much noise, I get a little nuts. But if it’s silent, I can’t focus my brain. It’s like there is so much going on in my head that it needs a distraction.] I had Serenity on yesterday and I was watching it, as opposed to writing thru it. And it occurred to me that I love the dialogue. In my opinion, dialogue has its own cadence that is particular to the individual writ...

James Cameron’s Avatar is a big deal, technologically speaking. Without the bells and whistles, it is still a decent story. It should be because it worked extraordinarily well for Kevin Costner’s Dances with Wolves. But hey, Kevin wasn’t the first one to tell that particular tale because you can take the man with the gun falling for the native princess and aligning himself with her tribe all the way back to Pocahontas. Are you having an OMG moment? Or did you recognize that Avatar is simply a high-tech retelling of a seminal story featuring a blue Pocahontas? OMG! It’s unfortunate, but most stories in film or on television can be traced back to an earlier version. Pretty Woman is Pygmalion. Supernatural – Cain and Able [note: the writers of that show acknowledge and seem to embrace their connection to the old testament fable about good and evil]. And so on…. In literature, we refer to the phenomenon of recurrent themes as TROPES. And that’s not a dirty word. Because ...

In a recent conversation with The Hubz I said, I like my good guys to be good guys and my bad guys to be bad. I prefer when the white hats and black hats are clearly defined. Specifically, I have a hard time rooting for the protagonist in a story where the ‘hero’ is a gangster and the ‘villain’ is a member of law enforcement just trying to mete out justice. And it's as simple as that. Every story has some necessary basic elements, kind of like a letter. Remember, back in the day being taught the parts of a letter? I don’t think they do that anymore. Sad. Some things are need to know and the proper way to write a letter is one of them. I digress. A letter has an introduction, a body and a conclusion. So does a story. A story also has a protagonist, an antagonist and a conflict between them that requires resolution. No matter what story you’re telling you need these things or your tale is incomplete and your readers will track you down on social media and roast your virtual ...

I wrote Fated Souls because I needed to get the story out. I published it because it was a dream of mine to be published. Knowing other people have read it, even enjoyed it, that the characters that only lived in my mind came alive for someone else, is an amazing feeling. I never expected to become rich or famous. It’s not unlike the endless supply of high school/college athletes and the meager availability of professional contracts. And I’m okay with that because I went in eyes wide open. I’m doing this for my soul ; not my bank account. I guess this is why recent events in the publishing industry have struck at me as heartbreakingly sad: an author who possibly launched an ugly publicity stunt to elevate her book sales; another who insulted her fan base; a third pulled a bait and switch; and then a vicious act of plagiarism. I, like a great many struggling authors I have had the privilege of getting to know the past six months, are scrapping just to get our books noticed. R...