She’s a writer all right, though her craft doesn’t exactly look like putting pen to paper.
When Alex Kropf ventured to write her second novel, a psychological suspense thriller and character study called The Murderer’s Best Friend, the North Vancouver-based scribe attempted to post it piece by piece on Instagram. She wasn’t necessarily convinced of social media’s ability to be a revolutionary medium for artistic expression, but she was curious how the platform could help her find an audience and interact with readers, if there were any to be had.
“For me personally it was nice because I got the validation and the feedback from the audience,” she admits, adding that the experiment went over well – but she wasn’t so enthralled with it that she felt compelled to post the novel in its entirety.
Kropf, 21, has only been writing novels for two years, but has already produced two books and expresses an eagerness to try new things that intersect the old craft of writing with the world’s many new technological disruptions.
Asked if her ultimate goal is to be a full-time published writer and author, she says that used to be the case, but now she views the formal novel as something of a vestige from times long gone. “Now I’m learning to program in order to gamify my novels because the market is quite saturated, I would say. It’s quite hard to make money as a traditional author these days,” she says. “I am learning how to program in order to bring technology into my writing.”
Applying technology to the reading experience could mean any number of things, according to Kropf, though she does have an idea in mind with regards to turning Murderer’s Best Friend into more of a digital experience by adding “aspects of the world that would only be accessible on an app – so, for example, there would be insights into the world through images or games or some kind of technology. You add technology into the experience to broaden the user base and potential audience.”
Even though she dreams of presenting her work in new ways, Kropf recently achieved her biggest triumph in writing so far – and this one happened to be through a form of writing that’s more formal in presentation. Her short story, “Little Frightening Pain,” was recently published in a new anthology called New Beginnings, published this month by Timbercrest Publishing.
The collection includes works of fiction, poetry, short stories and non-fiction by 39 writers from B.C., with all proceeds from the sale of the anthology earmarked to support SHARE Family & Community Services Society, a non-profit organization which provides social services for people living in the Tri-Cities area of Metro Vancouver.
“There’s quite a diverse group of writers and stories in there,” says Kropf. “I feel very privileged and lucky that I know these people and I have a connection to be in the anthology.”
A clever examination of trauma and the snitches-get-stiches idiom, she admits that her writing “tends to trend towards the dark side.”
“Maybe because I was born in Russia, I don’t know why,” jokes Kropf.
Kropf and her family moved from Russia to North Vancouver 10 years ago. She’s completed several writing course at Capilano University and currently works at a tech startup while she pursues her various writing projects.
Reading and writing have always been a constant for her, no matter where she’s called home or what she’s been doing.
“I definitely spent a lot of time reading, it’s kind of the reason I have glasses I think.”
Kropf says she has an idea why her normally bright disposition gives way to darkness whenever she ventures to whip up fictional worlds.
“I have a theory that everything that I write is like suppressed emotion – and I feel like a lot of creativity does come out of difficult times,” says Kropf. “I think … media that’s not dark is very healthy and great for the world, and I wish mine would be more like that sometimes, but I feel like writing is a great release.”
Murderer’s Best Friend follows Holly, who experiences a crisis of consciousness after her best friend kills a man – and then secretly tries to frame her for the murder; in her first novel, the Inception-inspired Teenage Lucid Dreamer, an 18-year-old is a social outcast until she starts entering her classmates’ dreams – but she must keep her shared dreaming a secret in order to avoid becoming the next target of a Dark Web hate group; and in “Little Frightening Pain,” there’s plenty of vicious imagery which Kropf says was inspired by “a really emotional experience” she had involving laser surgery.
“People say, ‘You look like you would love happy bright things.’ But I think everyone has a piece of them that’s dark, and I think especially it has a tendency to come out when you’re doing something creative.”
