The First Two Pages: “No Fault Murder” by Susan Kuchinskas

In April 2015, B.K. Stevens debuted the blog series “The First Two Pages,” hosting craft essays by short story writers and novelists analyzing the openings of their own work. The series continued until just after her death in August 2017, and the full archive of those essays can be found at Bonnie’s website. In November 2017, the blog series relocated to my website, and the archive of this second stage of the series can be found here.

This week continues a focus on contributors to Fault Lines: Stories by Northern California Crime Writers, an anthology produced by the Northern California Chapter of Sisters in Crime. Back in May I featured Deborah Lacy with her story “Please See Me,” and last week’s essay by Ana Brazil kicked off a series spotlighting three more contributors—a series which today features Susan Kuchinskas discussing the first two pages of her story “No Fault Murder.”

Susan is a novelist, short story writer, and more. Her debut novel, Chimera Catalyst, earned an honorable mention in the science fiction category at the San Francisco Book Festival, and the sequel, Singularity Syndrome, is due out next year. Her short stories have been published at Shotgun Honey, Switchblade, and elsewhere. But as you’ll see from her website, she’s written widely outside of genre fiction as well.

For a taste of her fiction—and her thoughts on writing fiction—check out the essay below.

Please use the arrows and controls at the bottom of the embedded PDF to navigate through the essay. You can also download the essay to read off-line.