Twisted realism.

I try to stay as realistic as possible when I write. I don't like to muddle my points in fantasy, mostly because I tell myself I'd never be able to craft anything highly fantastical that would ever be worth reading. I tend to focus on painful moments in characters lives and build around those. That's why John Green's Looking for Alaska and The Fault in Our Stars are so powerful to me. Yes, I read the latter the night that my high school crush gave it to me, but I cared about the story because it felt as real as my relationship with that friend.

I tend to credit him for getting me to care about writing. After all, I read Looking for Alaska on my way into 10th grade, and in 11th I ws in Honors English because I had proven that I cared enough to do it. That I wanted to succeed. It wasn't until college that I started to write my own stuff, and it wasn't until senior year that I really took it seriously. And I ended up in second place in a short story contest on campus.

I also like to try to conceal any important information as long as possible, in a show vs. tell sort of way. It's much more important to have the reader along for the ride in the sense that they are engaged in the mystery. No good twist is complete without a good reveal, and there's got to be good build-up for that reveal, or the whole story tanks. Unreliable/untrustworthy narrators make that fun.