The Traveling Sisters were lovely enough to host and invite me to their group Behind the Pages with the Traveling Sisters! So I had the great fortune to get to join in on a Q&A with Wendy Walker, author of Don't Look For Me, Emma in the Night, All is Not Forgotten and The Night Before! See my review for Don't Look For Me here.
Wendy Walker bio from her website: "Wendy Walker is the author of the psychological suspense novels All Is Not Forgotten, Emma In the Night, The Night Before and Don’t Look For Me. Her novels have been translated into 23 foreign languages and topped bestseller lists both nationally and abroad. They have been selected by the Reese Witherspoon Book Club, The Today Show and The Book of the Month Club, and have been optioned for both television and film.
Wendy holds degrees from Brown University and Georgetown Law School, and has worked in finance and several areas of the law. As a former family law attorney with training in child advocacy, Wendy draws from her knowledge of trauma and psychology to write compelling and complex characters and stories."
Hi Wendy! I just read and LOVED your book, Don't Look For Me! Thank you so much for coming to the group and answering our questions! I am overjoyed to have been invited, authors are definitely the biggest celebrities in my book!
WENDY WALKER (WW): Thanks so much! Glad to be here :)
I am so interested in where you come up with the ideas for your books? Do you begin with a complete story line? a character? or an issue you'd like to address?
WW: Sometimes a situation in my real life will make me start thinking about the broader issue and how it might impact others and then I will extrapolate from that theme. For example, The Night Before was definitely inspired by my life as a single middle aged woman with a lot of single friends all out there in the darting world. Even though I wrote about a young woman dating, the stories that inspired the basic theme behind the plot came from my life.
The plot for Don't Look For me actually came from a flash of a thought I had a couple of years ago. After a REALLY bad day, one that raised issues and questions about parenting and how to help my kids through something that I could not sort out, I was getting gas and looking down this remote dirt road (I was in a remote place far from home) and my brain screamed out to just leave everything and walk down that road. Just walk away. I thought about that flash the whole drive home and then I researched this phenomenon. When we are in an emotional dilemma that we can't we find a way out of, our brains try to give us an escape from the emotional pain with options that will provide relief. They are not always rational or even a solution, but they come anyway. We usually dismiss them immediately, but as a writer, I have learned to grab hold of those moments and see if they might become a plot. That's how this book came to be!
Tell us a little bit more about your writing process.
WW: Creating suspense is definitely a tool I had to learn. Plotting helps me a lot with this. For example, if I know someone is the killer, I will be careful to hide clues in other places, like a conversation about something totally off topic between my killer and someone else. I will drop in a comment there so that when the reader finds out who the killer is, he or she won't feel blindsided because the bread crumbs were there. I also use red herrings and foils and other devices to distract the readers from the real ending!
I always try to build to a dramatic ending where all of the clues are coming together but the suspense is also building. In The Night Before and Don't Look For Me, I changed to very short chapters where the timelines finally meet and the characters are in the same place at the same time. I also try to come up with some spine chilling"scenes" that the reader can visualize and that will cause a powerful sense of surprise or fear or dread or shock. But I also like to have an emotional wrap up at the end so that it leaves the reader with a strong and lasting connection to the characters. I love books where I think about the characters as if they were real people for days after I finish reading. As if what happened in the book actually happened to someone. That's always my goal.
Are your characters' personalities based on people you know?WW: I almost never base characters on people I know but I do draw from themes that I see in relationships and also different personality profiles.
...The psychology here is very important. I like to have realistic element to why a character is a certain way. So I researched attachment disorders using experts I found ... Attachment disorders are fascinating! Many of us have them to some degree. At the most extreme, it's why people who grow up being abused or witnessing abuse will subconsciously choose abusers for their adult partners. They are drawn to the familiar because their brains know they can survive it. We are wired to do this - to seek out circumstances that we know how to survive, even if they cause us pain. And we also try to fix the past by recreating the problem and then solving it as grown ups. It's our way of dealing with unresolved pain.
Sometimes at night these days, if I watch the news, I can get into a real slump emotionally. Like most of us I'm sure. I actually try to put those feelings onto a character and then imagine what she or he might say about them and what plot I could build that would provoke such powerful feelings. It's a way of coping sometimes.
What you said about attachment disorders is totally intriguing! Your research into their minds is probably why your characters have so much depth!
Why did you want to become a writer? And when did you know you wanted to be a writer?
WW: I started writing because I was home with my first son and I needed to do something productive. I must have always wanted to tell stories because of all the things I could have started to do, this is what I chose! I am a lawyer by training and before that a banker. I never studied writing so I had a lot of learning to do.
Do you read a lot of books? What are some of your favorites?
WW: I love all kinds of books, but tend toward the ones that have devastating emotional components. For example, The Kite Runner was one of favorites. And The Lovely Bones. And Mystic River. All very different books, but moments that just blow you away. I appreciate intellectually interesting reads, but I like to be pulled in by the emotions and psychology of the characters. I recently read My Dark Vanessa and that one stayed with me for a while!
I am the same way! You put it so eloquently: devastating emotional components. I always say I love a book that has characters that break my heart over and over again! And that is why I have loved your characters! I feel a deep emotional connection!
WW: I'm so thrilled that you connected with my characters!
I am a huge fan of your writing! I look forward to many more books from you in the future! Thank you so much for taking the time to join this forum and for answering my questions!
WW: Thank you all for having me today! Are there any more questions? If you think of them later, just post them on my author page :)
My reviews for books by Wendy Walker:
Comments
Post a Comment