I write fiction rooted in Boaz, Alabama — stories shaped by memory, faith, family pressure, buried secrets, moral contradiction, and the long shadow of small-town certainty.
I also work with beginning novelists who want thoughtful, structure-based guidance as they draft, revise, and strengthen their stories.
This site is the home of my fiction, my storycoaching work, and my ongoing reflections on story, structure, mystery, and the making of the Boaz novels.
Fiction Rooted in Boaz, Alabama
My fiction begins in Boaz — not merely as a setting, but as a pressure chamber.
In these stories, the past does not stay buried. Old crimes echo through families. Churches shape what can be said and what must remain hidden. Reputations matter. Memory matters. Silence has consequences.
The novels explore truth, justice, faith, grief, small-town loyalty, and the courage it takes to ask forbidden questions.
Some of the characters are investigators. Some are lawyers. Some are teenagers seeing through the world they inherited. Some are ordinary people who discover that what they were taught to believe does not match what they have lived.
The fiction is where story does the persuading.
Story Coaching for Beginning Novelists
Writing a novel is one thing. Seeing the story clearly is another.
As a novelist and Fictionary Certified StoryCoach Editor, I work with beginning novelists who want help understanding what is working, what is missing, and how to strengthen the structure of their manuscript.
My focus is story-level guidance: character, plot, scene purpose, conflict, stakes, pacing, turning points, and the relationship between individual scenes and the larger story.
This is not proofreading. It is not copyediting. It is not a promise to fix a manuscript from the outside.
It is thoughtful, practical guidance for writers who want to see their stories more clearly and move forward with greater confidence.
Notes from the Story Desk
Notes from the Story Desk is where I write about fiction, structure, mystery, storycoaching, and the making of the Boaz novels.
Some posts may explore scene structure. Others may examine character, setting, memory, belief, small-town pressure, or the practical work of revising a novel.
The common thread is story: how stories are built, how they fail, how they deepen, and how they help us see what ordinary explanation often misses.
Read Notes from the Story Desk
The Tanner Files
The Tanner Files is an ongoing Substack publication written in the voice of Micaden Tanner, the fictional Boaz attorney at the center of The Boaz Scorekeeper.
Micaden has a long memory. He remembers the scandals people tried to forget, the wounds families learned not to name, and the moral contradictions small towns often dress up as tradition.
Part reflection, part case file, part reckoning, The Tanner Files explores truth, faith, justice, and the stories communities tell to protect themselves.
The Pencil-Driven Life
Some of my writing moves beyond fiction into presence, attention, deconstruction, aging, and the ordinary practice of living without a script.
That work now lives at The Pencil-Driven Life — a separate project about living after borrowed purpose falls away.
It is a quieter way to live, think, write, and begin again.
Begin Where You Are
If you are a reader, start with the Novels.
If you are writing a novel of your own, visit the Story Coaching page.
If you are interested in fiction, structure, mystery, and the making of stories, read Notes from the Story Desk.
And if you are looking for my reflective work on presence, deconstruction, consciousness, and ordinary life, visit The Pencil-Driven Life.
Richard L. Fricks 