TPP Season 2, Episode 4 with Susan Walter

Susan: [00:00:00] the biggest challenge they’re in a enclosed capsule and they’re up in the air and it’s just them, and once I put ’em in the seats and they have seat belts on, like people don’t really move around on a plane, so we have the murder and then I cut into the real time action and everybody’s in a seat. How do you make that interesting?

Mark: Hello and welcome to the Thriller Pitch Podcast, the director’s cut of the thriller book world. Today I’m joined by bestselling author Susan Walter, and we’re getting into her locker room mystery murder at 30,000 feet. And I love this conversation. It was like talking to a friend instead of hosting a podcast.

It’s honestly hard to pick just a few takeaways from this one because it’s filled with such good insights into her process and her mindset. But what really stood out to me was Susan talking about how she built this [00:01:00] enclosed capsule of a thriller she had to navigate the hurdles of a story where the characters are physically stuck in their seats in an airplane. We also get into why she never takes no for an answer, at least not the first time. It was a lesson from her father who was a pilot, and it really helped define her career beyond the mindset we talk about character over pace, why she chose a slow burn build to create deeper stakes for the reader rather than just all action. We even get into her naming convention and she shares how she keeps her characters straight in the reader’s mind.

There’s a lot here, so let’s get into it. Susan, welcome to the show. Thank you so much for being here today.

Susan: Yeah. Thank you for having me.

Mark: I have your book Murder at 30,000 feet. I just put it up on the camera. Thank you so much for sending me a copy. I absolutely love this book. I devoured it in a couple of days. Uh, and we’ll talk about why. I’ll let you pitch it [00:02:00] first, but very, very good book.  I loved it.

Susan: Well, thank you very much. Yes. Murder at 30,000 feet as the title implies, is a locked room mystery on an airplane. So it’s basically many people’s worst nightmare. Get on the plane, you’re going over a body of water. When massive turbulence hits the plane, shakes, the lights go out, and while the lights are out, somebody’s murdered in the lavatory.

So lights go back on. We’re meeting all along the way, the cast of characters, there’s a high school baseball team, there’s a wedding party. There’s a woman from a small town who recently lost a son and might be out for revenge. And there’s a jilted air marshal who, um, may not be paying as close attention as he should have been.

So all of this is happening while they’re over the water. Um, no place to land. [00:03:00] Somebody’s dead and you gotta figure out first who’s dead. ’cause there’s a lot of people on that plane and we don’t know. And then who done it? So, um, I don’t wanna give any spoilers, but things get pretty wild up there. Imagine literally your worst nightmare at 30,000 feet. Yes, that happens and things go off the rails.

Mark: Awesome. Wonderful pitch. Thank you.

Susan: Yeah. Thank you.

Mark: So let’s talk about where the idea came from.

Susan: Ooh. So I’ve been wanting to ride an aviation thriller for a long time. My dad was a pilot and I grew up in planes, so I always felt pretty safe in a plane. ’cause when you’re in a little plane, which is like a Volkswagen bug with a propeller and wings, you bounce around a lot. And it just kind of never seemed like a big deal.

But, um, I kind of had a fascination with flying because of my dad and, you know, listening to him talk on the radio. And it always felt like they were talking in some secret code. It was like [00:04:00] secret spy agent kind of talk. And then as I grew up, I was like, why haven’t I written a murder mystery on a plane?

I mean, I write murder mysteries and planes are fascinating and there are a lot of, uh, plane aviation thrillers that involve a hijacking. And I was like, I don’t really wanna do espionage and hijacking. I feel like it could be simpler, like. Thank Agatha Christie or Ruth Ware more character driven. It’s all about these people and they have connections to each other and someone’s out to get someone and opportunity strikes.

So I thought that would be really fun to do is do this sort of murder on the Orient Express style thriller, but put him in the air.

Mark: So did you have to do research in order to make it as real as you did with the, with the pilot and the talking that they did to each other? Or was that already ingrained because of, of your background?

Susan: Oh Mark. So much research. I grew up [00:05:00] flying with my dad in a little plane and I only heard his side of the conversation and so I, um, that was a long time ago. And commercial aviation is a whole other beast.

So I started, um, listening on YouTube. You can go on YouTube and listen to air traffic controllers talking to pilots and sort of start to, I would take notes on their kind of secret code, like they had little code words and abbreviations and ways they talk about things. So that was like my, my primer. And then I wrote the dialogue as I thought that it would be based on those conversations.

And I sent it to a friend of mine, his name’s Rafael Nario. He flies for JetBlue and he flies the same airplane that I put the murder mystery on.

And I said, look at all my dialogue. He wrote, he rewrote all of it. God bless him. He is like, no, we wouldn’t call it that. And we say, you know, we don’t ever say thousand.

We say, oh, 300 or whatever it is. And um, I’m very grateful to him. He helped with the dialogue and he also helped with some of the technical stuff. So, you [00:06:00] know, I, I didn’t know, for example, like, how does a pilot talk to his flight attendants? Like is there a, is there a phone in the cockpit? Turns out, no, it’s just all in the headset.

And little things like, how do the flight attendants know when a passenger called them? Like, did they, did they get a bell? Is there a panel? All the things. So yeah, it was a lot of research, but I really loved doing it. And now every time I get on a plane, I’m like looking around, I’m like, Ooh, there’s that.

Ooh, there’s that. Ooh, I know how that works. So it’s fun.

Mark: Now when you jump on a plane, are you looking for air marshals?

Susan: I’ve always been looking for air marshals, so turns out sadly, there aren’t as many as there used to be. They cut way back. Although who knows this new administration, nobody knows what’s going on ever anywhere. Um, but yeah, I kind of do. Don’t we all, I mean, don’t you.

Mark: Uh, I don’t fly very much. So no. I guess if I did after reading your book now, if I, if I jumped on a plane, I probably would start [00:07:00] looking around.

Susan: Yeah, I mean, there’s things, you know, that was all internet searches, like how do you find the air marshal? But, um, I don’t know. I made a lot of that up.

Mark: So were there any challenges that presented itself as you were writing this book?

Susan: I would say the biggest challenge as a writer, and you’re a writer, so you know this, like they’re in a enclosed capsule and they’re up in the air and it’s just them, and we’re moving through time and they’re all in seats. Mark. Like, once I put ’em in the seats and they have seat belts on, like people don’t really move around on a plane, so I commit the crime, right?

We have the murder and then I come into the, you know, cut into the real time action and everybody’s in a seat. Like, think about that as somebody who writes. You know, mysteries and thrillers as you do, like, how do you make that interesting? Like, everybody’s in a seat. They’re not really interacting except with the person who’s sitting next to them.

So that was like, you know, I got to that point in the book and I’m like, [00:08:00] oh, now what do I do with them all? So I had to get super creative, and this is the, the, the teaser that I gave you that I don’t wanna spoil it, but I gotta get those people out of them, out of their seats and talking to each other.

And there’s really only one way to do that when you’re on a plane and it’s not, while it’s in the sky.

Mark: Yeah. When readers put down the book, what are you hoping that they’re going to be thinking or feelings? Do you write it with a theme in mind, or is it mostly writing? For feeling like you want, um, you want them to be entertained.

Susan: Oh, thank you for asking that. You know, I feel like a lot of the action thrillers I read are kind of all about the action, but if the action’s not grounded in characters that you care about, then it can be kind of exhausting. So I spend a lot of time in the early chapters really getting to know the characters on the plane.[00:09:00]

And for me it’s more of a character study than necessarily like an action thriller. Um, so that was really important to me. I mentioned that we have a character, Francesca, and she recently lost a son, and she’s grieving, but she’s angry. And you know, I want you to think while you’re getting to know her, like what is she capable of?

Um, and then there’s people who may or may not have been involved in the death of her son and they’re going through their own feelings about that. Should I have done more? Am I partly responsible? Um, are they mad at her? Are she mad at them? You know, in creating this sort of interconnected web of people who deserve to die, people who wanna kill, I, I really had to go deep into backstory and character.

And so even though there is a lot of action, especially in the second half, I’m hoping that the reader will go away having experienced some of [00:10:00] what that is, to feel loss and, and to feel, um, guilt and what it is. All the things that the characters are going through, there’s also a wedding party, right? And so I wanted to kind of capture like the thrill of being in love, but also having insecurities and wanting things to go just right.

But also, um, the groom has some baggage that he doesn’t want to come out. So kind of, I’m hoping that the reader will become invested in the character’s backstories and what they’re going through emotionally, and that will make the action resonate that much more.

Mark: Yeah, I think that you did that very well and it worked very well because that’s what connected me with Francesca, who lost her son. And, and the reason, you know, all the things I’m spoiled the book, but the things behind that, like that connected me instantly. ’cause I have a son, so I’m like,

oh my God, if that happened to me, how would I feel? And then the wedding, like all the things that you interconnected, weaved. Pulled me through the story. [00:11:00] It was actually, and I love character stories, so that’s like also my thing. I’m not, I don’t like act. Well, I would, I don’t, I wouldn’t say I don’t like action thrillers, but characters definitely pulled me through the story, which is why I devoured this book.

And there was a theme that I thought about as I got, as I got into the book, and it was kind of mentioned by one of the characters in the book. There’s the death of her son, and I

don’t want to, and the justification behind that death

Susan: Ah,

Mark: is that, are we, is it okay to hide something in order to protect something else?

Susan: okay. I know what you’re talking about now. So, yes, Francesca is a central character in the book, right? She’s the one who boards the plane. She kind of, she, she’s kind of. In a way, sorry for the term, but she’s kind of already dead, right? She’s dead inside. Her marriage has fallen apart because of the worst tragedy that a mother can imagine or a father can imagine, right?

She lost a son. [00:12:00] She lost a son in a devastating accident, and we don’t know the details of the accident. So that, that’s part of the backstory that unfolds as they’re on the plane, as she’s thinking about it. And then there are other characters on the plane who were either directly or tangentially involved in that accident.

And yes, um, you are correct to identify that there’s a, there’s a end. Do the ends justify the means? Right? So this terrible thing happened to the boy and there’s no undoing that, but outing how it happens, the details of that. Could cause immeasurable damage to a large group of people.

So this secret is being kept, um, for one might say honorable reasons, right?

So if I reveal this truth, if I reveal there’s a character who has the opportunity to reveal what he knows about the accident, he was an [00:13:00] eyewitness. But he has suppressed his knowledge because he thinks that if it gets out a lot more people will get hurt. And I thought that was a really fascinating thing to explore.

And I love characters that are, that are not necessarily, um, so clear cut, good or bad. Like he did a bad thing, he witnessed an accident and he has a moral imperative to go to the police and tell them what he saw. But also he cares about his town and the community. And if he exposes what he knows, man, things could get really bad for a lot of people who maybe, you know, it truly was an accident.

There was no malice. So he grapples with that. And does that make him a good character or a bad character? And, and I love the, I love the central question that pulses through his, uh, sub narrative, which is like, what would you do? [00:14:00] What would you have done? And there are people who judge him harshly, and there are people who will come to understand why he did it.

And maybe think that, yeah, I would’ve done the same thing.

And what a terrible burden to carry, right? Like, I think that makes him largely sympathetic as it as it unravels.

Mark: absolutely. What comes for you first, the characters that you’re building or the plot?

Susan: So what comes to me first is the situation. So I take, I would say not just the situation, but the conflict. So what’s the conflict? So I think about like constructing a novel and the conflict is someone’s gonna die on this plane. We don’t know who did it. And I have to have a myriad of suspects, um, and a myriad of potential victims.

So what happened? And how can I construct this kind [00:15:00] of spider web of interconnected people, um, in which the reader will be truly curious and confounded to know who did what to whom. So I started with that central premise like, and it, it appears in my brain, kind of like a spider web, right? And all these people have to have connections to each other.

And the more you read, the more connections. You discover like, oh, she knew him and he knew her and they were married and like all the things. Right. And, and it makes sense, you know, they’re getting on a plane. I picked San Diego as the origin because it’s not a huge metropolis, but it’s also like there’s one airport that services a lot of small towns around there and it’s not implausible that there’d be groups and they all know each other and groups that interact and, and intertwine.

So I take the situation and then I build out the characters from there. And I try to, I start with the characters each with an inner conflict. So [00:16:00] for example, the character that we did not name who witnessed the accident, you know, I wanted to put somebody in an interesting moral conflict. Should I tell or should I stay silent?

And what would you do? And then I construct the character around, um, like how is he connected and where can I put him? This, you know, um, conglomeration of characters, how can I construct relationships that serve that, moral quandary that I wanna present. And then sometimes the characters, they just come from people I know.

Shh, don’t tell, but I, I do base them on, on people that I know. Um, like somebody, there’s a very brash character named Penelope, and yeah, she’s kind of an amalgamation of people I know and I wanted to kind of write about her, but I, even though she’s brash, I do try to explore like how she came to be that way.

Right. And things have happened to her and she has pain. And [00:17:00] Francesca, obviously, she’s the one who lost a son. I mean, she has pain, but she’s also at the end of her rope, right? With nothing to lose. Like would she murder somebody maybe.

Mark: Yeah, it, what’s your writing process like, especially, well, let’s talk, this is book six for you. So you’ve, you’ve written quite a few books. Has your process changed from book one to book six and then in, in this book, because it’s such a web of, of characters and things happening, do you outline the book first or do you just start writing and then figure it out as you go? How do you do it?

Susan: I love that question because I’ve grappled with that a lot. My very first book is called Good is Dead, and I, it was the beginning of the pandemic and I had been working as a screenwriter and a movie director, and the movie industry just sort of dried up overnight and nobody was shooting, nobody was scouting.

I was supposed to go scout a movie in New Mexico and everything [00:18:00] was put on hold and we had no idea if the movie was ever coming back. So I was like, oh, I’m gonna write a novel ’cause I need to create. And I wrote this book just from my heart, not even thinking that it would ever get published. Um, so that book I wrote in 2020, so like March, April, May, 2020, I just sort of didn’t know where I was going.

I didn’t outline. I just kind of woke up every day and took my characters, made a step forward with them, pause, and then thought, okay, what is the most interesting, impossible, scary, fun, surprising thing I can do next? And literally just took it one step at a time. It’s like, imagine you’re like going through the woods with your flashlight and you can really only see the ground in front of you.

And then like, what’s the scariest thing or the most fascinating thing that could happen next? And that’s how I did it. And then when I was about 80% through the book. I had this [00:19:00] crisis, I was like, oh, well I backed this character into such an impossible corner. I’ll never get her out. I’m gonna throw this book away.

Like, it was very irresponsible to go forward in this way because I just didn’t know. Like, I’m like, there’s, she’s damned if she does, she’s damned if she does it. You’re not gonna root for her to do a, you’re not gonna re root for her to do B. Like I’m done. Okay. I guess I’m not finishing this book, but it kept me company during the pandemic, so I was fine.

And then the situation came to me like the, the resolution of the situation came to me and I wound up introducing like an external complication, right? So like just something. Like it, just imagine like a tornado sweeps through, like, oh, that would get her out of it. Right? So just something kind of crazy.

But it totally worked. And that book became a bestseller. Like I, it sold like hotcakes. People love that. And that was my process, like really not knowing. And then spending that three or four days thinking I was just gonna throw the, the 80 whatever did I have at that point, 60,000 words into the bin? Like, I’m like, well, I can’t finish this book.

There’s [00:20:00] no way to do it. So when I sold that book, I was offered a two book deal. They’re like, yes, we’re buying this book, but we want you to write another one and it’s due in nine months. And I was like, oh, okay, sure, I can do that. I think. And I thought, since I’m on a deadline, I should outline, right?

Because that’s the responsible author thing to do. You should know where you’re going. ’cause I have to turn the book in now. It’s not, there’s no, like, throwing it in the bin is not an option. So I did, I wrote an outline and it seemed to work, and I followed the outline pretty much to the letter. And then maybe two months before the book was due, I gave it to a couple of beta readers, including my husband.

He was the very first, and he read it and I could just tell from his expression like it was trash. He is like, you know, I don’t know what to tell you about this book. I don’t think it works at all. And now I’m like, maybe eight weeks from my deadline. And I was like, okay, screw it. I’m just gonna go back to my original process.

The thing I [00:21:00] did on Good is Dead, which worked for me the first time. And I’m taking one step at a time and I threw away of the 85,000 words. I threw away 75,000 of them. I lopped off. Like I love the setup. I lopped off the like 75,000 words mark like you’ve been there, you know? Um, and I just did it one step at a time.

And the book, it’s called Over Her Dead Body. It’s super twisty. It’s super fun. It’s incredibly honest. ’cause I just came from character. So I took a character and I’m like, instead of like working from an outline where I have to build a bridge for her to get from A to B, ’cause I already decided what B is.

I put her at that situation, at that nexus, I was like, okay, well I thought I wanted her to go do this thing, but that doesn’t feel in character. What would she do and what’s the most interesting thing that she could do? And it was moving in a totally different direction. And I did that. I think I was writing 2000 words a day ’cause I had to, to meet my deadline just in that way, like pushing forward, [00:22:00] pausing.

And so I’ve directed movies, right? And so when you’re a director, you have to do this thing that you don’t necessarily do when you’re writing is you have to put yourself in the vantage point of the audience. So you always have to ask yourself, am I giving the audience? Um, something to root for in this moment.

Am I dangling enough questions for the audience so that they’re gonna stay engaged? Am I revealing just the right amount to keep them engaged, but without giving too much away? So I had that sort of skillset for my directing of, of stepping outside of it and being in the, in the chair of the reader or the audience and saying, how much can I give them to, to hold them, but what do I need to hold back to make them wanna keep reading?

So that’s my process. Now I become the director of my own novels and I take one step at a time. I come from the most honest place I can with the character. What would she do? Who would she call? Um, would she fight back, whatever the question is. And I, and I try to do it honestly and try [00:23:00] to get her into trouble and then pause, step outside and say, okay, what does the audience want her to see?

Does she need a win here or do I need to knock her down a little bit? ’cause we we’re not quite sympathizing with her enough yet. I just go through that chapter by chapter and you know, my books are between what, 60 and 75 chapters. So I do that 60 to 75 times and I’ve done that. Now I’m actually on book nine ’cause we’re always two years ahead.

And that’s a process that still works for me. People are like, publisher says, do you have an outline? I’m like, Nope. Not giving you an outline. I mean, I could give you something, but the book won’t match that and I’m gonna throw it away right after I give it to you. So they stopped asking,

Mark: I love that process. I don’t think I could do it, but I love that process.

Susan: are you an

Mark: more outlining, more so than that

Susan: Yeah. That works for you, man. Did not work for me. I tried. I.

Mark: How do you keep it all in your head with the web that you create? So are you creating notes with characters as you go and you’re creating these scenes, or do, are you just [00:24:00] able to keep it all in your mind?

Susan: Honestly, I think that’s my one special skill that I can hold a book of between 75 and 85,000 words in my head at the same time, like some people can do computer programming, some people, um, are really good at surfing. I can’t do either of those things, but I can’t as I move forward, not in the beginning, like I have no idea where I’m going in the beginning, but as I’m moving through, I’m getting to 50,000, 60,000 words.

I can hold the whole book in my head at once and you know, you start kind of on the edge of the spider web sometimes, and I’m building in multiple directions. I’m building, you know, I’m building up, I’m building down, I’m building toward the middle,

and I can, it’s just, um, how my brain works. I can’t do calculus.

My daughter comes home with her calculus homework and she’s like, mom, can you help me? I’m like, there’s no way. I can’t, I can’t balance an equation. Don’t ask, but I can hold a book of that length. [00:25:00] I mean, I, I got a book recently that was like 700 words, like, I mean, 700 pages, sorry, not 700 words. That’s a, that’s a micro story.

I got a book recently that was 700 pages, a Stephen King book. It’s over there on my coffee table. Like I don’t know how he does that, but mine are like 300, 350 pages that I can hold in my head.

Mark: So you having the ability to hold all these characters in your mind is great. As you’re writing the book, do you think, how do I pass that information on to the readers who like, like for myself, I maybe not so much in my writing, but definitely when I’m reading, if I’m introduced to so many characters at one moment or chapter after chapter, I start to get very confused. What are some things you did in this book to avoid that confusion?

Susan: So I have this, um, little mantra that I constantly recite. Like, are you keeping all the necessary characters alive? Keep them alive. In fact, [00:26:00] sometimes I put a post-it on my monitor that says, keep them alive, right? So if I haven’t heard from a character for a while, I have to make sure to like, make sure you didn’t forget.

That’s my responsibility. Um, and I think. I do that because the characters in my book, they’re, first of all, they’re all connected to each other, right? So I’m not gonna introduce a new character except for maybe in chapters one, two, and three, when you kind of have to introduce characters. But once I get into the narrative, everybody has a relationship to each other.

That’s why it’s a book, right? So I’m not jumping around. I have a rule that if I’m introducing a new character in their sort of point of view and how they’re moving through the world, you had to have met them before and know their relationship to the other characters. So I’m very mindful about making sure, A, that I’m keeping all the characters alive and b, um, that, that you feel the connection to them, to the other characters, right?

You feel the connection to the new character, to the other characters. And they’re [00:27:00] constantly in other characters, inner monologue. They’re never gonna just. Come at you from out of the blue. I’m also really deliberate about naming characters. I do these like cheap party tricks where like sometimes I do couples with the same, they have the same, um, their letter starts with the same name like Jim and Jane or whatever.

So like your brain will connect Jay. Oh, they’re Jay and Jay. They’re a couple. Or in this one I have Billy and Jill. Billy and Jill are gonna get married,

right? And so I made their names rhyme. I mean her name is Jillian, but everyone calls her Jillian now ’cause it’s Billy and Jill, right? You’re not gonna forget who Jill is ’cause she’s marrying Billy and their name’s rhyme.

So I do kind of stupid little tricks like that, but I’m very deliberate. Um, I have one character, Penelope, with a four syllable name like Penelope. You’re gonna remember Penelope, right? It’s the only character with a four syllable name and it’s a very memorable name. So, um, yeah, I do alliterations, I do rhyming, and I try to make [00:28:00] each name distinct.

Like I won’t have in my books. Two characters whose name starts with the same letter unless they’re like sisters or mother and daughter, or like have an intimate connection to each other. I just think it’s not fair to the reader. And I, and I do think your brain clocks stuff like that, so I think it’s easier to remember.

Did you have any trouble remembering who the

Mark: I didn’t know. I also liked. That on a couple of, A couple of ’em had job titles. So it started with when you came back to them, it had their job title as the first

Susan: Oh, that’s right. So there’s a,

Mark: my mind

for a couple of the characters.

Susan: his name is always Coach. Coach Cal. Coach Callahan.

Right. So you’re always know, oh, it’s the coach. Yeah, that like, honestly that seems kind of maybe a little bit cheap. But I do think your reader deserves to have little naming help. Especially if you’re gonna outline, I mean, I have like, what, like 12 characters.

So it’s not fair to ask you to track all those. And I hate that there’s books that I put down that are like New York Times [00:29:00] bestselling. I’m sure they’re wonderful, but if I’m in chapter 10 and I’m like, wait, who is that? And I have no reference point. And especially if I’m reading, I read a lot of books on Kindle, and I can’t flip back through pages easily.

I’m like, forget it. I, I, I, my brain is not, is not programmed to keep track of that many unless I invented them. And then I can remember,

Mark: Did you learn that trick somewhere?

Susan: I think I stole it from screenwriting because movie producers and studio executives are notoriously lazy. And like, if you don’t hit them over the head with obvious naming tricks and like, you can’t do, you can’t be subtle with them. Like you need to be like. In their face about who these characters are, and, and you just assume that they’re overworked and they’re gonna read it quickly.

So yeah, I think I, I got a introduction to how to help studio executives remember your stories and characters, um, from working in the movies for so long.

Mark: Okay, that makes [00:30:00] sense. Was there a character or a moment that you felt particularly attached to in this story? Like when you wrote it, it hit you on an emotional level or a personal level?

Susan: There’s a super difficult situation between the bride, the groom, and the maid of honor and the maid of honor. And the groom used to be a couple and they broke up, but the groom is still in love with his maid of honor. But they had a somewhat troubled past, and I wanted to handle that super sensitively, but also there’s violence.

So that was one that I wanted to be very careful with the maid of honor to make her, I don’t know how to, how to describe it without giving too much away. But I mean, I reveal [00:31:00] it early in the book and you’ll see that, that she had a very good reason for breaking up with that groom. And he’s still in love with her, but he treated her very badly.

And how to handle her feelings about being the maid of honor at her. It’s her best friend’s wedding to her ex-boyfriend and her, the, the bride, you know, it’s her, it’s her wedding weekend. She’s so excited. The maid of Honor character, her name is Angie, is kind of sitting on a bombshell and she wants the bride to know this thing about the groom and what he’s capable of. And I’ll just use the word violence ’cause he is capable of violence, but also she doesn’t wanna ruin the wedding. So that was a very tricky tightrope to walk because again, you know, you asked this question earlier and it’s a great question. Like at what, maybe that is a theme of the book, like [00:32:00] when is silence better or when do you have a duty to tell even though you’re gonna cause more pain?

Mark: Yeah.

Susan: And so Mark, thank you. I just learned something about my book. Thank you so much. Um, it’s kind of about, gosh. Yeah, it is. It’s kind of about what would you do? Again, I love that’s, I feel like that’s really sticky to, to do for a reader is put them in this situation of like, well, what would you do in the past week you found out that the man, your best friend is marrying is potentially kind of dangerous.

And do you tell her and, and ruin her destination wedding? I mean, it’s like her special day and all the things, or do you just hope that he’ll never, you know, that he’ll change or that’s not really who he is, or, you know, you have an obligation to support her. This is what she wants to do. So, yeah, I, I want it to be very careful with her because there are, you know, [00:33:00] kind of feminist issues wrapped up in that.

And do you protect your, your fellow woman? And how do you do that? And that was, that was deliciously complicated.

Mark: Yeah. Do the other books that you’ve written, is that a theme, not that particular theme, but of people going through really hard times as part of the, as part of the conflict.

Susan: I think there’s a sort of a trope, especially in these female driven thrillers where you take a, a woman character, I mean, honestly, Disney invented it, right? Like Disney started with like the, all the Disney characters, they lost their mom, right? So like Belle in Beauty and the Beast lost her mom, Cinderella lost her mom.

I mean, you could go through all the Disney characters and you take this young, and for Disney it’s young women, right? And so it’s appropriate that they lost their mother. I mean, what even like Bambi loses their mother. That’s just the trope in Disney. And [00:34:00] I think for the thrillers, these mystery thrillers written by women targeted toward women in which you have a, now, not a teenager as in Disney, but a grownup female character.

The trope is to put them through some sort of loss in the beginning, right? Or I kill a lot of husbands, like women who were, were married and lost a husband and find themselves, alone for the first time, and having to do things they’ve never had to do by themselves before. And starting the novel with a broken heart and a, and a big loss.

So, yeah, I, I think that that’s kind of a prototype that I lean into and this book is more of an ensemble. But yeah, I mean, you take Francesca, who’s the woman who, she lost a son and she lost a husband. He didn’t die, but the loss of the son was so catastrophic their marriage couldn’t survive it, which is a thing that I researched that that does happen.

They just didn’t know [00:35:00] how to process their feelings and, and drift it apart. So, and I do it kind of with this woman. The bridesmaid, well I should call her the maid of honor more accurately, is that if she tells her best friend that the man she’s marrying is not the man she might think, she think he is, she’s gonna lose her best friend.

Right? So putting women are the strong female characters. Kind of on the edge of something really scary is a trope, sorry for the word, but I do think it’s a trope that I think is really propulsive and also puts the reader, which is my favorite place to put a reader in a what would you do situation?

Mark: Yeah. Awesome. Any, have you had any hair trauma in your, uh, in your life, or was that just a trope of the character to have? I chuckled when she had, at the beginning, Kathy keeps talking about her blue hair, how she dyed her blue hair and she’s very [00:36:00] conscious of it.

Susan: Oh, have I had hair? I mean, I did accidentally. For your podcast listeners, I am blonde and I used to do it myself. And when you tone blonde hair you use blue I put too much blue and I was blue for about three days and, um, I had to go get professional help. yes, I had blue hair very briefly and I didn’t look good with, some people look fantastic with blue hair, but it’s intentional. I did not look so good with blue.

Mark: Okay.

Susan: Actually, she has purple hair. Doesn’t she have purple hair? She has purple

Mark: it purple? Oh, I thought it

Susan: Yeah. Kathy has purple hair, but she’d also gone through a divorce and started her life over and just like radically reinvented her physical presence.

Mark: Yeah. I have a question from Brian Drake, who was the last guest on the show. We have like a guest asking a question for the

Susan: I love it.

Mark: you prefer to write inside or outside? [00:37:00] So he, he likes to write outside a lot, which is why he asks the question.

Susan: Oh, inside, always inside I try to write outside and first of all, it’s very hard on a monitor to see, I dunno, maybe he’s younger and has eagle eyes, but I, I don’t, there’s too many reflections and then the sun moves and you can’t see. So I tend to write inside and I like it quiet. Some people write to music. I like to write early in the morning, like 5:00 AM five to nine are my golden hours for writing. I like it quiet and I like it inside.

Mark: Okay. He uses a typewriter, actually, which

Susan: Oh my goodness. I love

Mark: yet, but yeah,

Susan: He’s confident in his words. Um, oh my goodness. I changed my words so much. There would be so much paper to be like this mad. I’d be surrounded by paper with

Mark: I couldn’t

Susan: discarded sentences. Yeah.

Mark: I imagine myself with just a case of whiteout constantly,

Susan: my gosh. Wide out.

Mark: white out those [00:38:00] papers.

Susan: Hilarious.

Mark: would you give to someone who just published their first or second book? Either Indie published or, or traditionally published?

Susan: Okay. That’s a great question because I think it’s super important to form a community of writers in whatever way you can because as you move through your career, so I’ve been doing this for five years now. I’m on my. Well, I’m actually writing my ninth book, but my sixth one is Murder at 30,000 feet, which comes out in February.

And I’m just now after five years of doing it, realizing how important my community is because as you are trying to get established, like what we’re doing now, mark, you mean you’re a writer and you’re supporting me through your podcast? And my, my hope is that I will in some way be able to support you.

And when your book comes out this April, is it April? The treatment room is April. That I can return the favor in some way and, and [00:39:00] read your book, and review your book. And you need to grow a community of writers because we become, not only our, our own cheerleaders, but the way that other readers discover your books.

So I’m gonna post about your book. I’m gonna read your book, and I’m gonna say, you know, for fans of these books, as you are doing for me, and five people maybe. We’ll, we’ll read your book because of me. But then that five people becomes, 25 people becomes 250 people. Right? So building a community of writers and supporting those other writers, even if you don’t know them.

Like I have made friends through social media. I, I read a book. I love it. Like, okay, Mary Ika, who has got a, it’s not her coming out like any day now. Absolutely love her books. And I just started reviewing them and posting about them. She follows me on Instagram now, and now she’s reposting, you know, about my books because I genuinely like her books.

[00:40:00] And I think that she might like mine if I like her, she might like mine. I don’t know. Maybe she does, maybe she doesn’t. But just start by supporting the authors that you love by shouting out when you love a book and it takes, I mean it takes months or years. Then pretty soon, this whole sort of organic ecosystem of writer supporting writers, it just lifts us all up to a place where readers are, are discovering writers that they love.

I mean, when is the last time, I don’t know, you read a lot of books, but for anybody who’s listening or watching, like, you open your Libby app or you go into a bookstore and you’re like, Ugh, I don’t know what to read. Well, wouldn’t it be great if you like, okay, you like my books for example? And I’m saying, Mary Kika, do you trust me?

’cause you like my books? Maybe you’ll buy her book. Or vice versa. So start, it’s easy to, to think. We need to ask other people like, Hey, will you read? Can I can, can you talk about my book? What, what I think is more effective? And actually more [00:41:00] sincere is just talk about them, read their books, get on good reads, review their books.

They will eventually notice you and they will in time, if you’re a good fit, say something kind about you and that’s how readers find you. It’s all about, you know, it’s really noisy out there. There’s so many books.

But we trust the authors that we love. So authors supporting authors is everything.

Mark: I absolutely love that answer. Thank you so much for saying that. Yeah. It does mean a lot. Yeah. So if you can pick one thing that you felt led to your success so far, what? What do you think it would be?

Susan: Okay. So I’ll tell you a quick story. When I was 18, my dad told me I needed to get a job, to help like pay for ancillary things that I wanted, like skis. He’s like, I’m not buying you skis. You’re 18. Go get a job. And I was like, okay, that makes sense. I mean, respect. Okay. And I, and he’s like, where do you wanna work?

And there was this comedy club in Harvard [00:42:00] Square, I lived in Cambridge, and I wanted to work at this comedy club called Catcher Rising Star. And so I applied and they didn’t hire me like I called and they’re like, no, the position’s been filled. And I was like, okay. And so my dad asked me at dinner that night, like, so did you apply for that job?

I was like, yeah, I didn’t get it. He’s like, tomorrow you’re going in there with another copy of your resume and you’re gonna ask them. What you can do to position yourself to get that job, the next job opening that happens at that place where you wanna work. And I was like, dad, they already said, no, I’m not going back there like an idiot.

I’m gonna make a fool outta myself. But he made me do it. So I go in there with my resume and I’m like, hi, the manager’s name was Rick. I go, hi Rick. So we talked on the phone yesterday and you said that I wasn’t getting the job and I just wanted to know. And it’s a waitressing job. Okay? It’s not like some like paralegal or job where you actually need, you know, specific business skills, whatever.

Like what I can do to make myself a better candidate next time an opening happens. And he looked at me like, [00:43:00] for real? You want it that bad? Fine. You can have it. I’ll hire you. We can always use an extra waitress in the pool. And I was like, seriously? And I think that was an incredible lesson in just keep asking, like find another way to ask if you ask and you get a no.

Find another way to ask, like, so I’m doing a book tour and a bookstore passed on me ’cause I’m gonna be in an area and I wanted to appear at this bookstore and I thought it would be really great and it fit exactly in my schedule. And they were like, they ignored my publicist. And I, I was like, I’m just gonna ask again.

And I called them up and I was like, Hey, so this is crazy and sorry for the cold call. I know it’s super obnoxious, but I’m gonna be in your area and I have an amazing conversation partner lined up and she raised about your bookstore. And if there’s any way that you would invite me, I would die of happiness.

And I’m just gonna send you my stuff. Give me your email, send you my stuff. You can review it on your own time. And like, I just asked again and they said yes. Sometimes [00:44:00] you just wear people down or they’re just so they’re like, if you really want it that bad, then yes. Right? Like, like you can’t have an ego about it. I have been, I go back after people have said no to me so many times and sometimes it’s still no but. Sometimes it’s, yes. So just like, leave your ego at the door. Ask again, ask again.

Mark: Awesome.

Susan: Ask in a different way. Ask saying, you already said no and, and I respect that you said no, but if it’s not this year, what about next year?

Can I call on you next year? And then they’ll look at their calendar again and they’ll be like, okay, you can have that date for this year. Right? Like, you just never know. Catch people off guard by asking again.

Mark: Yeah. I love that. So where can listeners find your book?

Susan: Oh, well, murder at 30,000 feet is being released, by Blackstone. And it’s gonna be hopefully everywhere. I mean, where, wherever you buy your books. [00:45:00] Barnes and Noble Indie bookstores. We love our indie bookstores. It is also available on Amazon if that’s the way you wanna go. That could be super easy. And my audio book is being narrated by Scott Brick and I don’t know if you know him,

Mark: I do.

Susan: Is unbelievable. So, audible for the audio book. I’m Soci, I haven’t heard anything from it yet. I’m actually gonna go to his recording studio and get some pictures with him ’cause I’m like, fangirling totally. And he invited me ’cause he lives not far from me. So I would say like pretty much anywhere. Just Google it and go to your local bookstore and if they’re not carrying it, request it.

Mark: Yes. Awesome. So, well, thank you so much for being here, for taking the time outta your schedule. I, I really appreciate it. This has been a lot of fun and I’ve learned, I’ve learned a lot. Definitely your naming convention. I’m gonna go back to the treatment room probably and start thinking about my naming convention ’cause I love it. It’s brilliant what you do.

Susan: Thank you so much. You are a great interviewer. I’m so excited to read [00:46:00] your upcoming book and I’m sure we’ll talk more about it, about it in, did you say April?

Mark: April.

Susan: April what?

Mark: April 14th. The book comes out.

Susan: April 14th. That’s my daughter’s birthday. I have two reasons to get excited.

Mark: All right, so we are gonna hit the spoiler section of the show. So for those listeners who do not want to have the book spoiled, they have a couple of questions that will spoil the book. So now’s the time to pause. Go buy the book, read the book, promise. You’ll probably be done in a couple of days, and then, or sooner and then come back and listen to, to the spoiler section. Did you know when you started writing the book that Penelope was the killer? Or did you kind of discover that as you went?

Susan: Oh, should I tell you the truth? Because it’s a really, it’s a really scandalous story. Okay. Yikes. Okay. My publisher’s gonna kill me, but here it goes. I’m not telling anybody else. You’re the only one. Originally, [00:47:00] Penelope was not gonna be the killer. I had a totally different idea that I wrote for my 85,000 words.

I constructed the narrative with, okay, so there’s a character called Marco. He’s a, he’s described as a, as a rockstar.

And he’s sitting in the back, oh, tattooed, rockstar. He’s sitting in the back and I, and I was putting him, he was just I don’t know. I just had this idea that Marco, who, who is sitting in the back and he is like this little unknown guy, was going to emerge and have killed this person for, he’s transporting money.

So it’s unrelated to all the drama in the small town. And it’s just gonna be like a surprise. This guy, he’s actually, he’s actually a drug runner and he, and he killed somebody on the plane and it’s not related to any of that drama. And so we sold the book to Blackstone and she’s like, I love your writing. I love the characters. She’s like, you can’t have this guy Marco [00:48:00] kill, you know, one of the people from Crestwood, the town that’s heavily featured and where a lot of these characters on the plane are from. It’s like, she’s like, that’s just unsatisfying. You need to change who the killer is. So Mark, you know, you can’t just like change the ending of a book.

I had to totally reconceptualize this is where, okay, I told you before about like, I have my flashlight in the woods and I’m taking one step at a time. Okay. It failed me a little bit, I confess, but I also, she was 100% right that it would not have been satisfying. Like, if you’re gonna have a killer and you’re presenting this web, you want somebody in the web. You don’t want somebody like from over here. It’s like, what? No, that’s, that’s cheating.

Mark: yeah. Yeah.

Susan: So I did, it took me, she told me like around Thanksgiving, that she’s like, and, and I needed in like first week of January, just do that little rewrite, that little tweak. She called it a little tweak and I was like, oh my God.

Okay. And I worked every day, like my, my, like every day, even on Christmas, I was up at 5:00 AM [00:49:00] writing for five hours. Whatever I was able to do on that day to reconstruct the narrative, totally reinvented Marco. He’s no longer a bad guy. He’s actually a good guy, right? He, he, he’s, a DEA in the end. And I was like, I didn’t wanna lose him entirely.

I thought there was value to having somebody in the narrative who’s not from the small town where a lot of these characters, how they all know each other.

But, so I didn’t wanna lose him, but I had to repurpose him. So, to answer your question, no, I did not know Penelope was gonna do it. And it was, it was a total, like, it was there the whole time though, right?

Like, because I, I went back as I was reconstructing to say like, who’s it gonna be Chapter, I think it’s chapter seven, Penelope and the air marshal, Carlos Ronaldo meet in the lounge and it’s prickly. And I was like, oh, I was feeling something and I just didn’t know how to pay it off. Like, I didn’t know where I was going.

I got lost with my little flashlight in the woods. I was like, I took a wrong turn. It’s her. [00:50:00] It took quite a bit of doing. As you know, as a writer, that is not an easy task, but we did it and the book is so much better for it. I’m so grateful for my editor for asking me to make that little tweak.

Mark: yeah, yeah. That little tweak. Yeah, yeah, definitely stronger for that. Yeah.

Susan: Yeah.

Mark: So following that question then, the idea of the drugs on the plane and how the plane ends up crashing and the fuel that gets lost, Was that part of your original idea as you were writing it or as you were putting these characters into situations, you thought, I gotta get this plane on the ground, and then the money and the drugs came into the thought process?

Susan: Yes, that, that was always part of the plan. I knew I had to crash the plane. Like I said, you know, I put the characters in this little flying tin can and they’re in seat belts. It’s not like a train. Okay. Agatha Christie did one on a train, but you can move around on a train. You can’t move around on an airplane.

So I knew, and I also, I read a book called The Pilot’s Daughter by Audrey j Cole, which if you like aviation thrillers, it’s a must [00:51:00] read. And she has this such a dramatic, like, I cried, it was so good how she creates this air disaster. And hers is a hostage situation and very different in that way. But I’m like I gotta crash a plane. I, I, that’s to me, like, look, I want it to be a movie.

Mark: Yeah.

Susan: And you gotta have this cinematic moment, like nobody’s gonna do a movie about 132 people in seat belts on a plane. Like, that’s not cinematic. Nobody wants that. So I always knew I was gonna crash the plane and that it would have to do with something bigger than the small town People, like small town people, they might hurt each other, kill each other, do things to each other because of longstanding grudges, but they’re not gonna crash a plane with 131 other people on it.

Like that has to be someone truly evil with high stakes drug cartel, huge ramifications. Like, not only are like they gonna die, but their families are gonna die. You know, when you’re dealing with a cartel, [00:52:00] nobody’s safe. So I had to make the, the stakes much higher in order to do that. So I always knew there would be drug running and cartels and other things.

Mark: Okay. Awesome.

Susan: That’s a great question, by the way.

Mark: Any plans to turn this into a series? Or a book two with Carlos. ’cause he’s offered that FBI job at the end and I liked him. So I’m curious, is there any plans to, to bring him to the FBI? I don’t know if he’s on planes anymore, but he’s got a lot of potential to do something

Susan: Oh, thank you. Not at this moment. I sold two more books to Blackstone. They’re kidnapping thrillers and they’re um, related to each other. So they are I dunno if you ever read The Family Upstairs, and The Family Remains by Lisa Jewel. There’s two of my favorite books. So they’re like two books with the same characters that go together. But you, they are also standalones. I wanted to do that next with the book that I sold after that. So I thought [00:53:00] about bringing Carlos Ronaldo into like a series type environment, but to be honest, like police procedural, FBI, procedural is not really my wheelhouse. I think I do other things better, so unlikely. But thank you. Like if they wanna, if Netflix calls and they’re like, can you write a second one? ’cause we want a season two, I’ll be like, yes. Done. And I’m calling you and you’re gonna help me.

Mark: I was, I was thinking more like, was it die hard? You know how he’s always just in a bad situation, so it’s not like police procedural. He just like, oh, the first book he was on a plane. The second book, this happens, he’s on a train. Why does this keep happening to this guy? You know, like that diehard thing where there’s like, this guy just jumps into the situation.

What?

Susan: you. We’ll do it together.

Mark: Okay. Well this has been great. Thank you so much. If you have a few more minutes we have gone over, I apologize for that. If you have a few more minutes for a quick rapid fire for my Patreon guests, I would really appreciate that.

Susan: Oh sure. You bet.

Mark: Thanks for listening. I hope you enjoyed this episode. If you’d like to go a little deeper with [00:54:00] Susan, there’s a short after show available right now on Patreon. It is where I ask Susan rapid fire questions about thrillers that inspired her to write some of her weirdest Google searches, guilty pleasures, and the note she’d leave on your nightstand. You can access it for free. You’ll find the links in the show notes. Thank you. I will see you in two weeks.