TPP Episode 11 Robert Goluba

Mark: Hello and welcome to the Thriller Pitch Podcast where you come for the pitch and stay for the story behind the story. I’m your host, Mark P.J. Nadon and this is episode 11.

If you love discovering new books and the stories behind them, hit follow now so you don’t miss next week’s conversation with Steve Stratton, author of The Action Thriller Caribbean Harvest Book three in his Shadow Tier series. And if you wanna be part of the show, check out Patreon members. Get to submit guest questions. Hear episodes early. Enjoy the exclusive after show. With now rapid fire questions. Read bonus stories from past guests and grab my own novella, cognitive breach. The links are in the show notes.

Today’s guest is Robert Goluba, author of Adrenaline Fueled Action Thrillers with Grit, [00:01:00] wit, and Heart. He was born and raised in central Illinois where he attended college, served in the Army National Guard, and met his wife at age 30. After a self-diagnosed allergy to snow, he moved to Sunny Arizona where he now lives with his wonderful wife, two kids, and canine companion. Hello, Robert. Thank you so much for being here today. On this episode, we have the Cartel Hunter here. I have your book with me. Thank you for providing that.

Robert: Glad to be here, mark. I’m excited to talk about Cartel Hunter.

Mark: So we’re gonna get right into the pitch. Just pitch me this book.

Robert: Well, Cartel Hunter is a, I would call it a, vigilante justice thriller. You know, it’s about a, an everyday Joe kind of person who’s an avid outdoors man. But he gains his skills through, uh, his time in the military as an Air Force pararescueman. And, uh, [00:02:00] um, he gets a black belt and Kra maga. He’s a, a, actually a just an everyday kind of guy that I thought more people could relate to, but he has skills to, attack and, and bring Cartel to justice.

That’s terrorizing, you know, the mountain town in, northern Arizona where he, he grew up.

Mark: Awesome. And where did this book idea come from?

Robert: Well, this idea, I am, I’m based in, in Arizona. I, I live in Phoenix, the, the Sonoran Desert. A couple hours north there’s a lot of national forest and, I was visiting the National Forest, specifically it’s, near Payson, Arizona, and the, it’s called the Mogollon Rim.

And when you go to the Mogollon Rim, it’s a 2000 foot escarpment above the, the largest stand of Ponderosa Pine National Forest in the United States. So, when I was looking over that on the standing on the edge one day I was like, somebody could really hide in here and if they [00:03:00] didn’t wanna be found, it would be really hard to find them.

You know, people do get lost there and takes weeks sometimes to find them. So I’m like, well, what if someone didn’t want to be found, you know, like a Cartel? And that was kinda what planted the seed. And, so I just started, working through the, the outline and, and. The other thing, one of the reasons I chose a pair rescue men, you know, because a lot of the thrillers have your Navy seal, have your green beret, you know, your delta force and I wanted someone that could have some like outdoorsman tracker skills, but still have that kind of special forces skill. And, the, the pararescueman, you know, I learned that they have the longest, training. It’s two years, you know, they’re essentially kind of a combat medic?

I’ve seen some memes that says, you know, pararescueman. It’s who Navy Seals call when they, when they need help, you know, behind enemy lines. So that’s kind of, you know, who they, who they are. They’re just an amazing group of guys that kind of, you know, have so much respect for what they do. And then also made the perfect character [00:04:00] for, Jason Molder.

Mark: Yeah, it was a very cool take on that and I appreciate that you did that. ’cause it was, it was fun in the opening too when you had him doing that rescue and that action scene that the book opened with, it was really interesting to see him as a pararescueman doing his thing. As opposed to the whole that Navy Seal approach, so I really appreciated that. Where did the plot idea come from, like having him in that vigilante kinda role? Where did that come from?

Robert: Well, I had to kind of bridge the gap from him being a pararescueman, you know, to actually helping, you know, a, a family member out. And, I, I didn’t wanna make it a pure military thriller, you know, and I knew that he would have to, go home to help his, his brother out.

That was the inciting incident in the story that brings Jason out of active duty in the Air Force, and, and, and did become a vigilante, when the Cartel, chose his brother as a victim. Law enforcement [00:05:00] wasn’t doing their job, so he came home and so it was, it was partially to, really just bridge that gap from, the skills that made him believable as a, you know, a hero and, and the, and the protagonist, that could do what I have him doing.

And, but still, you know. Doing it in the forest of Arizona instead of maybe a battlefield somewhere in, in the Middle East.

Mark: And what was the timeline for all this to come together for you from the original idea, seeing the forest to you know, him as a character and actually putting the words down on the paper.

Robert: It took several years. I, I had the idea for a long time and I kept, putting it off. You know, I’ve had written one series before and a totally different genre. And, and I, this was the one I always kind of wanted to write and, and actually it was book two that was actually the one that, led me to, to, to start the series.

But I knew I needed to establish Jason Molder as the pararescueman and, as the protector [00:06:00] of the family and all of that to make book two make sense. So, that’s was, how it all started and, and, but I end up, thinking Cartel Hunter turned out to be one of the better books of the entire series.

The book two was, was really the inspiration that I kept thinking about. I wouldn’t, I couldn’t get out of my head. I’m like, I have to have to write this. But I knew it couldn’t be the first book, I had to establish the, the character, and the second book is actually called Reverse Pursuit.

You know, where he’s, it’s kind of almost like a modern day, fugitive, in the, forest of Arizona. So that was kind of where the idea came from. And then, but, Cartel Hunter leads perfectly into that. So if you read that, the Reverse Pursuit will make a lot more sense.

Mark: So did the idea for book two come first and then you decided to write book one to set the story,

Robert: It did. Yeah. It was book, it was book two. And I just knew, I, I, just to give, give a little quick overview of that. He’s, in the DEA and he’s framed, you know, for taking drugs that he never actually took, [00:07:00] convicted and, decides he’s not gonna go to jail when they’re, you know, transporting him.

So he escapes, and then it’s probably 40 chapters of him trying to find out who framed him, while he’s, on the run and all these different, you know, settings in, in Arizona, all the forests and, and the rivers and the mountains and stuff like that.

So he’s running around there and it just, it, to me, I didn’t think that was the best place to start, with the character. I wanted to have, establish his backstory as a pararescueman, his, skills at Krav Maga, his outdoorsman experience, you know, his, his, partners that he ended up working with in, in reverse pursuit as well.

That was, how that all, took place. And it took years, it took several years for me to kind of figure this out, get it all laid out to where it made sense. To where, where you see it today?

Mark: Did you find book one or I guess two and one in this case? ’cause you had the two idea first, but did you find it’s getting faster and faster for you to put out books? You have four in the, in this Jason Mulder series, right?

Robert: Correct.

Mark: is it [00:08:00] getting faster to put out books now after one was done.

Robert: It, it is, and, and especially one, you have to really, I did a ton of research. You know, I, I, read several books on pararescueman. I, there was a, National Geographic, I guess miniseries on what pararescueman did over, Afghanistan, and I watched that twice. You know, there’s probably about eight episodes of it.

So I just did a lot, a lot of research, to really establish who he was as a character. And, so then everything did get, get faster, and, book four was my fastest of, of all of ’em so far.

Mark: Awesome. And you have a, I’m pretty sure I read somewhere you had experience in the Army National Guard. Did that impact this book, like that experience in how you wrote this book or some of the situations you were able to put him in? ’cause you have that. That experience of having been in the forest and and lived a lot of that.

Robert: Maybe a little, I mean, from what I did in National Guard, what Jason Mulder as pararescueman or like a, a Grand Canyon, you know, [00:09:00] separation. I was a, I was a combat engineer and, and so we like to say we were grunts with, C4, so, I did have some good experience. It really taught me about the military, you know, so just the the hierarchies and the ranks and, some of the language they used with each other, was a little bit easier, you know, when I, but in terms of his skills, it was quite different from me, and it’s, and I was in long, long, long time ago. It’s already been, I’ve already been out for almost 30 years.

So, I went like halfway through my senior year in high school is when I signed up, so I went right after high school. I was on basic training and and then I spent six years, in it. So I did learn a lot, but, it, it really didn’t translate to this book. I, I started calling it an M-16, you know, when I, when I started writing, and then I know everything, the terminology changed and everything, so I had to do a lot, a lot of research on making it meaningful, you know, for a reader in, in 2023 when I launched it.

Mark: Okay. Yeah, I was thinking some of the, the minor details too of like shadows in a forest when you [00:10:00] have that experience of, or the amount of fatigue you can feel as a soldier. Like I was in the infantry reserve for a while, here and I can I try and put that into some of my books, those moments of like pure exhaustion or the shadows where you think you’re seeing things, but they aren’t there, like when you’re, when you’re in the heat of, of, uh, training and stuff.

Robert: I did take advantage. I, I wanted to use some of my knowledge, so, and in book three, you know, the villain is use any explosives, so that was one I knew a little bit more about, you know, so, I did wanna take advantage of that, but, yeah, as much as I like to say some of my, some of my skills came through, I will say just kind of an interesting, tidbit is, Jason Molder is a, a black belt in Krav Maga and, I started to try to write that watching YouTube videos and I couldn’t do it. So I signed up and, took about eight or nine months of Krav Maga myself, and got my yellow belt, and I was on my way to my orange and, and when you have yellow belts sparring with each other, we don’t really know how to do it, like the black belts and brown belts [00:11:00] do. And I got, I got, you know, a pretty good, short-term injury from it so I decided I was going to hang up the Krav Maga training and focus on writing a little, little safer.

So, but I, I, I loved it. I really learned how, how it is such a valuable skill to have in terms of self-defense specifically kind of in a, in a, a fight like Jason Molder has, with, you know, maybe taking on two members of a Cartel, for example. So, so I did, I did learn that, you know, the moves he has were ones that I learned and, and then again studied a little further to make sure it came across in the best way for, for the book

Mark: Did you do craw, my God. Before you started writing, so you knew how you were gonna write it, or did some moments in the book have to change because you’re like, oh, this is not gonna go that way. I have, it’s gonna go this way.

Robert: Had to change. Yeah, a couple of ’em. I’m like, oh, what was I thinking? You know, I read that, and ’cause yeah, I was about, ’cause that book did take me a couple years to write, you know, and I was, I might even been almost done, but I, when I, started the Krav [00:12:00] Maga within a couple months, I, I knew that I had to rewrite certain sections of it.

And, specifically there’s one scene at the end, where the, the villain, Victor Romero, puts a gun like at his chest, and that was something we learned a lot, about how to, How to get out of a situation like that. So that was a, kind of step by step, the training that I, I picked up.

Mark: No, that’s very cool. I did jiu jitsu for a while and although I haven’t put it in any books, it was surprising with some of those martial arts where you’re just completely helpless. It doesn’t matter how strong you are and sometimes how small the guy is that you’re dealing with. You know, for jiu jitsu put pressure on you and you’re just like stuck there, it was, it was very humbling experience. I could imagine Krav Maga would be similar in that when you apply some of these skills.

Robert: Yeah, I was one of the older people there as well. So, that was a, a, a yellow belt, I wish I would’ve started sooner. I, I actually really enjoyed it. But, bumps and bruises at, at my age and working full time and, and, you know, doing the family full time and writing full time, [00:13:00] essentially. I just made the decision to make that a short term opportunity and, focus on the writing.

Mark: Awesome. Yeah. Oh, hey, that’s great. That’s great that you had that experience to pull into the story and it was, it did come to life with what he was doing in the book, which was good. The Arizona caves, the landscape, the distance, he drove a lot. That was also, is that all real? To, like, is that all factual or is that, did you use creative license when it came to that cave escape and the creek and the falls and all these little places that he ends up going to.

Robert: So, so I just, the fall specifically is very real, and I, the way I describe it, I, I just, I’m very, I’m a researcher, I, I, I did a, in the Enneagram, that’s what I am. I do research, I go in rabbit holes. If I go look up something, I, I can spend two hours looking around and CQ Falls is, is real. It is on the Ford Apache Reservation, during the time I wrote it, they were shut down during COVID, so I have not physically been there, so I had to use images. But I have been to to show [00:14:00] low and, and, and payson, many times. So I know those areas very well. And, so everything’s real.

The one thing I probably took some license on is, is that maybe actually longer. And I didn’t want Jason spending like four hours driving somewhere. It’s not, doesn’t make for very good thriller content, so, you know, some of his drives were probably like someone was from Arizona they’re like, how can you get there that fast? You know? So, so I did some things with that. But like I did a lot of research on the National Forest, and one thing that is true is, like the all, just the national forest in Arizona could fit to the entire New England, of, of, the United States in it.

So it’s vast. And so that’s, when I say it’d be hard to find somebody, it really, it’s, it’s a big area and. And, and the, the ruggedness I tried to describe and just the, you know, the change, from an elevation, how tall the trees can get and how, you know, rugged the, mountains can get is all, all true.

Mark: Cool. Yeah, that was well done. What made you choose to have Jason try many times to have the police [00:15:00] deal with the Cartel as opposed to going full vigilante. I think you mentioned earlier that you were kind of trying to make it real to life, but I appreciated that because that’s what it felt like. It felt real to life in that even with the experience and the training that he’s having and what he’s seen in combat, A, a person wouldn’t just rush into murder all the Cartel. Like he tried, tried to get the police on his side and you know, all those things happen. What made you choose to do that instead of having like a John Wick kind of moment where you hurt my, you hurt my dog, now I’m gonna murder everyone involved.

Robert: No, that, that was very, very intentional. You know, like, like I wanted Jason to be somewhat relatable to an average person. It’s, if you are an avid outdoorsman and you get a black belt and Krav Maga and you become a a PJ in the Air Force, you may be able to do some of what he does.

You know, so I did. I wanted to make him more relatable, you know, to, to the average reader. And I also, Jason has a very [00:16:00] strong moral compass. That was something that was important to me. In all four books, Jason never murders anybody, he has a pretty high body count by the end of four books. But it’s, it’s all kind of in self-defense or, you know, in, in line with, his job defending others usually is what he does. So he’s a strong protector. And I, that’s why I wanted that to come out, that he was kind of pushed to, to do this. Jason just wanted to be left alone.

He wanted to be a pararescueman, but the Cartel forced his hand, and then because they forced his hand and then, that brought out the skills that he has. And, he has a couple, sidekicks that help him, which was something I really was excited to do and something that was intentional.

I, I wanted to not have the lone wolf John Wick I wanted to have something that was, a little more realistic, but still brings the excitement and suspense, of a vigilante action thriller.

Mark: Yeah. And Shauna and Tarek have two of the big character arcs. Did you pre-plan those arcs? Because they [00:17:00] seem to have, well, I guess I was the two biggest arcs of the story. Those two.

Robert: Yeah. Yeah. And then, his, uh, um, partner, in the Air Force, Clay Landry was the, the other, the, the one, but yeah, I, I, I did plan that, I wanted like I wanted to have because I, I kind of knew what was coming in book two and book three. I had, I had most of my books planned, at least through book three, when I started at least the idea for book three.

So I, I knew what I wanted to have come, and, and that’s where Shauna came in. As you know, wife is, eventual wife is supportive. And, and, uh. And she also has an arc through all four, all four books, but I, and I wanted, again, I wanted to make it seem a little more organic. I just didn’t want to throw ’em together, you know?

So in, in the book, she’s a grief counselor and comes to try to help, after the tragic loss in, in Jason’s life. And, and TAR is actually her cousin, and so you even get to see how Shauna gets, she has some debate, like, she doesn’t like fighting. She doesn’t like you know, what Jason does, but she understands, so she ultimately [00:18:00] helps him, with her cousin, who’s like a expert tracker.

He’s, part of the for Apache reservation and, he has skills that Jason didn’t have, you know, so that’s why the collection of, Jason, Clay and, and Tarek. You know, made a fun group to write, but also the, you know, they had strengths that the others didn’t have, that played out throughout the book.

Mark: When you’re creating characters, how do you go about that? Is it, do you feel like they just come to life as you’re writing the book, or are they also pre-planned in like a list of things that you know need to happen because you’ve planned this series out?

Robert: That’s a great question. I, I ca I call myself a plotser, so I’m not, I write like I’m a, I’m a big fan of Kyle Mills, I know when he comes to town to launch a book, I go see him. And one thing he always talks about how he writes these like 30,000 word plots or, or, outlines. And, and that’s kind of what I do too, they’re getting shorter, but then when [00:19:00] I start after about the first five or eight, six chapters, I, I, I, it all changes.

Mark: Yeah, I’ve done that.

Robert: It, it allows me to, put things through my mind. But I spend a lot of time, especially getting on the, the first book, maybe second book in the series, or whenever I had a, a main, another new character. I, I, kind of go old school. I, I read a book when I started years ago on how to create a compelling character and I create a wound and I create, you know what, and a lot of it doesn’t even make the book, but it helps me create the character in my mind so I can keep them consistent and, throughout, throughout a series, which is I what I always hope to write, you know? So, I do spend a lot of time, you know, and, and, and Jason Mulder, there’s so much I have on him. I, I, I, I, I released some of it to my newsletter fans because I have so stuff about his parents and his grandparents and, and the grandparents have never, I don’t think, have been mentioned in the book, but I have who he was growing up, and I, and I spent a lot of time looking at what their fears are, what they’re driven by, and, and that helps [00:20:00] me make sure that the character does what’s consistent throughout the entire book.

Mark: And that’s pre-planned then.

Robert: It it is, yeah. The, the characters don’t change too much. And, but some of ’em, I don’t, spend a lot of time on, like, I will say Clay Landry, I just, he’s a, a special cognizance in the Air Force, which is, they, they used to be, they we’re actually called like, combat Weatherman, I think, or something like that. So, so that, that MOS changed and so, but I knew I needed him have a capable sidekick that was a little more morally gray than Jason. So just, just to kind of, you know, kind of push him sometimes. ’cause, ’cause Jason is kind of a by the book person, you know, so for him to go do what he did, it took some pushing sometimes.

And, and that’s where Clay came along. So I had Clay’s character planned, but he evolved to be a little more, gray than I originally had anticipated. But I think I, I, I felt it was good, for the, either the scene or the book. So I continued to let, let those, let those play out. So I would say the main characters were [00:21:00] pretty well planned and they stuck to it, but the kind of secondary, little less planned and the, they tend to kind of flow with the, the scenes and the, and the arc by the book.

Mark: And if we go, you can take a step back to the, the planning with the vigilante thing, the police, and their role in this story was that i, well, two part question. One, is that real? The politics of policing in that area, is that real? And then did it impact your story?

Robert: It did a little, and I had to be really careful because I’m a, a huge supporter of law enforcement and, and, the military and I, I, I, I didn’t wanna paint the police in a bad light. But there are some corrupt, police specific, specifically some of the politicians, the, like the sheriffs who are elected, sometimes they do things, to win elections.

And, and that’s why I felt it did fit. For those who may be familiar with Arizona, there was a, a famous sheriff called, Joe Arpaio. He called himself the world’s toughest sheriff. And he, as a sheriff, he was in the news like every day. [00:22:00] So, my character is not necessarily based off him. But I just remember seeing like how he would act, when, when he had a camera in his face.

Mark: Yeah.

Robert: And, so that inspired some of the, the traits and behind the, the, the law enforcement that, was on the wrong side of the law.

Mark: What about local police and like reserve police, is that governed the same way, where if you’re in this area, these, this is the force that deals with this? Or did you, was that creative licensing?

Robert: Yeah, it’s a little, ’cause I, living in Phoenix is a huge metropolis. I would say it’s the, the police, there, the more local police and, and like the Phoenix police are very large. You know, they, I would say they’re pretty typical of what you’d see in a large US city.

But when you do get out in the smaller towns, in the mountains and stuff, you do get a little more, and, and Arizona has a, you know, that rugged individualism, kind of in our culture, and you get a few characters. you’re, you’re gonna see a lot of, lot of cowboy hats and tough talk, you know, from, sheriffs and, and, so, so that, that’s pretty, pretty realistic, in the, in the smaller communities, lots of, lots of, [00:23:00] lots of ranchers, lot of outdoors men, and, it’s the police govern differently. When that’s your citizens in your area.

Mark: Yeah, yeah. Small town kind of feel. So we are running a little bit low on time. I have a couple more questions for you. This is going out to authors who are listening to the show, so it’s a bit a bit of a specific question for them. What advice would you give to someone who just published their first or second book?

Robert: Well, one thing that I, I learned is I was a little slow on the, on the marketing. Which is, shameful because my full-time job for many years is I’ve been, I do marketing, consumer marketing, but I, I would, the first thing I would tell someone is, just make sure you write a really good book for your target reader. And this isn’t the, write to market, you know, type of, recommendation, but just make sure it’s, it’s a really good book. And, and if you write a good book they’ll wanna read that second book, so I do see writing books as part of my marketing plan. But, when I added, you know, Facebook to just give myself additional awareness, then that’s [00:24:00] when the sales started to, you come in at a level that was a lot more, interesting and, rewarding, based on all the work you do, I know most of us write, for, for the love of, of writing like myself, but it’s a lot of work. And I also like people to read what I write. So, marketing is, is part of it.

So even thinking about that in the beginning, helps me, as I am writing the third and fourth book. I, I had the marketing a little more in mind, going into it, and then it just helped the writing process and the, process of getting it into reader’s hands. So that’d be, be my advice. Write a good book and have a plan, plan for marketing.

Mark: When you say marketing, do you mean. And you said mentioned Facebook, so it’d be like Facebook page. Are you also using like Facebook ads and like paid ads and like newsletters and stuff?

Robert: Yeah. Yeah. Email newsletter and paid Facebook ads are my two primary ways. And I’ve, chased the shiny object like a lot of new authors. I, I try a TikTok page. I tried Instagram. I. [00:25:00] I, I tried Twitter and, and, or X now. And it just, I, I never, I didn’t enjoy it, , so then I, my, I, I didn’t stick with it, as soon as I when, a couple weeks without any traction, I just, I just gave up and I’m glad I did. I feel like I’m just gonna kind of pick my lane, for me it’s gonna be email newsletters, you know, writing, I’m trying to write more often, and give the readers more, more to read and then, Facebook ads to, you know, get them out there.

I’ll, I’ll dabble a little bit with Amazon ads, like with a launch, ’cause I think it’s a little faster. Most my books are, are, currently in Kindle Limited, just a little announcement, I am taking all the Jason Molder series, out of Kindle Limited. And probably by November it should all be wide, so I’m gonna make it available to a, a larger, larger audience.

But either way, I would still do the same things, I would use a little Amazon ads in the beginning to get that quick the, the quick eyeballs onto the, the new books. And then do long-term Facebook ads.

Mark: Okay. Thank you. [00:26:00] That’s great. That’s great advice. Yeah. And where can listeners find your book?

Robert: You can find, in my, my website is robertgoluba.com and, and there’s links to, right now they’re all on Amazon. But that, that’s where you can find out if you’re interested in, my books, I have a couple free prequels for for readers to read other stories.

One of ’em is a, you know, real military version, was the first one I wrote, and then I’m like, I probably need to make it more similar to the book, so it’s more similar to Cartel Hunter. But yeah, you can find, robergoluba.com is the best place. Or, just if you look up a Cartel Hunter on, on Amazon, you’ll, it’ll be, my book will be one of the first you find.

Mark: Thank you. I’ll link to all that in the show notes. So thanks for taking the time. I really appreciate it. If you don’t mind sticking around for a couple minutes after the show, we have some bonus questions for our newsletter subscribers that just go out to them. And thank you so much for taking the time.

I really appreciate it. I really enjoyed reading Cartel Hunter and we’ll be getting [00:27:00] into the next book and yeah, thank you for your time.

Robert: Had a blast and thanks for giving me this opportunity, Mark

Mark: Thanks for listening to episode 11. If you enjoyed this conversation, make sure to follow the show so you don’t miss episode 12 with Steve Stratton. Author of the Action Thriller Caribbean Harvest, and if you’d like to go deeper with early access bonus content, the after show, and a chance to ask future guests your own questions, join me on Patreon.

The links are in the show notes.

TPP Episode 10 Aiden Bailey

Aiden: [00:00:00] One of the reasons that I was inspired about setting it there was I was reading about the lava flows and like there’s this point where when they’re, cooling down.

They’re not quite, you won’t fall through them. And, but they’re, they’re warm enough you can stand on. They, they’re cool enough, you can stand on them, but if you stand on them too long, your shoes start to melt. So I had this whole, this chase sequence on other feeling, but I’ve gotta do that. I’ve gotta do something cool like that with Trigger Man. Send him there and put him through the, rigors of rigors of Iceland.​

Mark: Aiden, welcome to the podcast. Thank you so much for being here today for taking the time outta your schedule.

Aiden: Thanks, mark. Thanks for having me.

Mark: We are today gonna be talking about book six in your Trigger Man series, which is called Blunt Force, and let’s get started with the pitch.

Aiden: Okay, so Blunt Force, the main character is Mark Pearce, code Trigger Man. He’s a [00:01:00] CIA power military operator. He’s in Europe. Uh, there’s been a Panama Paper style release of massive amounts of data and it reveals the location of CIA safe houses across Europe. So the CIA want to shut it down, but also the Russians and the Syrians also want to control the data for their own reasons and are killing anyone who comes into contact with it.

But at the heart of the story, it’s about two siblings who are using the data to right it wrong. And when the Trigger Man finds out about this, he gets his, he gets a second purpose of second wind behind him to, like a more personal mission that he needs to resolve on top of everything else that’s going on. So that’s in the summary.

Mark: Yeah. Yeah. Thank you. That’s great. And where did the idea come from?

Aiden: This is the sixth book in the Trigger Man, and I’ve been wanting to set a story in Europe and I think I’m always on the lookout for ideas and I’ve just been reading about the Panama Papers which is [00:02:00] basically, it was a, it was a firm, a legal firm that had released a whole or a whole lot of their confidential client data had been exposed by some journalists and it showed a whole lot of corruption and trading around the world, but it was like millions and millions of files and I thought this would be a really interesting idea.

In the sense that, you know, back in the Cold War you might sell, steal one or two secrets. Whereas this one was about, you know, thousands and thousands of secrets. So what the Russians wanted for and what the Syrians wanted for, and what the Americans wanted for were all different, but they’re all fighting out the same data.

And it was just this kind of like, once the gene out of the bottle, so to speak, you really can’t put it back. And that was where it kind of came from. And then I’d always wanted to set a story in Iceland. Where a lot of the action happens. So yeah. So it was kind of like, yeah, a whole lot of my ideas came together and, uh, I hadn’t brought the triggerman to Europe, so it [00:03:00] was, well, not in a big way so that was the other reason. So, yeah, I’m trying to get the, you know, go.

Mark: Did you use Iceland as an excuse to, to go there and, and actually check it out for your book?

Aiden: You know, I, I, I would love to go there, but that’s about as far away from Australia where I’m as you can possibly get. It’s quite expensive. I have traveled quite extensively. I, I think I’m up to close up to 30 countries I’ve been to now, but some of the places, you know, send your characters, it’s, you know, they, they’re, they’re not easy to get into. Like I’ve said, one story in Central African Republic, and I don’t think anyone really wants to go there. Uh, but it’s, uh, but yes, I have spent, I have spent time in Europe, but I haven’t got to Iceland. But it’s just this incredible scenery. And

Mark: Yeah.

Aiden: One of the reasons that I was inspired about setting it there was I was reading about the lava flows and like there’s this point where when they’re, cooling down.

They’re not quite, you won’t fall through [00:04:00] them. And, but they’re, they’re warm enough you can stand on. They, they’re cool enough, you can stand on them, but if you stand on them too long, your shoes start to melt. So I had this whole, this chase sequence on other feeling, but I’ve gotta do that. I’ve gotta do something cool like that with Trigger Man.

Send him there and put him through the, rigors of rigors of Iceland.

Mark: Yeah. I love that moment. That was, that was one of the questions I had for you. If the

Aiden: Oh, okay.

Mark: Are real, so that’s great. Now I know

Aiden: Uh,

Mark: real in that scene. That is possible. ’cause it was very interesting reading it.

Aiden: I actually got out of Brian Cox documentary, the, uh, astrophysicist. He was watching something about, the, the, the Earth and how, um, planet’s form, and, and I just went, he was, he was in Iceland, he was actually talking about the Icelandic fields. I thought, yeah, I’ve gotta use this. And then the interesting thing about Iceland is it’s like all these lava fields, but you’ve also got these glaciers and snow fields and, you know, using the combination of two and just this, you’re putting, putting Trigger Man in his [00:05:00] team in this kind of really hostile environment, but it’s also in Europe. So it’s this interesting juxtaposition there. I had, I had a lot of fun running that. Yeah.

Mark: It was a lot of fun reading it ’cause he went through so much. He had, everything was against him. He was being hunted from

Aiden: Good.

Mark: The weather was against him. The earth was, seemed to be falling apart.

Aiden: I, I, yeah, I think with action, it’s, it is, you know, if you make it too easy for the characters, readers get bored. But if you make it, if he’s not, but if he’s not working his way through it, then they, they’re kind of going like, well, he is not that clever. So you’ve gotta find this balance of like, putting him in danger, but also making him a competent agent.

So, uh, but yes, I think that’s probably my favorite action sequence that I’ve written so far across the six books. Yeah, I had a lot of fun writing that.

Mark: Do you find by book six you have to make things harder and harder on the character in order for it to be as, order for your, like your, your [00:06:00] readers to want to continue engaging? Like you feel like you have to, like, okay, in book one, we could do a smaller story. I mean, I haven’t read book one, so I don’t, I

Aiden: Yeah, sure.

Mark: but you know what I mean?

Like if you’re raising the stakes every book.

Aiden: What, when you talk about stakes, I probably put it in three categories. You’ve got the plot, like, you know, what’s at stake of a on a geopolitical level, and this one it’s about, you know, exposing CIA operations because of the exposed CIA houses, CIA safe houses. But then it’s also got the characters, like the characters you’re trying to put them through some kind of arc in, in what they learn and discover about themselves.

But then the other one is the action. And yeah, I feel like it’s interesting when I talk to my publishers and give, throw them ideas about what they always come back to, as they say, as long as there’s lots of action. ’cause that’s what people want. So it is almost every book, I’m kind of going, it, it, you need, I feel like I need at least three good action [00:07:00] sequences.

So starting off with the, the fight sequence in Rhonda in Spain, where it’s that, uh, bridge over a cliff. And then I’ve got the, um, then I’ve got the Iceland chase, and then I had the tain chase in Syria at the end. And I, um, yeah, so it’s a bit of that. There’s a bit of a, so it’s not only the plot and the characters, but it’s also like the timing, the action is also something I think a lot about when I’m writing.

Mark: And what was the research like for this book? Because you had, I was learning all kinds of stuff. You had the Cold War, the Syria, the Ukraine war, the pipeline. I mean, it went on and on. So what, what, like how much research did you have to do and like what kind of things were real and factual? It all read very factual, but I don’t follow closely enough to know, check it. But it, it read very factual.

Aiden: Thanks, to go through the different points. Okay. So when I, I, I, I’d started out as an engineer. I, now, I’m working like corporate [00:08:00] communications, but one of my first jobs is actually on a pipeline in the Outback of Australia. So that’s where some of that experience came from. So, yes, everything with the pigs and, and the oil I, you know, I still work in the oil and gas sector, but I also work in the defense sector. So, you know, I’m, I’ve got all these insights through my work about, uh, how a lot of these, uh, infrastructure projects work. I guess I’m constantly reading, watching geopolitical shows. I’ve traveled, like I said, people travel quite extensively, so I’ve backpacked through Africa and South America and Africa was one of my first trips, and that kind of gave me a big sense of like the difference between what was then called the developed world, the developing world, and the difference in, you know, uh, quality of life and, and, political stability and things like that.

So I think it’s like research is always [00:09:00] on. So a lot of what I’m writing is there, but then as I’m writing it, it’s more the details. I need to stop and go, well, what kind of gun would they have in this part of the world? Or, or, I’m looking on Google Maps to try and get a sense of the terrain that they’re in.

The really interesting thing that happened with this one was while I was writing it, the Assad regime regime got kicked outta Syria, so I had to rewrite the whole ending. Because I had these Syrian agents from the, basically the Assad regime and, and then, and I thought, how can I, how can I, how can I write it in a way that still makes it relevant, even though that regime is gone now?

So, I’ve, I’ve thought I’ve came up with a solution. Hopefully it works, but, um, sorry. Lost my, lost my earpiece there for a second. Um, yeah, so, uh, yeah, it is. I, I guess to summarize, I feel like you, if you are always on research and reading [00:10:00] and you, the ideas will come. It’s just, I find it’s just the detail, like the the minute detail that you need to go and stop and just check something. But that’s a very quick search on the internet.

Mark: Yeah, well it’s helpful when you know, when they say, write what you know, it’s helpful that a lot of that stuff is in your background and in your interests. Because even if you don’t know things, if you’re very interested in it, you can become quite convincing in how much you know when you’re just enjoying the, that learning process as opposed to approaching a book and then having to learn it all because you don’t know anything about it and it just serves the plot you’re not really interested in it.

Aiden: A, another trick I use is, you know, I used to read a lot of National Geographic articles and, and they’d often give you little insights into like what it was like day to day, so you could put this flavor about, uh, what people would actually talk about, what scenes you’d see on the streets. So sometimes it’s a bit of description about where the Trigger Man is and what he’s seeing and feeling [00:11:00] and sensing. I think that also helps to bring, bring a location alive. So I, I do try to do that, uh, as well.

Mark: And how do you decide how much research to include to not bog down the story? ’cause you were talking about three major action scenes, but there’s also, you know, you have information built into all those action scenes. ’cause we’re constantly learning like, how do you know or how do you balance, here’s the background information so you’re aware of what’s going on where he is and I’m not doing too much to bore a reader.

Aiden: Yeah, like when I go back and read some of the classics, like a lot of the Clancy stuff, you can see there’s a lot of exposition about, you know, what’s going on and and, but you can see with modern authors, they started to change that. And I think with exposition to get the story across it is kind of saying enough to tell, to make sure the [00:12:00] readers know what’s going on. But there’s tricks you can use, like, you know, if you want exposition, you can have two people talking, or you can have two people talking on a fast beating train through Japan and one of ’em has got a gun pointed or the other, and then something becomes more interesting.

So it’s about how, where, and how the information is, is relayed. Another trick I use is trying not to introduce too many characters in one scene. So it’s like trying to build them up slowly. So you, you might meet two characters, and then the third one comes in three cha chapters later and then a fourth and so by the time you’ve got a big team of five or six or eight people, how many you are, how many are in that book? You, you’re not ma, you’re not basically forcing the ready to kind of go, well, here’s five people. Remember them all now, you know, you build ’em up slowly. So it’s little, little tricks that I’ve learned along the way about how to do that and, and it’s that Raymond Chandler thing, you know, like if a scene feels [00:13:00] bored, bring someone with a gun and shoot someone, you know? It is, it is you just, you just, it’s, it’s, it’s almost like a rhythm, like you go, yeah, it’s, it’s ticking along. But then now let’s add something else in and let’s just keep trying to escalate, escalate the tension as you go.

Mark: Yeah. I appreciated with, with the book that it started with Pierce and, and it did build the team slowly. ’cause I know in a lot of action thrillers, I have a tough time. Just like you said, when we get

Aiden: Hmm.

Mark: here, meet the team, I guess essentially it’s almost like a flashcard

Aiden: Yeah.

Mark: Every team member. And by the time I’ve read it all, I can’t remember anybody because just so many names and so many details. It was well done. That it was, it was very nice to have that, you know, little character here. And then here’s how they impacted the story or here’s how they impacted Pierce’s life throughout, I imagine throughout the other books, and I’m kind of being brought up to speed.

Aiden: This one is the one where the teams actually come together in a real way in across the six books. So in the first one, Pierce has [00:14:00] kind of almost operating independently, and then I slowly introduced the team over the the last five books. And this is where it all kind of comes together. But I’ve kind of also written myself into a corner where now I’ve got a table of six and each book I’ve gotta try and work out how to bring them all in again each time.

Um, and, and you know, ’cause you gotta, you can’t assume that anyone who’s read the next book knows what’s happened in the previous book. So

Mark: Yeah.

Aiden: Yeah, it’s, uh, maybe the team’s too big. I’m not sure. But anyway, we’ll see how we go. But I’m enjoying writing all of them. Yeah.

Mark: And how do you do the, like your writing process in itself, in itself, is it. Did you do a heavy outline? Especially now for this book with book six? ’cause I’ve like, I’ve written a trilogy and by the time I get to book three, I’m like struggling to remember what I’ve said over 300,000 words. You’ve done that for six books. So are you building an outline for this book by the time you got to book six In order to carry it forward without, [00:15:00] you know, just to keep track of it all.

Aiden: I do. I, I’ve, and with incubator, my publisher, they have these writers’ workshops. So the, the people who run it, some of them are out of the TV industry, so they have, they, they used to have what writers’ workshops. So they basically put you through a grilling session of like, they work you through your plot and go, what’s, how does this happen?

And why does this character know this? And does this make sense? Or should, wouldn’t it been more logical to do this? And it’s really good and so I’ve started, I used to be just a writer as I go, ’cause it’s all in my head. But now I’m doing plots on my publishers and that’s actually re refining it really well and giving me good outline.

So now that when I sit down I just go, right, right, right, right, right. Next round. Right, right. And it’s all there. But that said, over six books, I have these, peace has this secret background that I haven’t revealed yet, but I’ve hinted at it. [00:16:00] It. And even though each book is in standalone, if you read them in order, I’m building up this background of where he is come from and what his secret past is.

And I’m also building up this villainous group in the background that’s gonna come out more and more in the book. So I do have an overall kind of arc where it’s going, even though each book will be individual. So yeah, there’s a lot of checking and cross checking and, you know, I’ve got this timeline of like, how long ago each book was.

In, in character time, even though real world time is, you know, the character time is a lot slower than real world time is, and we, you know how action heroes never age. It’s, anyway, it’s, yes, there’s a lot of juggling, but, I’m, I write in my day job. I, I write, proposals for, uh, engineering projects and I just have to be on all the time, like, so I’ve learned how to write quickly and to pick up information and write it fast. So,

Mark: Cool.

Aiden: And, and then in that, in that [00:17:00] industry, I’m trying to pick up a lot of information very quickly and then turn it into content that a client can understand. So, yeah, I suppose that has helped.

So, yeah, I suppose I just do it naturally now without even thinking about it. But yeah, it took a long time to get there.

Mark: That’s interesting that you say helped rather than hindered. ’cause I would think having that much of a workload on your mind would almost make you come home and be tired. When you wrote the book, you like, was it like every day writing a bit? It sounds like you have a lot on your mind, so it’d be tiring.

Aiden: I try and come home and write for a couple hours every night. But, you know, sometimes you just work gets in the way or something’s on. I write, I try and write on the weekend as well. But I, yeah, I can literally just, I, I guess one trick, another trick that I’ve learned is that, you know, when I’m doing something like going for a walk, riding my bicycle, um, uh, [00:18:00] you know, cleaning, whatever it is, I’m just thinking, thinking through ideas.

So I’m often thinking about the next scene and what’s gonna happen. So that when I actually do have those half an hour, 20 minutes, an hour, whatever, you sit down and write, I just, yes, I can go straight into it. I don’t have to kind of think about it. So I’ve done the thinking beforehand. So again, there’s lots of little tricks that, yeah, I’ve learned over time about being more efficient in the way that I write.

Um, but I’m drawn to it and I, I love writing the Trigger Man. I’ve really got into it. And hopefully this will be my publishers just want me to keep writing it. You know, so hopefully I can keep it going for like 15, 20 books maybe more.

Mark: Yeah. Do you have a plan for that series? Like when you’re talking about revealing certain things, is there a number

Aiden: Yeah,

Mark: All that like you have kind of in mind? If you don’t mind sharing it.

Aiden: Yeah, sure. Um, so I’m working on book eight, sorry, book seven now, which is set in the Mexican drug war and then book eight potentially going to reveal pieces. [00:19:00] Deep background. And then from there I’ve got probably two or three more books planned out in reasonable detail. And then I’ve got this kinda long term plan about where it can go and some of the background elements that come out. So it is kinda like the further into the future you go, the more vague it becomes. But I, I feel like I’ve got enough to keep it going for quite a while.

Mark: Awesome. I look forward to continuing to read them.

Aiden: Thank you.

Mark: I really enjoyed Blunt Force.

Aiden: Oh, thank you. Yeah, I like, I, I just, I really enjoy writing them. I have a lot of fun and, uh, yeah, I’ve been really, I’ve been really happy about how well it’s sold and the reviews I’ve got. So they’ve all been, for the most part, really, really positive. So, yeah, it was

Mark: Yeah.

Aiden: Fantastic.

Mark: Yeah, yeah. Deserved for sure.

Aiden: Thank you.

Mark: So looking at characters for this book, you, there were a lot of viewpoints. [00:20:00] How did you keep track of all that? And when you’re on book six, maybe these, I should ask these individually, but do you, how do you keep track of arcs for the characters? Because in some books there’s the character goes through this journey from beginning to end and they come back changed, so to speak. But then we also have books that are like Jack Reacher as an example, where he doesn’t change very much because it’s a series and we love what we get from Jack Reacher. We don’t need him to go through these big changes in his personality or, know, how do you balance all of that? ’cause it was, it was great, but, and I, I got it all, but I, I was just thinking while I was reading it, like writing all these characters, it’s like, wow, here we are with this person and this person.

And like, and they’re all unique and they all go through so much. It’s like, that’s a lot.

Aiden: Yeah. How do I answer that? I suppose, uh, so Pierce has this background, which, uh, when I came up with the idea, I thought, this is really great. [00:21:00] I don’t know if anyone’s actually done this before. I won’t say what it is ’cause it hasn’t come out yet. But, I thought, but then when I started thinking about the implications of what that background would be, was it kind of started to flesh out why he reacts the way he does and this kind of conflict that he’s got and yeah, a lot of thrillers in this genre that I’ve read, they tell you straight away, you’ve done two tours in Afghanistan and one in Iraq, and he’s the top guy to mark and you, and it is all laid out for you. And I went, no, no, no. I wanna do the complete, the complete different approach. A bit like what Tom Wood did with his Victor, the assassin.

You don’t know anything about him. And I find that really intriguing. You know, like, so who is he? Where’s he come from? And, uh, and I, so there’s a lot. So as he’s, but as I, as I write him he becomes more real and it’s kind of easier to, to write him, if that makes sense. And then I just put him in a different situation, that kind of brings him up, that, uh, that confronts him [00:22:00] with his thoughts and beliefs. So in this one, you mentioned, you know, like I had a whole lot of Cold War references. I mean, his parents were spies in the Cold War, which was revealed in this one.

Mark: Yeah.

Aiden: And, and so then that’s bringing up his emotions about how he feels about that. And then I’ve got the, the two other main characters in there are Rachel Zane, who’s another paramilitary operator like Pierce.

And I’ve got a deep background on her, which has come out some of the earlier books. And then Mackenzie Summerfield, which is the team’s analyst. And she and Pierce have a long history together and they’ve been caught through quite a bit together. And you, and you just kind of go, what can I do with each of them?

You know? And the other thing that, uh, you know, like Jack Richard doesn’t change, but one thing my publisher says is, I think it’s more than 50% of my readers are women. And they, [00:23:00] I think that’s because I do have those character Arc and those, those uh, the depth and the change in the characters. I think that’s, that has helped me get into that market or that de that, um, demographic of the market.

So,

Mark: Yeah, that makes

Aiden: so, yeah.

Mark: And what about tracking all the characters? Do you have like a, a notebook of, of all the different people and their personalities before you start writing? Or,

Aiden: Uh.

Mark: Come to life because you’ve, you know, you’re imagining them as you are doing things like you mentioned.

Aiden: A lot of people have said to me like, you, you can retain a lot of information in your head, and maybe I can. But yeah, because I, I, I do have notes, but there’s a lot of it. I just, it’s there and I can remember back, or if I can’t remember, I can remember which chapter it was in, in the previous book and go back and go right there it was.

Mark: Okay.

Aiden: So yeah, it’s not, I don’t find it that difficult to be honest. It’s, maybe it’s [00:24:00] just something skill that I’m lucky. I, I dunno. But,

Mark: Not, I don’t have the skill. Yeah,

Aiden: But, but you know, it, editing is really hard for me, so, you know, it takes me so everyone’s got something and everyone’s that helps ’em. Something’s got something, holds ’em back, so, yeah.

Yeah.

Mark: And what was it like writing the villains? Do you find getting into the villain head, the villain’s head, difficult to give their perspective, make them seem human, not a caricature of this genre.

Aiden: So I’ve worked in a lot of big companies where, where I would call it like it’s a high density sociopath. And, and you see some of the people who are running companies or projects or things like that, and you go like, why are they making those decisions? And when you start to realize that they just don’t care about other people, [00:25:00] you kind of make sense.

And luckily I’m not in that world anymore, but I just, I started to realize that there’s just these, they’re very, very small part of the world, but they’re the kind of the narcissist and the sociopaths. And the psychopaths that just, they just don’t care about anyone and they’re all about themselves.

And I just like this idea of, blowing ’em over the top. So for example, in, um, uh, book Five Shock Front, that’s about a, um, and former soldier who terms paramilitary and he’s basically like, he’s almost like a cult leader. He, everything he says he believes.

Mark: Yeah.

Aiden: And, and he’s got this island of Komodo dragons, which he feeds anyone. He feeds people to that disappoint him, and they sort over the top and, but you make them really, really bad. And then people go like, they’ve gotta die. They’ve gotta get the justice. And it’s, it’s, it’s, um, yeah, just [00:26:00] so I try and draw real world traits from people like sometimes you can just watch politicians or business leaders on online and, and just some of the things they say and you go like, you know, I could use that because that’s like a super film would say.

But then you give them something like James Bond esque, like a, like a, like a island full of Komodo dragons just to make them that big, crazy. So yeah, they’re, they’re fun. Um, yeah, I just, but it’s, it’s trying to find something that makes each one different. I think there was, ’cause in, in my third book, I had a, an assassin who was also a comic board artist and kept drawing comic illustrations of everything that he’d, done to kill people and just, and, and then suddenly he was like this, he just became more real to me, even though he’s just this crazy killer.

Mark: Yeah, I love that drawing his killings. Well, unfortunately we are running low on time, so I have a few, a few more, couple [00:27:00] more questions for you. And

Aiden: Yep.

Mark: Mostly for those who are authors that are listening to the show. And I’d like to know what advice you would give someone who just publish like book one or book two. So they’re beyond the, I need to find time to write and, you know, they’ve written a book, they’re getting into it. And now what, because this is a, a stage that’s also quite difficult and overwhelming depending on if you’re traditionally published or, well, either way.

Aiden: Yeah. Uh, one, I was originally thinking of self-publishing Trigger Man, but that takes a lot of time and effort to kind of understand how to digitally market your books. Right. So, and I tried self-publishing other books before to varying success. But then I was a group of authors that I’m with and one of ’em was reading it and he said to me, just send it out to some publishers.

[00:28:00] So there’s a lot of digital publishers out there now who are looking for thriller authors, particularly action thriller authors and all the main thing I would suggest is if you’re going to a publisher, check to see how many reviews their books have on Amazon. So if they have five or six, they don’t know how to market it.

But if they’ve got thousands on their books, then they know how to market it. And you know that, don’t write your book to then get it stuck with a publisher that doesn’t know how to promote you and get it out there. I guess that’s the biggest advice I, I would give, you know, do your research on that. But I, I actually, but having a publisher like Incubator, which are fantastic, it allows me just to concentrate on writing the books while they do all the, the marketing.

It’s, and, uh, and it’s a reasonable arrangement, with, how they split the, the, um, profits. So yeah, I, I would, yeah, that’s what, two or three books I would go try and find a hybrid publisher, uh, not a hybrid publisher or a digital publisher.

Mark: Okay,

Aiden: Yeah. [00:29:00] Okay.

Mark: Did Tri was Triggerman, did you submit it for the first time and it was accepted?

Aiden: I think it was the third place I submitted it to. But yeah, Incubator picked it up and they, they’d been mostly doing vigilante justice, like the Jack Reacher or approach to, you know, my guy walks into a town and kills all the bad guys..

Mark: Yeah.

Aiden: But mine’s more along the lines of like a Mark Greaney, Gray Man. You know, he’s, he’s, he’s, he’s with the CIA, he’s traveling around the world. I think I’ve sent him to about eight books. I think I’ve sent him 45 countries already. And yeah, so there was a bit of risk for them there, but it’s been one of the bestsellers. So, uh, yeah, look, it is been life changing for me. It is. It’s doing really well. I, I made a really good choice and I was lucky to get with, with Incubator and I’ve got a great editor, Alice [00:30:00] with Incubator, so she’s been really good at honing the stories and improving them too. So yeah, get a good editor is the other thing I suggest.

Mark: Yeah. Yeah. Well congratulations on that success.

Aiden: Thank you.

Mark: Three times is a low number. That’s really good.

Aiden: But to give you context, I’ve been writing for 30 years and, you know, 30 years I was barely making any money on my writing and it was just a hobby and I was trying multiple genres. And it was only when I got into the Trigger Man that things turned around. So, you know, I’ve spent a lot of time getting there. I think it was, I, when I started writing the Trigger Man, I went, you’ve actually gotta start writing for the market. You know, what does the market actually want? You know, to what are the tropes, what are the, the expectations people having to throw off? Or what do they want from their main character? And once you start to write in, in a market approach, it’s easy.

It’s to sell. Or for publishers to go, yeah, we’re gonna go with this. ’cause that’s that work in the market [00:31:00] zone. Yeah. Trigger Man worked, but every, everything else before that didn’t, so, you know, it’s not always, it’s not always a smooth road. Yeah.

Mark: Okay. Fair. Well, that’s that’s

Aiden: Yeah.

Mark: Congratulations.

Aiden: Yeah.

Mark: So last question. Where can people find your books and learn more about you?

Aiden: Well there’s Blunt Force there, so that’s book six. You can get it on Amazon. It’s exclusive to Amazon, so it’s on the Kindle Unlimited and you can get it in the first three books. You can get in audio, but you can also get it in print as well. So basically Amazon or you can go to my website, which is aidenlbailey.com

That gives you more information. We can find my books.

Mark: Okay, great. Well, thank you so

Aiden: Thank you.

Mark: I really appreciate it. If you don’t mind sticking around for a few extra minutes after the show, I do,

Aiden: Sure. Thanks.

Mark: Bonus questions for the newsletter subscribers that only they get access to.[00:32:00]

Aiden: Definitely. Thanks Mark.

Mark: Thanks again. ​

TPP Episode 9 Angela Douglas

Mark: Hello and welcome to the Thriller Pitch Podcast, where you come for the pitch and stay for the story behind the story. I’m your host, Mark P.J. Nadon, and this is episode nine. Every Tuesday I sit down with a different thriller author, if you love discovering new books and the stories behind them hit follow now so you don’t miss the next episode, including next week’s conversation with Aiden Bailey, author of the Action Thriller Blunt Force.

And if you wanna be part of the show, you can join us on Patreon. Members get to submit guest questions, hear episodes early, read bonus stories from past guests, and even grab my own novella, Cognitive Breach. All for the price of a Starbucks coffee. Links are in the show notes.

Today’s guest is Angela Douglas, an award-winning Canadian author who lives in the Okanagan with her husband and kids. Her debut psychological thriller Every Fall was published by Rising [00:01:00] Action Publishing in January, 2025, and her sophomore novel, the Bone Trail will Follow in June, 2026. When she isn’t working or hanging out with her family, she hides in her studio writing her next book.

Mark: Hello, Angela, thank you so much for being here today. Welcome to the podcast.

Angela: Thanks for having me.

Mark: I’m very excited today to get into your book Every Fall and we’re gonna jump right into the pitch.

Angela: Oh dear. Okay, here we go. So every fall is a book about a husband and wife, newly married, the husband Jake is a beat cop in one of the worst crime riddled cities. In the province and his wife, Bree is a newly minted stay at home mom slash former party girl. Everything is going fine with them living in this crime infested town until crime follows Jake home from work, threatening Bree and her son. So they decide to move further afield to [00:02:00] another town outside of Jake’s jurisdiction, hoping that life will get better. Shortly after moving there Jake experiences a severe trauma and loss at the workplace causing him to spiral with guilt and grief, leaving Bree alone at home in a creepy new house where strange things happen. She has bad dreams and the house makes all kinds of noises and they have a hard time figuring out, is it the house? Are they both collectively losing their minds or have the bad guys found them.

Bree, isolated and struggling must protect her children from the one person she thought would always keep them safe. Every fall will keep you on the edge of your seat.

Mark: I love that. Thank you. Yeah. A really, really good book. I really enjoyed it. Thank you for sending me a copy. This one, you know, I, I give myself a week for every podcast episode to try and read the book. And I was done like three days early on this book because it really was a page turner. I, I needed to know what was happening and we’ll get into the psychological versus the supernatural side of it in a little bit.

But I just wanted to [00:03:00] say I really, really enjoyed the book. So thank you for saying that alone.

Angela: course.

Mark: So let’s get into where did this book idea come from?

Angela: That is an excellent question. I had this idea kicking around in my head for a long time. I am the spouse of a retired police officer, so I have a window into that world, and I’ve also lived in a pretty spooky house, when I had my first child. So I thought, oh wow, how wild would it be if you combined, both types of drama together what these people are going through individually and what can happen when you’re in law enforcement.

Mark: And was there a moment in your life that shaped, a plot point or a scene in the story?

Angela: Not really. Maybe a few creepy dreams. You know, when you’re a new parent, you’re not sleeping at all.

And so, you know, add in a shift, working husband and a baby that doesn’t sleep and, you’re just disoriented. So, probably the dreams I would say.[00:04:00]

Mark: And how long did it take you to write the book? Was he retired when you started this, the book journey, and

Angela: yes, he was. I mean, it started in my head. As you know, most of our stories start in our, our head and our dreams and our sleep and all that kind of stuff. But I actually started writing it in 2019, so almost six years total.

Mark: Wow. And what was that journey like? Was it challenging full of like research or was it a lot of thinking? How did that journey play out?

Angela: It was a long process for a lot of reasons I hadn’t written in a really long time. I was a realtor at the time, and so I was working a lot and I had this idea that I wanted to write. So when I moved to a new city and I had no clients anymore, I had some free time. So I started jotting it down and realized I don’t know what I’m doing.

I’ve written small, short stories I’ve written, you know, articles and, and that sort of thing for any jobs that I’ve had, but I’ve never attempted to write a novel before, so it was very overwhelming and I would never [00:05:00] recommend doing it. The way I did this one, I wrote it all out of order, because I would get excited about an idea or a part of the story or a scene, and then I would jot that out and then I would start writing some of the darker, more traumatic stuff, and then I’d need to take a break.

So it was a lot of stop and go and jumping around. So when I was done the first draft, which I wouldn’t even call it, that, I would say the first whatever, right amount, amount of words, it was all out of order and it was very overwhelming trying to slot it into place. So the first version that I wrote in 2019 is light years away from the final product, but it was pretty cool the first time to ever type the end on a novel length manuscript.

Mark: I bet. Yeah, that’s always a good moment to finish every book. And you have another one coming up right?

Angela: I do. Yeah. The bone trail comes out in June of 2026, and it’s different characters, standalone. It’s a, a locked room mystery slash suspense.[00:06:00]

Mark: Awesome. So would you call yourself a cancer or a plotter or, I guess somewhere in between. ’cause you’re, I mean, what you mentioned with jumping scenes is very unusual. I don’t hear that very often. I can, I can understand it though. ’cause I’ve always wondered if you could do that, if you were super inspired by a scene.

If I could write that scene because it’s like vivid and emotional and, and full of power, especially when you’re thinking about it. ’cause you’re excited about it, but then you gotta go fill in the rest of this stuff. Which, like you said is, is quite a challenge. So with this book and then with your next book, what was that process like?

Obviously Pantsing to start with ’cause you’re just kind of writing scenes and then putting it together. Did you go have to go back and then outline the whole thing?

Angela: So I’ve written four books. The, there’s this one, one coming out, and then I’ve written two more and I’ve learned a lot. So this one took six years. The second took two. And the other ones I would say, you know, about a year, give or take. So I do have a better idea and I’m more of a plotter now because I see the need for it.

Does the book [00:07:00] look anything like the original outline? Almost never. I think that having a you know, a path or maybe even a maze kind of like mapped out so that you know the highlights of what you’re gonna hit is good. And then if the story takes you somewhere else while you’re writing, go with it. I would never go in as blind as I did the first time. But I didn’t know what I didn’t know. And since then I’ve taken lots of, you know, writing courses and I’ve had editor feedback and all of those kinds of things that help shape you in positive and difficult ways. But yeah definitely I would not be pantsing again. The only time that I’ve done that is that if I have one of those scenes really tickle me that I have to write it down. Then I might do that and then slot it in later. But I am always working with some sort of an outline now, because I just, I don’t wanna be that lost ever again.

Mark: Yeah, I kind of did the same thing. Well, I, yeah, I guess I’ve been all over the place, but now I do more outlining. As well [00:08:00] leading up to it. So I have, but then the characters do what they’re gonna do. I

Angela: do what they’re gonna do

Mark: almost every podcast episode I record, we get into that, that little moment where we talk about that characters just do what they’re gonna do. It’s so universal for writers that it, it’s funny that it happens to all of us because we’re character driven, I guess you could say. And we let the characters drive the story rather than writing the plot and let the plot drive the story. Which, I mean some authors do and, and they’re still can be really good books, but. Character stories are some of my favorite stories.

Angela: Me too.

Mark: So it’s called a psychological thriller, but it crosses sub genres. Why the supernatural? Because you could have gone, I mean, if I was gonna list like all the sub-genres you might be in, I, you know, it is psychological, supernatural crime, domestic, like it could kind of fit into a lot of little places.

Angela: I know.

Mark: So what came first in all these ideas? Was it, was it the domestic side, the supernatural. And what made you think. Oh, I should combine these. Or maybe it came at the same time anyway.

Angela: It did it, it came. I never set out to [00:09:00] write something that was so blended that some people love it and other people go, what was that? Because my whole idea was that these, you know, young parents, they’re overtired, they’re both going through their own types of trauma, which come along with symptoms similar to a real haunting. So I thought, wouldn’t it be neat to highlight what it would be like if the house was haunted or not? And these people are suffering and not talking to each other. So it’s very isolating, upsetting, and it could be, I guess, the idea that a real haunting is less difficult than some of the stuff that comes along with these mental health issues was the main reason for me tangling so much up together and what better vessel than to, you know, add some crime and those sorts of other things. I’ve even heard like a touch of horror, maybe just one or two. One or two, a little dark.

Mark: Yeah, And I like that. In your acknowledgements, you mentioned the trauma being the [00:10:00] trauma of what they were going through and being just, or worse than the trauma of whatever the supernatural was. ’cause they weren’t sure what was going on and I certainly felt that through the novel.

When you finished the book, did you go back and have to think about. How you paced both to put more emphasis on one or the other. When I was reading, I think I was more into the domestic side and their relationship and just what the hell Jake was thinking and doing and driving me nuts even though it was true to character.

That side got me probably really like you aimed for harder and then her, you know, PPD and that probably hit me harder than then the supernatural, although I wanted to know the conclusion, of course, you know, like, what was this? And I got that in the end.

Angela: Nope, that’s good. That’s exactly what I had hoped for, was just the story of these two people living relatively normal lives and suffering really common things that maybe weren’t as talked about back when the book took place. And hopefully a little bit more now and then, the, [00:11:00] you know, perspective haunting the maybe. Was it or wasn’t? It was supposed to be sort of a, a side character, but I had varying opinions when I first gave it to beta readers and editors where some people wanted more from some parts and more from others, which I guess is the risk that you take when you write something that’s cross genre.

But in the end, I really saw that those two needed to go together.

So, I’m glad that you were , got more outta that one side. ’cause that was my initial intent even though they’re all, it’s all pretty scary actually.

Mark: Yeah, I know it’s. That’s what made it a page turner is the the cross between the two really is, has helped me turn the page because all of a sudden there was this story in these women and I’m trying to think like, oh, is this gonna have something to do with the ghost? Or is this, you know, about the domestic side or what?

So yeah, it was a lot of fun. I really enjoyed it. And given your husband’s background is now a retired police constable. So you have, as [00:12:00] a constable’s wife, you’ve lived a lot of, probably what your character is going through or what Brie had gone through and how much research went into, into the police side of it. ’cause that felt really, I’ve known a lot of police officers. I’ve wanted to be one for a long time. So I’ve hung out with a lot of police officers in my youth. And, and what you described in the book and what I’ve heard of the stories. ’cause even up north, you know, we have the OPP here that get detached to tiny little northern towns that have it really tough.

Just like in your book, RCMP. So how much research was involved in figuring that angle out? Or was it just, yeah, I know this stuff because I lived it.

Angela: Yeah, I didn’t have to do a ton of research. I wrote it first and then I fact checked for authenticity and had to tweak a few terms. I mean, I read a lot of thrillers too, and of course a lot of the thrillers I read are American, so even some of that was kind of sneaking in. There, even though I’m very familiar with policing up here and I do have a few friends who are still members who are able to look at [00:13:00] that for me.

And then just do, I mean, I have a resource right in my house, which is pretty, uh, pretty handy. Um, yeah.

Mark: And was there research to the ghost and haunting side, like the, I can’t remember the name of the business that they go, well, I don’t wanna give away the story, but let’s, let me keep this to general question research on haunting

Angela: Yeah, so I’ve always been interested in it, like from a little girl. I liked reading spooky stories and I’ve always been interested in the, you know, is there, isn’t there? So I didn’t really need to do a ton of research that wasn’t stuff I’d already kind of cruised by. But the, I do reference a paranormal society and there is one in BC that will come, to, I’m sure there’s several across Canada, but they will come to your house and see if there’s something going on there.

Mark: That’s so interesting.

Angela: Yeah,

Mark: Yeah, I love that. I was wondering, I, I knew I had to ask if that was real or not. ’cause I was like, wow, that sounds like it could be real, but it also sounds like it, it could [00:14:00] be fiction, but wow. I would, so, I mean, I, I’m getting sidetracked a little bit, but what, what do they do? Like this business?

Angela: I don’t know. I didn’t have them come over, but I did.

Mark: Okay. You didn’t check your own house.

Angela: Yeah, I’m sure they do. Probably, you know, a quick look or a once over, I don’t know if it’s like, you know, where you see them spend the night and they’ve got infrared cameras and stuff like that. Um, but if, if I had that happen in the book, then I would’ve definitely had to do some more research and have a call with them to see what they actually do. But they didn’t end up coming to the house, so I was able to leave it there.

Mark: Yeah. No, that’s fair. Yeah, no, I, I pictured like Ghostbusters, like, I don’t know what they had, like these suits on, but yeah, I don’t, of course I want to see Scooby.

How did you know that the story was ready? So once you finished the drafts and as challenging as it was, that may have made it even more challenging to know. Is this book ready? And, and this is traditionally published. So you went to a public or an agent with it, I guess. How did you know it was [00:15:00] ready?

Angela: I didn’t, I had no clue what I was doing. So i, wrote it and rewrote it and rewrote it and I thought, oh my gosh, I dunno what I’m doing. So I hired a freelance editor, which I highly recommend, even though I know, it’s not always affordable, especially if you haven’t, you know, written a book before. But I learned a lot through that process that, you know, you have a lot of good stories, a lot of good information here, but I had to string it along a little bit better. I had to cut out some things that I really liked and I thought were really cool, but didn’t really have much to do with the story. So all of those kinds of things along the way. And then I did another round of edits with the same editor who then said, okay, now this is ready. So I didn’t know. Now I can recognize it in my own writing, if I’m ready or getting close, at least to send it to beta readers or whoever else. But at the time I had no clue how many drafts and, and how many rounds of edits had to go into it before I could even query. And then I was querying agents for quite a long time. Lots and lots and [00:16:00] lots of rejections. Piles and piles and piles and piles. I was getting close, like lots of falls out, lots of really good feedback.

And in the end I didn’t end up getting an agent. I went direct to a publisher. And, even when they called and gave me the offer, I didn’t realize that that was happening on, on the call. I was just like, oh, okay, let’s talk about my book. And then, and then the rest is, the rest is history.

Mark: Wow. Well congratulations for sticking that out. ’cause I know that’s a process rejections and a lot of people just let it go. But the, you know, when you, you take that feedback, you take it to heart, you get better feedback. Did you end up adjusting the story based on that feedback? Was it there any adjustments or it was just…

Angela: With this book, it was really hard because there were so many subplots that all of my feedback was slightly different. People liked different elements of it, so it was difficult to figure out where to go next. Ultimately, I did make some changes that I was okay with. I didn’t quite love. [00:17:00] And then when I got picked up by my publisher as they were doing, ’cause then you do lots more rounds of edits, they actually said, Hey, wouldn’t it be cool if you did this?

And I was like, I did that. I already have it. So I was able to put it back in and and it was a little bit more the way that I initially wanted it to be. So it worked out really well. That doesn’t always happen , but it was nice to be able to put something I liked back in there.

Mark: Are you able to talk about that or is it a spoiler?

Angela: It’s a spoiler.

Mark: Okay. Okay. Maybe we’ll after the show, ’cause I need to know.

Angela: Of course. Of course.

Mark: What went back in. We’ll talk off. Yeah. Okay. So I wanna talk about Jake a little bit. Was he hard to write? Yeah. ‘Cause he’s, I mean, he’s like, I hated him for a long time. So there were moments in this story and I’m sure it’s, but this is, you know, you’re, you’re being true to life, uh, of a lot of these experience. You had to tell this story authentically, which put him and you, I mean, I know you, it ended well. I don’t wanna give spoilers, [00:18:00] but, I, I had a hard time with Jake for a long time throughout the book because of the decisions he was making and, and how he was, treating Brie and stuff.

How did you write that? Like, did you find, were you worried that people were gonna go, i’m, I’m putting this book down because this guy, I just can’t read this guy anymore.

Angela: I think it’s bliss that this was my first book because I didn’t think about any of that. I never even thought what it would feel like to get rejections and get reviews. I just started writing and, I wrote the book, the best way I could in the most authentic way that I thought it could be in that situation. So I took. PTSD and postpartum, and I picked some of the absolute worst case scenarios to give to these people. I think in re in real life, I, I don’t think there are that many Jakes and, and I don’t know if you know people, many people experienced some of the extremes that Brie did, at least privately and then she didn’t get a lot of help ’cause she had a Jake at home.

So I think that [00:19:00] nowadays people talk more and they have more support and they’re not quite as extreme. But I didn’t think about what the impact of the extreme nature of the behavior would’ve done. And I, a lot of my, if you take a little peek at my reviews, you’ll see that there’s a lot of people who are not team Jake.

And I had hoped that there would be a little bit of empathy for him just given that some of the stuff that was happening wasn’t necessarily his fault, but in the end, you know, yeah, it’s not, it’s not great and I have to say, it’s not my husband. So many people, so many people ask, and mine’s lovely and we’re still married.

Mark: That’s good.

Angela: but yeah, there, there are worst case like you do with most fiction, you, you know, you use the extremes for the story.

Mark: Yeah. Well that’s why I ask ’cause absolutely. But I know like when I’m writing, sometimes I’m like, am I taking this character too far? Into almost a villain. And I do write villains, but [00:20:00] villains are easier in a sense because I’m not trying to make them, they’re hard to write because of what they’re doing that’s dark.

But I know they’re a villain and the reader knows they’re a villain. Whereas in Jake’s case, he’s almost, he’s not meant to be. But depending on your history and your, your own trauma, I suppose he very much can be someone you don’t like very much. Which has kind of happened to me. I mean, I’m glad like it, you know, well, I don’t wanna spoil anything, but, uh,

Angela: no, fair, fair enough. And you

Mark: I, I like the book in the end.

Angela: oh good, he was worse in earlier iterations. And somebody asked me if he was the villain. And of course, because I was pretty new to writing a novel, I didn’t think about those things that now I think about intentionally when I’m writing. So he was worse in earlier drafts. Oops.

Mark: Oh wow, okay.

Angela: Yeah.

Mark: It was worse. Well, so who was the most fun to write in that book. I mean, my personal favorite was Tammy,

Angela: Tammy’s my favorite character, hands down, and she is [00:21:00] one of those characters that came out of nowhere. So I just was writing, writing, writing, and I, writing things out of order. And as I was stringing it together, this character popped out and she’s a, you know, a accumulation of a, a pile of different things, but her coming into Bri’s life when she did and her levity was just a lot of fun to play with.

Mark: And I like that. It, it, I found it really balanced the book well because it had gotten so dark that it needed a little light. And Tammy was that perfect light to, to put in there, to, to give like a breath to, to the, the bigger discussion and things that were going on. Yeah. So we are, we are getting close to time.

I’m gonna wrap up with a few questions for those authors that are listening to this show. What advice would you give to someone who just published their first or second book?

Angela: Just publish. Hmm, hmm. Lots of advice. What shall I say? Be kind to yourself is probably the first thing. It is a [00:22:00] rollercoaster of best, absolute best and then surprises. So I don’t wanna say the worst, but just surprises. Like, you know, reading, reading your review, you get these reviews that will bring tears to your eyes that you’ll print off and hang on your wall. Please do that. So take all of the really nice things people say and hang onto that even though if you get 10, five star reviews, it’s the one star that you repeat in your head over and over again when you’re writing. Don’t do that. And then like everyone else says, shut it down. Don’t look at all of the reviews, don’t obsess over them. Better.

Easier said than done because I absolutely did read all of mine and obsess over them, but at some point, shut it down. And also don’t get wrapped up in the publishing, launching marketing aspect, which is extremely hard to say because you need to do that. You need to market your book. You need to be able to pitch your book on the fly. You need to be able to do all of those things to sell your book and to keep going. But most [00:23:00] importantly. Write the next book because if you get bogged down in those things, it can kind of take away a little bit from the magic and the joy of creating. So start working on another book, or even better if you work on that book before the first one comes out, then you have something fun to play with and work on, you know, while you’re having some days that aren’t necessarily the best, but also. Enjoy every minute you will be, you know, I don’t know about you, but I wanted to write since I was seven years old. So I have always pictured myself, you know, signing books and going to launches and, you know, seven years old, it was all, you know, in the bag. And sometimes now I will be sitting in a bookstore going, wow, this, this is pretty cool. I wrote a freaking book. So celebrate your wins. And keep writing. Even if you, you know, even if it’s not great or you’re not in a perfect writing mood, just, just keep, keep going forward. That’s the only way. Forward, forward, forward.[00:24:00]

Mark: Oh, that’s great. Thank you. I really like the print out your five still or the good reviews and put them on your wall not to forget. I love that advice. I haven’t heard that before, but I may just go do that.

Angela: You need a happy pile.

Mark: It does.

Angela: see it.

Mark: Yeah. Yeah, I could see that helping a lot because it does, it is, uh, it can be a tough business. And we do like to, to, to look at the bad reviews and I don’t know why we, we are this way.

Angela: And you fixate and you hear that one word, that one negative word replays in your head. But why? When there’s so many nice things, focus on the nice or try to.

Mark: I love that. Thank you.

Angela: Of course,

Mark: If you could pick one thing that you felt led to your success so far, what would it be?

Angela: Being extremely stubborn. Once I knew that I was going to spend this much time doing something, I was gonna just keep going until it got out there. Whatever way. Who knows if the, you know, the querying [00:25:00] process had gone on for another six months or so. It was close to a year. I think it was 10, 10 months before I got picked up. I was getting close to shelving it, and then I had already started working on another book. So that’s the other thing, if you feel like your first book or whatever number book isn’t gonna get picked up, you have another one cooking. So just keep, keep stuff cooking. So yeah, I don’t, I don’t know if my perspective would’ve been much different, the longer it took or the outcome anyways, but I just had no intention on ever giving up.

So if Every Fall, wasn’t it, the bone trail was gonna be it, and then, you know, the two that are coming after that, you just never know, you know, which one is, is gonna get picked up and, what your, what your path is going to be. Just keep, just keep going.

Mark: Yeah, thank you. And you also never know, like maybe it’s book five that gets picked up, that just hits the market at the right time, but then people still want 4, 3, 2, and one, and they’ve already been written. So you never know

Angela: And then they’re already there waiting for you. That’s the best

Mark: yeah, exactly. Because the hardest part [00:26:00] is getting in the door, I think. And then once you’re, once you’re in the door, in the traditional side of publishing, I’m indie published, but on the traditional side, I imagine it, once you’re in the door, it helps that they’ll listen a little more to what’s your next book idea. And if you have other books there,

Angela: Yeah, I hope so.

Mark: very helpful.

Angela: I’m in the trenches with book three, so we’ll see.

Mark: Yeah. That’s awesome. Congratulations.

Angela: Thank you.

Mark: So where can people find you and get your book and learn more about you?

Angela: My book is for sale anywhere books are sold. So chapters Indigo, Barnes and Noble. Any small indie stores online. If you’re looking for signed copies, there’s quite a few, Indigos in BC in the lower mainland on the island where there’s some sign copies that are still there. It’s also on amazon and, and other places online in ebook, print and audiobook.

Mark: Oh, nice. The audio book. That’s great. All right, well thank you so much. I really appreciate your time. If you don’t mind [00:27:00] hanging out after the show, we got a couple of bonus questions for our newsletter subscribers who get the a few extra questions. Thank you so much for being here. This was a lot of fun.

I love learning more about Every Fall. Listeners you gotta go check it out, get the book, read it. If you like dark psychological, you are gonna enjoy it.

Angela: Great. Thank you for having me.

Mark: Thanks for listening to episode nine. If you enjoyed this conversation, make sure to follow the show so you don’t miss episode 10. When I sit down with Aiden Bailey, author of the action Thriller Blunt Force, and if you’d like to go deeper with early access, bonus content, and the chance to ask future guests your own questions, you can join me on Patreon.

The links are in the show notes.

TPP Episode 8 T.D. Severin

Mark: [00:00:00] Hello and welcome to the Thriller Pitch Podcast where you come for the pitch and stay for the story behind the story. I’m your host, mark p Jay Nadon, and you are listening to episode eight. This episode is brought to you by my upcoming novel, the Resonant. It’s the final to the Armageddons Descendants trilogy. Think The Road meets the Institute with a sprinkle of X-Men. If you’re an author and want to sponsor a future episode, head to markpjnadon.ca/thrillerpitchpodcast.

Today’s guest is T.D. Severin, author of the Medical Thriller, Deadly Vision. It is the winner of the American Fiction Award in 2025. He’s been publishing since 1994 with work appearing in journals and magazines around the world. When he is not writing, Todd runs a rock record label and he’s already at work [00:01:00] on his next medical thriller. Hello Todd, welcome to the podcast. Thank you so much for being here today.

Todd: Oh, I’m thrilled to be here. Thank you so much for taking time and having me

Mark: And I have your book with me here today. Deadly Vision. I absolutely loved it. Obviously we’ll be getting into it, but this has gotta be, I think this year it’s gonna be one of my favorite books of the year, honestly. And I don’t, I, I don’t, I don’t say that lightly. I read a lot, but I absolutely love this book.

So we’ll get into it. Thank you for sending me a copy, an autograph copy.

So let’s hear your pitch.

Todd: First of all, thank you. I mean, that’s, that was high praise. I, I really do appreciate it. So the book, deadly Vision is a high tech medical psychological thriller. It’s based around a major character redemption arc. Our hero has invented a technology to perform heart surgery entirely within virtual reality, and the forces that be both within the medical center and the toxic politics of medical centers in the United [00:02:00] States, as well as the politics of an ongoing presidential election combined to try and stop him from being able to complete his quest of getting this technology live.

And, as the story goes, there’s increasing obstacles placed in from his way, including madness and murder that he has to overcome to get his technology to fruition in time to save the life of somebody he loves.

Mark: That’s great. Thank you. A wonderful pitch. It really sums it up very well too. So yeah, let’s get into it. Where did this book idea come from?

Todd: You know, I, I’ve actually played around with this idea for a long time. This, this book has a a long odyssey of a story to tell. The original concept came to me way back in 1994, and if you look at the opening quote, one of the, the two quotes I used, one’s from Benjamin Franklin, the other one is from a virtual reality report in 1994, because in 1994, I was starting to research the possibilities [00:03:00] of virtual reality and how have medical applications. At the time it was really being used just for surgical simulation or maybe some training sort of techniques, educational techniques. And in my mind, I was just trying to fathom where could this go? Where could this lead, how could virtual reality become a daily part of, of medical science? So that was the genesis. I said, way back in 1994.

But what I really wanted to focus on then was this concept that you can have virtual reality that you really can’t have with any other sort of life, technology, or existence. And that is the duality of existing both within the virtual world and in the fiscal world at the same time, and how this duality of experience in these two different worlds could be colliding with inside somebody’s brain and how that could be having an impact upon a certain character.

And this concept of duality of existence, which is really fascinating to me, you know? [00:04:00] The original draft of the novel actually delved more into the virtual reality side of things. It’s it a little bit more, a little more fantasy elements that were going on inside virtual reality at the time, but the whole goal was to see what would happen to this character who is existing in one world and in the virtual world at the same time.

And I just became fascinated with that. So that that was the story, Genesis. Then over the years and trials and tribulations, I just kept massaging the story until we got to what you read.

Mark: And how long between like where the plot points came together, where had like a solid idea in the actual writing.

Todd: So I actually wrote the first draft of this novel way back in 1994, and I did get an agent for it, and it made the rounds going through the major New York publishers.

And one of the senior editors at Warner Books wrote me back and she said, I love this. You know, this is, I’ve never read anything like this.

It’s really a fascinating idea, but I don’t know what to do with it. She goes, it’s, it’s [00:05:00] part medical thriller, part cyber thriller, you know, part science fiction. I, I don’t know what to do with this. And I was trying to make the case that this is not science fiction, that everything I was writing about is, is actual medical science.

And I did not wanna be classified as a science fiction author, ’cause I’m not, you know, my inspirations are guys like Michael Crichton, you know, or Robin Cook, or Tess Garretson, you know, the real medical thriller sort of writers. And, but I, I get what she was saying Back in 1994, the publishing rule wasn’t ready for a story about virtual reality and artificial intelligence.

That wasn’t sci-fi, you know, ’cause those were sci-fi terms back then. So, you know, fast forward till now, those terms are now acceptable. So it was time to kind of revisit the book. Bring it out. So, original draft was done in 1994 after I wrote the book, which I did in just a heated fit of enthusiasm, I realized I should probably learn how to write a book.

And so I started [00:06:00] taking classes. I took a bunch of extension courses through UC Berkeley, worked with some great writers, started taking medical fiction writing classes with Tess Garretson and Michael Palmer back in the East coast. Learned a tremendous amount from them. They were, you know, both Tess and Michael.

Michael rest, rest in peace now. But both of them are phenomenal writers, you know, great teachers. So I learned a ton from And then I took an intensive writing course from, from Rob Dugoni and Robert Dugoni writes, you know, fabulous thrillers. And so that kind of became my foundational craft basis to then re revise the book and get into the, the current format.

So from beginning to then, it was a 30 year journey with several completed books along the way. That I kept having to, to change as, as the story was evolving.

Mark: So there’d be a big difference between the first, the first draft of this first book and the current current version.

Todd: It’s kind of funny ’cause I actually came across it the other day. I still have the very first draft, you know, it’s printed up on, you know, dot matrix. [00:07:00] This is 1994. And, and it’s a totally different story. And in fact, you know, this is just an interesting point as, as a writer for yourself. One of the things that actually got me in trouble with writing on the revisions was trying to hold onto too much of the old writing, thinking I could save myself some time, save myself some energy.

Well, I can just, you know, keep this stuff and add this and, and make it all work when it really didn’t, you know, even the voice had been changing over the years of, of learning more and delving into the craft. So, in the end, what you’ve read compared to the first draft maybe there’s like 10 words that are the same.

They’re probably, they’re probably all the maybe and, you know, but but it, it is only when I really said I had to dissect this whole thing apart again, re-concept plot from the beginning. And I’m a pretty detailed plotter when it comes to the way I write. And then I rebuilt the whole novel from the ground up. That’s [00:08:00] when it, it finally started to close.

Mark: So would you say you’re an outliner then, or was your first draft, like pantsing well, you did the research, but almost like a pantsing idea, exploring a story. You might, obviously you have the biggest gr greatest outline ever. If, if you’ve changed the book multiple times.

Todd: I think the first. Yeah, the first draft was a pants without a doubt. It was pants on fire. You know, it was, and I’m rather proud that it actually told a pretty coherent story, which again, was, you know, it got agented, you know, it was Elizabeth, Elizabeth Palmada in San Francisco agency. You know, she picked it up and it, it did make the rounds and it didn’t just get completely laughed out of New York.

It was pushed outta New York. Something heavy. Go away. But at least you know it, it made it there. So from the beginning I started to develop at least a sense that I could construct a story. ’cause you know, as a writer, man, it’s insecurities and doubt is rampant in our profession. ’cause we just never know if we’re conveying [00:09:00] properly what we want to convey.

But then once I started learning craft and I took a course from James Fray, who is, who is a, a crime writer. He got awards for his crime books, but he also wrote a, a teaching book called How to Write a Damn Good And then he wrote How to Write a Damn Good novel two. And I took UC Berkeley courses from him and it was like a eight week intensive course in novel writing. And from him, really started to learn the concepts of laying out the story in a way that has become, you know, the foundation for what Deadly Vision became, as well as what my next book’s gonna be because I’m working on the next book now, so I’m a, a pretty detailed outline now, and I outline in an interesting way though I outline graphically.

I actually plot out on a sheet of paper the basic heroic journey that our main character will be going through, because even though these books are high tech thrillers, I’m referring to the next one by these. ’cause there’s only one so far. You know, the, the technology’s only as interesting as, as [00:10:00] the human impact.

So Deadly Vision is really a tale of a guy who’s going through this incredibly extraordinary circumstance to reach a desired end. And the whole point of the story is to have that character evolve and to grow and to develop and change. So I, I essentially plotted that out, you know, with the major intervening points that are gonna be the major obstacle points.

The, the early crescendo, the bottoming out. Final plateau, making sure that he’s ending at a place which is different than where he started as far as his, you know, development, his, his psychology, who he is as a human being. And then along that path for this event to happen, you have to have this, this, and this preceding.

So each of these became what I call obligate scenes. And then I took all the obligate scenes and I put them on by five index cards. And then on that three by five index card, I make a little notation as to which. Research technology I was gonna be including or talking about within [00:11:00] that passage. So in the end, I had this stack of three by five cards, which is all scenes laid out.

And each scene would talk about, okay, here we’re gonna be talking about the virtual heart project. Here we’re gonna do, like I, in the book, I talk about how they, they now have this open MRI that projects images onto the human body. So, this is where that’s gonna go. You know, this is where the leg lab technology’s gonna go and have all those little guides as to what was gonna happen.

Then writing simply became turning over a card and this is the scene I’m gonna writing now, and I just start writing. So that part is, is carefully crafted, but the scene itself is still being written in the moment. You know? So it’s kind of a combination of outlining and pantsing, I guess, is the best way to to

Mark: Yeah, I love that idea of the cards

Todd: You know, I just recently saw a quote and I, I had not heard before. In fact, Quentin Tarantino hadn’t even made a movie when I first started writing. That’s how long ago it was but apparently Tarantino has said that to write a movie, you need 70 [00:12:00] ideas. You write down an idea is a scene.

You write down the scene on a card, and once you have 70 cards, you have your movie. And I, it’s exactly what I do. In fact, I have my, uh, it’s. Probably right behind me, but I have my next book. It’s on, they’re, they’re pink index cards, and so I have my, my next book written out. It’s a stack of index cards

Mark: I may have to try that. ’cause one of the things I was really, really impressed with was how you kept pace with so many plot things. And how we all brought it all together in the end because there’s so much going on and you have a lot of different, you know, characters that are being touched on and you bring it together so beautifully in the end. I was wondering how, that was one of my questions, but you already answered it now.

Todd: So what I would do then is, again, more than you need to know probably, but so I, I’ve told you I grafted out my main character’s arc, but then I also looked at each of the supporting characters and you know, we have Malcolm and you have Sherilyn and you even have, the [00:13:00] Senator. These are all important characters in the book.

You have Crawford. I took the main character arcs there because every character has to have some sign of development throughout the course of the book or else it’s in stasis, right? Everybody’s gotta be moving forward. Particularly a character like Malcolm, who is our computer genius, and he exhibits a lot of growth throughout the book.

So I would then plot out their character arc and I would then kind of do the same things with them as far as the scenes that they needed to have, and they got their index cards. And then when it came to looking at the book, and if I get a new idea, I just have another index card and you flip through the cards, you go, okay, this will fit right in here.

And I put the card in there and then you can kind of flip through the book just as these index cards and you can get a feeling for how it’s all gonna play out. So that’s kind of how I kept track of all of these different subplots going. And you were right at the end I was thinking, I mean, don’t get me wrong I wrote myself into a corner a few times and at the end of the book I’m going, okay, how in the [00:14:00] hell am I going to get this all to end? And I knew I needed to have an ending where all of these open subplots got concluded at one exact moment in time. know, it couldn’t be staggered. It would’ve lost any impact it had.

So I had to come up with a way to get them all one big bang for the money and you know, that’s hopefully what I did.

Mark: Yeah, for sure. And what about research? Because I mean, you’re a medical doctor, right? The I was impressed with how the terminology certainly came out, which made it feel very real. Even though a lot of words I didn’t under, you know, like i didn’t necessarily understand what you were talking about with some of the medical terminology, but I could follow along enough with how you, the context of what you were saying, that it worked very well.

So I hadn’t, I knew what you were doing, even if I didn’t know exactly what you meant by some of those words. What, what kind of research did you have to do in the, on the medical side, and then also you have like the political side, you the character [00:15:00] side. You know, there’s a lot, there’s a lot going on.

Todd: Yeah, thanks. I did a ton of research, and like I said, I, I made sure that I knew exactly which bit of research I was gonna be highlighting for each individual scene. So the medical stuff was the easiest stuff for me. Just from my background. I still had to do research then, you know, certain medicines had changed from when I first started writing.

Had to make sure I had certain protocols correct, yada, yada, yada. The technology, which is the, the crux of the book is, was entirely researched because even though I was adamant that this not be a science fiction book, nothing I wrote about really exists right now. You know, it’s still taking several iterations from where we are right now to move towards what I’m writing about in the book. What I’m envisioning. I don’t like to call it science fiction ’cause everything will happen the way I’ve described it. I believe all of these [00:16:00] steps are gonna happen, it’s just gonna be a matter of time. So in order to create all of that, I really did have to research all aspects.

I’m not a computer God, I, I barely can type. I mean, I’m, you know, so all the computer stuff had to be researched, you know. All the concept of virtual reality had to be researched. But then on the flip side, most of that stuff’s made up anyways right? The neuroanatomy, all of that is real. the, the most interesting part for me, and it was kind of interesting because there was a time period of 15 years when I wasn’t working on the book.

I didn’t work on the book for 30 years straight. was a 15 year period where it really just sat on ice. ’cause I was busy with the day job. And when I pulled it back out and I started rereading it, there was a whole section in there that I, really don’t even know where it came from. It’s like, I, I don’t quite remember writing it, and I don’t really remember that it even had existed until I read it and it just flowed so seamlessly. I, I realized that I, I must have put this [00:17:00] there for a reason, but, but that is the entire robotics laboratory, the whole character of Helen did not exist in the first several versions of the book. She, the, the whole team was just Taylor and Malcolm doing all the work.

And if you, you know, in the book around chapter 10, we have the big grand round scene where Taylor’s presenting his research to the whole faculty. And there’s one moment where the faculty gets energized and they start pelting him with questions from the stage. And Taylor’s relishing this because it means he’s got their their attention, right?

If they’re asking questions and they’re interested, and one of the questions that gets thrown at him from the stage is, how does this laser move within the body? ’cause that’s the crux of the book. He goes into virtual reality inside this coronary artery. He’s walking through the coronary artery while inside the real patient microbiotics are mimicking his movements to the side of the obstruction in the artery.

And when he is at the right place. Micro laser will fire clear, the artery all done while he’s just been [00:18:00] inside virtual reality. That was the concept of what I wanted to but then this character in the book yells out, how does it move? I don’t know why he said that, because I had, I don’t know. It’s…

Mark: Who asked that question?

Todd: It was, it was just a, a, it was just a big McGuffin for me.

You know, it moves. It just moves. Okay. And then, but, but I wrote it myself and then I had to think about it, well, how does this thing move inside the body? So then I had to really envision, you know, the physics and the, the biomechanics of, of how a micro laser could move inside of the body. So then in order to do that, I had to create the whole micro robotics or the whole robotics laboratory, the farm where Helen Yang is the biomechanical engineer who is working with the team to make the robotics and she then became such an integral part of the story and an integral part of Malcolm’s development and just the entire storytelling process of the book. I [00:19:00] can’t imagine the book not ever having her. But yet she didn’t exist in the first several iterations. And, you know, just to kind of highlight a few points as somebody who’s read the book, there’s certain scenes where Malcolm is in the laboratory trying to figure out what’s going wrong.

He’s on the computer and there’s nothing in the world, possibly more boring than writing about a guy in the lab by himself on the computer, you know, typing. Oh my, I mean, how much reaction can you get, right? But when Helen came in, you know, with her robotic falcon following her and sits down, all of a sudden it had now moved into dialogue and it moved into problem solving, and it moved into increasing tension between the two of them, both within their, their own developing relationships, but also just tension on heightening of the problem. So again, I, I’ve learned so much about writing in this book about that concept of having a guy alone at his computer, tapping away, revealing [00:20:00] stuff to the audience, or having that second person now and throwing it all into dialogue and, and action in, in the moment.

It made a huge difference.

Mark: So Malcolm was the expert on everything, I’m guessing in the original draft?

Todd: Yeah. Well again, the robotics thing was just, it was kind of just McGuffin a little bit. Yeah. But it was all, it was all just up to Malcolm to figure that stuff out.

Mark: He was already pretty stressed out in this version. I can’t imagine what happened in the first version.

Todd: Malcolm, Malcolm is a bit of a stress puppy.

Mark: I loved his character. I,

Todd: He was fun to write. He was so much fun to write.

Mark: yeah, I believe it.

And, oh, and the, the cocoa thing. Where did that come from? I, that was brilliant that the more the more stressed out he got, the higher his chocolate, the cocoa and his chocolate got, that was brilliant. I loved it. Every time the cocoa got, the percentage got higher you knew he was more stressed out and I just loved that.

Todd: Well, and that, yeah, that’s exactly how it evolved. I wanted a [00:21:00] way to, to visualize his increasing anxiety. Without saying, he’s becoming more anxious,

Mark: Yeah.

Todd: Without him fidgeting more. He’s fidgety already. You know, Malcolm, you know, he takes off his glasses, he wipes them on his shirt and cleans and puts ’em back.

How many times can you do that? Right? And I’m a bit of a chocoholic myself, just so you know. So, you know, I’m always,

I always got my chocolate bars on hand. I’m also a licorice aholic. And so it started off, and this is one of those things, I’ll be honest with you. I, I can’t say that I initially planned it the way it evolved.

I just had him eating chocolate as a quirk. But as the story kept getting more tense, it just all of a sudden just made sense that was now getting off of the Nestle’s Crunch Bar is going to dark chocolate and increasing chocolate. And, and at the very end, you know, you had that one moment where when he’s in hiding with the, the Scotsman Starling and he asks for a sip of a whiskey and then, you know.

Malcolm has reached his limit,

Mark: Yeah. [00:22:00] Yeah. Oh yeah. That was great. I love that Scottish character too. Was it Salinger? Was it

Todd: uh, Starling.

Mark: nothing. Probably confusing character. Starling, right? Yeah. Liked his character.

Todd: So that place really exists, by the way, the, I grew up in a small town called Danville. And so when our character is integrating his past into the story, it just kind of made sense for me to have him go back to an area I knew so well and that area out Tassajara Road with the walnut orchards and you know, the more meet and pen fences and the dilapidated houses.

I mean, that’s, that’s the, that’s how it was when I was growing up. I didn’t necessarily live there, but that’s, that’s what that area of town was like. It was all just ranches and wanted orchards. And I wanted to kind of set him back into that milieu to kind of paint the [00:23:00] claustrophobic confines of his childhood home.

’cause that was something that he needed to break out of from the beginning and up on the hill where he goes to that tree called bear that tree really exists on the top of the Las Trumpist range. And I’ve, I’ve been there a million times. So those were like my visions looking out over Dbla Valley and San Damiano, which is the Franciscan retreat up in the hills is a real place.

There really are Franciscan monks walking around there. It’s up in the hills above town, and Danville now has about 40,000 people, and I bet you 1000 even though the San damato it’s just all up by itself, up on the hills. But I used to go there all the time as a kid. And it’s always been a place for me to go as a refuge, just when I needed my own time to sit down and think and, and be in peace.

And there’s the, the, the retreat is up to the, to the left on this little bit of a hill. And down the hill is this little white cottage. I never ever knew what it was, but I, [00:24:00] it’s been there my whole life. And so I just imagined that must be where the groundskeeper and he, he must be Scottish. His name must be startling.

So that’s how startling came about.

Mark: Oh, I love that. So your, your piece of peace and, and became Taylor’s piece of peace.

Todd: They say, write what you know, you know, and it was a place that I could really resonate because it isn’t knowing something and describing something isn’t that interesting in reading so much as the emotional resonance that comes with it.

You know, and you can describe something in a million ways, and you, and I’m not a, I mean, gosh, you read my book. How about, gosh, I, i, i’m not a, a, a great writer, you know, I, I don’t have big words. You know, I’m not Faulkner, you know, I’m, I’m barely, I, I’m simpler than Hemingway. You know, I don’t speak in complex sentences. I don’t write in complex sentences. I’m not flowery, you’re not gonna look at me for that amazing turn of phrase.

My entire goal was to tell a story. And [00:25:00] the value of the story is if there’s any emotional resonance in the arc of this particular character. So to describe something from an emotional point of view to me is just a lot more powerful than to describe it from a physical So that’s why I chose those areas ’cause I had an emotional connection.

Mark: Yeah. No, it landed well. Yeah.

Todd: Thank.

Mark: and. And that his father was also there and I wanted to ask about father that arc. I don’t want to give away too much of the story for the readers, it’s almost like inside question, I guess. Read the book, if you haven’t read the book to readers, read it, and then, but the, his father from the, from like all his fears and the trauma, did you plan that arc from like the beginning of the book where it’s very much trauma and abuse.

I know I i wanna give away what happens in the end, but. Did you plan that? Because that hit me hard, that arc, from the moment it happened to the end. Like, I’m a father as well, uh, and I’m like, I’ve never been abused or abused, but like, this still hit hard and I’m [00:26:00] just curious if you like plan that arc or if that just came out in the end.

Todd: Thank you. I’m glad. I’m glad that it, it resonated you. And just to be clear from the beginning, my father. Did not physically abuse me. Me. I did have to kind of project. But you can always reach inside of you and find your own hurt, your own every, we all have stuff, you know, and, and in writing character, what I tried to do was find that part of me that is Malcolm, part that is Taylor, part that is Ross, and then bring that forward.

So I felt like I was writing within that particular character rather than writing about a character saying stuff. The, the father and the, the mother arc, was definitely planned from the beginning, with the resultant effects on the brother. And I didn’t quite know originally how it was all gonna be tied together, but I did know that that had to have an emotionally resonant [00:27:00] conclusion.

And I think that there might have been an early draft where they ended with their final conversation, but didn’t go to the next step, if you know what I’m talking about. again, partly because at that point, Helen wasn’t part of the story. So it was just kind of, I don’t even remember how that idea was originally going to end, before it all came together for me that this is, this is what I needed to do and how I needed to conclude that arc.

With, with Taylor being an active participant in something to, to really bring resolution to his childhood. And it’s because of that, that so many people have asked me if I’m gonna be writing a sequel, you know, oh, we like Taylor, we love Malcolm, you know, we want you to write a sequel. What’s next? And it’s like, well, you know, you know, I don’t really have a sequel for this book because I feel that Taylor’s story has been told, you know, from where he started to where he ended I feel Taylor’s [00:28:00] journey has been And Sherilyn’s journey has, his wife has moved along, you know, concurrent alternatingly, high and low path, but they’ve reached a place and I needed them. Once they’ve all reached that place for me to do anything, now I’m gonna have to pull ’em back off the shelf and just mess them.

Mark: Yeah.

Todd: His story’s kind of told, but

Mark: All the doctors in the hospital go crazy again.

Todd: I, I know. Well, it’s exactly right. It’s like this. This concept of what I wanted to do has been been told. But in doing this, and here’s a little Easter egg for you, and you’re, you’re the first one to know this, so this can be your

Mark: All right.

Todd: The, the lead character of my next book, which is based on a different medical principle, has been mentioned already in the Deadly Vision

And I can even tell you the chapter if you want, but he’s in chapter three. It’s a throwaway sentence. It’s a one sentence [00:29:00] mention and it’s completely thrown away, and you’re not even supposed to pay attention But that’s the hero of the next book. And I realized then that what I can do, since I’ve created this San Francisco University Medical Center with its incredibly toxic politics, which by the way is all 100% real.

I mean that’s, that was more me recording than it was making cause I’ve spent a lot of time in academic medical and the politics are insane. But I do have all these great characters and I have Malcolm and I have Helen, and I have Ross. You know, I have these characters that if I need a computer genius, well I can pull Malcolm back out.

If I need a great biomechanical engineer, I can bring Helen back out. I, I can even bring Crawford back at least, you know part and partly in certain story arcs, I can reutilize a lot of these characters. So the, the, the milieu and the setting and the support can continue on through different books without it being a series, you know, without there being a true [00:30:00] sequel.

Mark: Yeah. Yeah. I’m very excited for the next, for the next book myself. If you need an early reader or something, let me know. I’m all over that.

Todd: Oh, I love it. Love it.

Mark: know for sure. Reach out.

Todd: I’m gonna the next, the next one’s even crazier, by the way. I mean, if you thought there was some psychosis in this one, just wait till the next one.

Mark: So we’re running a little, we’re running way over time, but you know, I mean, I could ask a million questions. No, that’s okay. I, I could keep going. Going and going. We’re just gonna wrap up and then we can get onto some of our bonus questions for our newsletter subscribers. A couple more questions though before we do that for authors who are listening, what advice would you give someone who had just published, like their first or second book.

Todd: The only advice I can give in that situation is to be absolutely relentless with trying to market it. That’s the hardest thing. I mean, writing the book is the biggest challenge in my life. Writing the book was so much harder than going to medical school, trust me. But getting the book out is, it’s a, a moment of [00:31:00] time and that moment’s then gone. And to get anybody’s attention in this world today with all of the multitudes of, of options in entertainment, it’s, it’s nearly impossible. So you really have to be re relentless. You, you have to work your social media platforms. You’ve done a great job with, you know, your, your Instagram platform is wonderful and your, your Facebook platform’s wonderful.

So, you know, we have to keep working these platforms. It’s just one way to, to get out there and you have to be engaging and you have to be interactive with your audience and with other writers, and do what you can to become part of the community. And the community itself can help to, to breathe life into your book and that awareness out there.

Mark: Yeah, for sure. I mean, I’ve been telling everyone about this book when they ask me what I’m up to now, so you’re getting plenty of, plenty of call outs from me. ’cause I just, I just loved it.

Todd: I

Mark: And where can people find your book and find more about you?

Todd: It’s on Amazon, you know, and it’s on Barnes and Noble, and, you know, the normal sort of places. I, I, I don’t know [00:32:00] physically if it’s in Barnes and Noble, but certainly online, it’s available there. I have my own website, tdseverin.com. I’m on Facebook, T.D. Severin author, Instagram, TikTok, all the, all the normal avenues.

I, the writing name is my initials, TD Severin. My first name is Todd, so Todd Severn has his own profile there as well.

Mark: Oh, that’s great. Well, thank you so much for being a guest. We’ll, we’ll talk some more in the, with the bonus questions for our subscribers, but I really appreciate you coming on, and if you’re listening to this get Deadly Vision, read it. You’re gonna love it.

Todd: Thank you. Thank you so much.

Mark: Thank you for listening. If you’re enjoying this show, you can support the podcast on Patreon and instantly get access to my thriller novella cognitive breach, plus short stories, novella’s, and bonus content from podcast guests. I just released a new short story on Patreon, the backup feed, which you can dive into the moment you join.

All for the price of a cup of coffee. Links are in the show notes. If you like [00:33:00] this episode, please follow, rate and share it with another Thriller fan. It really helps. I’ll see you in the next episode when I sit down with Angela Douglas, author of the Dark Psychological Thriller Every Fall.

TPP Episode 7 with Parker Jamison (Ox Devere)

Mark: [00:00:00] Hello and welcome to the Thriller Pitch Podcast, where you come for the pitch and stay for the story behind the story. I’m your host, Mark P.J. Nadon, and you are listening to episode number seven. A quick thank you to the Patreon subscribers supporting this podcast and my books. Your support means a lot and it helps keep the lights on here. And thanks as well to the guests who donated novels, novellas, and short stories that I get to share exclusively with my Patreon members.

If you’re an author and wanna sponsor a future episode, just head to markpjnadon.ca/thrillerpitchpodcast.

Today’s guest is Parker Jameson, writing under the pen name, Ox Devere, author of the Devil’s Eye, an adventure thriller. She was born just outside of Boston, attended film school in Florida, worked in Los Angeles and [00:01:00] returned to her Massachusetts origins to switch storytelling lanes from screenwriting to novel writing.

Thank you so much for taking the time to come on today’s podcast.

Parker: Thank you. It’s very nice to meet you more.

Mark: And we are here today to discuss, I have your book with me here, The Devil’s Eye. All right, we’re gonna jump right into the pitch with the episode, so if you want to go ahead and pitch me your book.

Parker: Okay, well, at a auction in London, a long lost notebook from a legendary, uh, Alchemist, conjurer, and advisor to Queen Elizabeth, I, I named John d surfaces mysteriously and there a rather scandal ridden billionaire snaps it up. And this guy is a, has a fascination for the occult. His name is Mark Pearson. He believes the notebook contains the location of a mystical relic promising to unlock the cosmic [00:02:00] knowledge of God named The Devil’s Eye, and in the hands of the world’s foremost blackmailer, which he is, it would mean complete power. So CIA operative Ridley Samaras, who was uh, the first woman to enter the SEAL training, Navy SEAL training, but washed out for an injury, was later recruited into a clandestine division. She and her division director decipher John D’s encrypted notebook, and it puts them into a serious high stakes hunt across Europe to find this missing artifact before Pearson’s mercenaries do.

So this takes you from snowy streets of Edinburgh, canals of Venice, uh, from Westminster Abbey to the Opera House of Vienna, and they are Ridley Samaras and Booker Douglas are just locked in this blistering race, deadly showdown with, uh, Pearson’s mercenaries. [00:03:00] So as they close in on their target they just had no idea the scale of Pearson’s reach and influenceand it leads them straight to the doorstep of British royalty. And then they have to decide just how much they’re willing to risk in order to take on one of the greatest institutions in the world and one of the most dangerous items they’ve ever encountered.

Mark: That’s great. Thank you. That’s a great pitch.

A fun adventure story. I love that.

Parker: It’s, uh, you know, sort of fans of Clive Cussler, Indiana Jones, James Rollins, little Jason Borner, Jack Ryan thrown in there.

Mark: Yeah. Yeah. Great mix. So where did this, what inspired this story?

Parker: So it’s funny because this is really back in the news these days in a way I did not expect it to. I had read about Jeffrey Epstein being very fascinated with [00:04:00] futuristic humanism and technology. Like the guy was looking into being cryogenically frozen and he wanted to populate the earth with his own DNA and he was really into MIT research and I thought, what if a guy like that was instead in really into the occult? And what would he do to use all of his wealth and influence to go after items he believed would enhance his power? So that, yeah, it feels shockingly relevant in the last few weeks. Again, I did not see this coming.

But uh, that’s, that was sort of the genesis of the entire story.

Mark: And was there a moment in your life that shaped a plot point or a moment or scene in the story?

Parker: I wouldn’t say so. No. Thankfully, I have not lived through most of the things that these, these characters go through. [00:05:00] It would be a, a very different lifestyle for me. I would probably not be sitting behind a computer. Um, not really. Uh, the travel that I get to do informs my sense of place seen, uh, and what’s possible in a, in a city or a building.

But other than that, I don’t think so.

Mark: Have you traveled to all these places to actually check out some of the scenes that you wrote?

Parker: I wish. No, I’m not really able to do it for every location because as in my first book, I, there are just too many locations. So I go, I try to get to the most pivotal one that I could, could, you know, really absorb the space and for The Devil’s Eye that was going to Scotland.

And I don’t wanna spoil exactly where I went, but it was really essential that I got to see it in person, that I get to map out the space and understand [00:06:00] the building. So.

Mark: Did anything change about the characters? Like when you got there to Scotland and you like, well, not the characters so much, but like the story, did anything change to impact the story when you were there and you’re like, the scope of it or anything was different than you imagined?

Parker: It wasn’t really, I actually plot out pretty comprehensively ahead of time, which probably comes from a background in screenwriting where you don’t have any extraneous stuff, you, you don’t have space to wander. Uh, everything has to be pretty tightly plotted. And I think it may be just informed a little bit of character essence for one of the main characters in this book who is Scottish.

And sort of getting a feel for his land and his people probably helped me flesh him out a bit.

Mark: What character was that?

Parker: Uh, Ian Carnegie. Ian

Carnegie, okay. Mm-hmm.

Mark: So when you started writing the story, I [00:07:00] noticed your process is to outline the whole story, right? It’s, mm-hmm. And then as you’re writing, do you or like, are you meticulously following that outline, or did the characters take over part of the story and change your outline?

Or is that outline just. It’s a flexi outline.

Okay.

Parker: So yeah, it, it’s not made of cement, it’s sort of rubber, uh, when in, you know, there weren’t any serious deviations. And part of that is because I’m, I’m essentially writing a puzzle and so I need to know that all the pieces fit together. So with outside of that, some scenes can change.

But I have to have the completed puzzle because one will lead to another. Mm-hmm. And so if I go in and try to mess with those midway, I would have to shift everything. And thankfully I didn’t have to do that once I got, once I got writing. But in fact, this, this sort of interesting, [00:08:00] I, I had started this and written 25,000 words.

Of a very different book. And I got into it and I realized, this is not the right, this is not the right story, it’s not the right book. And so scrapped it started over, and once I was in the new story, I was like, this is it. This is absolutely the right story to be telling, uh, this is the right book and it feels good.

So in some ways, yes, I scrapped a lot. I changed a lot. But once I, once I had that blueprint I was like, this house is gonna look great.

Mark: Wow. That’s a lot. To cut 25,000 words into a novel and very brave. Was it a near the same story and you kind of like went in a different direction? Or was it just something completely different that you were just like, no, this isn’t the right story to tell?

Parker: It was very different. Mostly the same characters, but it was, it was very different. It was more of a [00:09:00] crime investigation sort of rather than an adventure that I wanted to go on. And I hope that readers enjoy going on. Mm-hmm. Uh, so yeah, the tone was just, it was just wrong because the plot was wrong. And I, I much prefer the, the one I ended up creating.

And I think you really have to find a sense of satisfaction for yourself and having written a story you wanted to write in the end.

Mark: Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. So when you, when you’re outlining, do the characters come together at the same time? Because you were mentioning, I know I’ve had stories that where the characters just kind of take over and then the whole book goes in a different direction.

But like you mentioned, which I hadn’t thought about, when you have these puzzles already mapped out and you’ve done all that research and the places and things like certain things have, you know, flexi, but certain things have to happen. So do you, do you end up approaching characters also as part of your outline and having a good idea of who they are and what they’ve been through prior to even starting the novel.[00:10:00]

Parker: Yes. Although they flesh themselves out as I’m going through it and I spend more time thinking their thoughts and being in their head, characters become richer. That’s, that’s sort of what’s. What’s happening a lot now in the book I’m writing, I sort of step away from writing pages and I consider new things and think about what’s going, you know, books just live in your head all the time.

I mean, uh, and I consider new aspects or things pop out to me that. Oh yeah, this, this person is dealing with this internally or from their past, it would inform their attitude toward this. I kind of worked that stuff in the basis of all these characters is pretty fixed, but some of their actions, some of their attitudes, some of their insecurities are fears start to display themselves and work into the [00:11:00] plot. They don’t throw it off course again, but they can flex, flex the boundaries a little bit. Mm-hmm.

Mark: I really enjoyed, getting to know Ridley and I liked it like that she, how real she felt with the start when she was like playing the piano on her date and then she just wanders off to play the piano.

This, I don’t think this is this is a spoiler ’cause this is the first few chapters I’m talking about but, uh, and then we find out about like the accident with the Navy Seal stuff. Uh, and that she, it, it was really interesting that, ’cause I almost always expect in these stories that’s like former special Forces former, super Alpha, you know, strong person.

And then here she actually, although she is strong as we come to know her, but she washed out of, of the Special Forces training. Was that all pre-planned? Like how did you build her as a character?

Parker: Yeah, that, um, she’s sort of an amalgam of some different people. That story of the diving accident was real, I heard it [00:12:00] from a Navy Seal and that always stuck with me. And when I read an article once about the first woman qualifying for the pipeline that leads to BUDS training, which is Navy SEAL training, she qualified for it, which was historic, physically that’s never happened before. But she decided not to pursue that route.

And it just struck me, you know, the most magical writer, writer words, what if? And so I thought, what if she had gotten in and not failed or succeeded, really, but something happened to knock her off course, and it meant she would never know if she would have succeeded. So just sort of some horrible, unfortunate accident which medically disqualified her.

From continuing that training ever becoming a Navy seal out of her control and she would just always carry around this [00:13:00] chip on her shoulder, this wondering if she would have been good enough if she would have succeeded, but she can never find out. And so there’s always this edge of needing to do something greater, needing to prove herself.

And, uh, that that dog’s her, that dog’s her, that really informs her character.

Mark: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah. No, I liked that a lot. Is, was she your favorite character to write or do you, was there someone else that you enjoy even more?

Parker: So Ridley is the main character in the series, which is just a character series.

You don’t have to read them in order. She first appeared in Rage of the Gin, which, which was the first book. She’s back in this, but as much as some of our interests overlap, I’m not very mentally or emotionally like her. There is a character in The Devil’s Eye, Ian Carnegie, who was the easiest for me to write, he felt like my spirit animal to me. He was sort of, he was sort of the soul of the book and [00:14:00] I, I would say mentally, emotionally, I related the most to him. And that was kind of fun because I’m not sure that. I’ve had that when writing books before. I’m pretty sure I’ve never felt that, uh, when, when writing a book, so that that was enjoyable.

And then, you know, no comment about his journey. But, uh, but yeah, I, I really, really liked writing his character and having him involved.

Mark: Ridley stuck out to me because I think, because I have that, I asked those same kind of questions that she asks in the book about, about that. Like, what, what if I had, you know, passed this or done that or made those decisions. So yeah. I do relate to, to her So I just wanna jump back to the research a little bit. When, when talking about research how much of it is real? Like, the one thing that’s striking about this book is as I’m reading it, it’s so well done that I, I’m always stopping to almost wanna do research to be like, is this real?

Did this stuff happen? Are [00:15:00] these people real? I just keep asking myself like, what is real about this book? Because so many things have to be historically accurate because it reads like it is. Although I have no idea, which is why I’m asking the question.

Parker: Yeah, that’s fun. Because I’m a research maniac, I mean, I just end up down the deepest rabbit holes. I probably research too much to get things accurate. I, I have an obsession with getting accurate everything that I can outside of my creative license. So if I get something wrong, I want it to be my choice rather than out of ignorance.

Every place pretty much, except for like secret chambers. Every place that I include is accurate. I watch a lot of GoPro videos on YouTube to get a sense of cities and buildings. A lot of Google maps, a lot of photos. You know, if there’s a cafe that the characters stop into on a street in the city[00:16:00] and they order something off the menu that thing is on the menu at that cafe. Like, it’s absurd. It’s, it’s, it’s a lot. But I love discovering stuff. And so, uh, especially in The Devil’s Eye, there were so many locations that I discovered while researching that made it into the book, and then I would’ve readers.

Say, oh my gosh, I can’t believe this place exists. I looked up photos of it and this is amazing. And I go, I know. I felt the same way when I found it. So I had to, I had to include it. And, and I love that discovery.

Mark: Well, it makes me want to check it out, so I will, I’m sure I’ll be Googling as I continue reading the book to, to check out some of these spots. And even almost as like a travel destinations, it’s almost like research for travel destinations. I get to Oh, it is. I get to do that through your fiction.

Where do I go next? Um, so your book opens, I was curious about, your book opens in, like [00:17:00] 1582, I think in, in London, and you start your book instead of a prologue or instead of using that John D moment as backstory throughout the book, you chose to start it with chapter one. I’m curious as to why you made that decision, because there are like those, essentially those three main ways you could have approached it.

Parker: I like cold opens. I like setting you in a scene that is pivotal and sets off the chain of reactions that the characters engage in. I find that piques my interest the most. Game of Thrones did that really well in the TV series. It was a cold open. They hook you with a scene, where they encounter a monster.

You don’t see, again for seasons, you don’t even know who these people were, but it presented the hook that would get the rest of the story going and matter to the rest of the story. So John D was a really fascinating guy. I’d heard about him, I knew stuff about him in [00:18:00] history, sort of . But I had always thought like, oh, he is an alchemist and a conjure.

Okay. But that’s what they used to call scientists, you know? And so I was like, okay, maybe he was just a scientist. And then I got into researching him and he left copious notes on his own activities. The guy was holding seances like every day, so he was. Real conjure type and he would always use a, a medium, a scryer and so I, I researched, there’s a lot of in detailed research because of how many notes he kept. He believed, he was hearing from the angels that they were giving him the language of Eden and a new alphabet, and he was really into it. So that incident in London that I describe with the sky opening up being red and it just red gashes all over the night sky that actually happened.[00:19:00]

So that is accurate. And the scryer who showed up on his doorstep is accurate and what they did in his study every day is accurate. Sometimes truth is stranger than fiction, so I just catch it in my net, use it and, and hope that other people are as hooked as I was when I found out about it.

Mark: Wow. Well done.

Yeah, I was wondering about that. Okay, so John d was based on, on a real person who

Parker: Yes. A

Mark: real alchemist or scientist. Yeah.

Parker: Yeah.

Mark: Very cool. Oh, so many questions I want to ask you

Parker: ask away.

Mark: Was there what moment was, scene or moment was the hardest to write, either creatively or emotionally?

Parker: Ooh. There were a lot in this book. To preface it, I’ve heard so many authors talk about how [00:20:00] they have to love all their characters, even the villains, and I don’t believe that after writing this book. Uh, the, the two main characters were very much like Jeffrey Epstein and Elaine Maxwell.

I hate them. And I discovered during writing sort of their chapters, I hated them as much for who they were as that they made me think their thoughts, that I had to write down their perspective, and it made me hate them doubly, and you sort of throughout the book follow a story of a 14-year-old girl who’s a violent prodigy, who gets caught up in their world and their web and uh, yeah.

There was a specific scene involving music with her, um, in the latter third quarter of the book that absolutely [00:21:00] broke my heart to write. Like I kind of teared up, when I finished that chapter, and there is actually a playlist. I do playlist for each book that I host on my website on Spotify. And the piece she’s playing during this scene is on that playlist.

Even when I hear it outside the book now I get, I get a little emotional. So those scenes were, were challenging. Those were hard, and I was so glad when I was done writing any of the villain chapters, I just felt like I needed a brain bath and, yeah. Yeah,

Mark: yeah. Writing villains can be hard because they’re, you know, a villain essentially is the hero of their own story.

Right. So you’re trying to, it’s really tough ’cause you’re trying to tell their side of the story while not. Well, yeah. You like absorb the character. It’s so hard to do. Yeah. Because you’re trying to justify things the way they might justify it, and it is a very icky feeling

Parker: Yeah. For [00:22:00] some of, of the most despicable things that one could do.

Mark: Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Uh, I could imagine that would be, oh, especially a scene like that would be, would be very hard to write. I can imagine. For sure. So we’re getting, uh, we’re getting close to our wrap up here. I have a couple of questions for you left. The first one goes out to our authors are, that are also listening and is, what advice would you give someone who just published their first or second book?

Parker: Uh, write another one. That’s common advice, but it’s certainly true. You should be, don’t get out of the habit almost. As much for establishing yourself as an author, but also establishing your own sense of discipline and keeping that rhythm in your life. I think also, you know, I’m, I’m, I’m terrible at marketing, so I can’t really give advice.

I can give advice that I’ve heard, which sounds good, but, [00:23:00] um. But I, I think that actually networking with other authors, it’s a, it’s a lonely gig. It’s a very solitary endeavor to, to sit in your brain all day and type. Mm-hmm. But I’ve found, uh, the international thriller writers of, of the conference, ThrillerFest and whatnot, to be some of the most welcoming, encouraging, kind, funny people that, that you could en encounter in a career space. They’re, they’re just outstanding and their friendship and their support, have, have meant a lot to me. So I would encourage people to go invest, socialize, get to know these people, ask for their advice. ’cause a lot of them are further along in their journey and and some of them will extend, you know, very gracious favors to you in the future.

Mark: Yeah, that’s great [00:24:00] advice. The connections. The connections mean a lot. Yeah. And the last question, how can people get in touch with you? How can they find your books?

Parker: I’m on Amazon. On Barnes and Noble, in a few bookstores and libraries around the Boston area. I have just, just published an audio book for The Devil’s Eye, which I thrilled with because the narrator is just a phenomenon.

He’s terrific. If you like Scott Brick, I think he’s sort of the next, the next Scott Brick. So he’s, he’s amazing. Everyone should check him out. I am online at oxdevere.com. I’m on instagram@oxdevere.com. I’m on TikTok, uh, where I run a little fun little thing where I pair books with bourbon according to the flavor and the tone of the book, that seems to be a hit.

So, yeah, and, and again, on the website, each book has its own page, and so it includes [00:25:00] some of the q and a, some of the research questions, some of what’s real and what’s not, and then, a playlist for each book if anyone’s interested in that.

Mark: That’s great. Thank you so much and thank you for the sending the copy, The Devil’s Eye.

It has been a, a great read so far and I will continue to read it and and review thank you so much. If you don’t mind sticking around for a couple minutes after the show, we’re just gonna do a few bonus questions for our newsletter subscribers that just goes out to our subscribers.

Parker: Sure thing. Thanks Mark.

Mark: Thank you for listening. If you’re enjoying the show, you can support the podcast on Patreon and get my novella cognitive breach, along with short stories, novellas, and more from podcast guests. Links are in the show notes. If you feel like this episode, please follow, rate and share it with another thriller fan it makes a big difference for me, and I’ll see you in the next episode when I sit down with TD Severin, author of my current favorite book of the year, a medical thriller Deadly Vision.

 [00:26:00]

TPP Episode 6 with Lizzie Qnert

Mark: [00:00:00] Hello and welcome to the Thriller Pitch Podcast, where you come for the pitch and stay for the story behind the story. I’m your host, Mark P.J. Nadon, and you’re listening to episode number six. Today’s episode is brought to you by my Novella Monsoon Rendezvous, where Clara must survive a deadly monsoon in Bangladesh and deliver medical supplies to remote villages before the worst of the storm hits.

But as micro bursts strike, she’s caught in the middle. And the man with the only vehicle to get her there has plans of his own. If you’re an author and wanna sponsor a future episode, just head to markpjnadon.ca/thrillerpitchpodcast. Today’s guest is the Lizzie Q nerd, author of Power Surge, a psychological vigilante thriller that dives into [00:01:00] justice, vengeance, and the weight of moral choices.

Lizzie’s writing comes from a lifetime of lived experiences, years filled with loss, love, successes, failures, and the raw lessons of human nature. Those experiences give her stories a depth and authenticity. You can’t fake.

Lizzie, welcome to the show. Thank you so much for taking the time outta your schedule to be here today.

Lizzie: Thanks for having me, mark. I’m really glad to be here.

Mark: So we are here today to talk about Power Surge. Yes. One of your thriller novels. Let’s start with, we’re just gonna jump right into the pitch.

Lizzie: All right, sounds good.

So, um, Power Surge is a fast-paced here. It is fast-paced, character driven, thriller, written from four distinct points of view. CC Crane, her two daughters, Megan and Scottie, and Luke, a member of a male supremacist hate group called Men [00:02:00] Roar. And ROAR is an acronym for a Reclaim our Authority and Rights.

So after decades of working in advertising, CC Crane is no stranger to sexual harassment, but she refuses to stand by while more women are traumatized. So offenders are given warnings, but if their bad behavior continues, they will be punished. Mild harassers will feel the sting of public ation, humiliation, and professional ruin, but hardcore serial offenders will be stopped permanently.

Her daughters, Megan and Scottie deal with the effects of living in a patriarchal society in quite different ways. As a stay-at-home mom, Megan struggles to find her own identity separate from her roles as mother and a wife. Her frustration leads her to bad choices that CCS activities inadvertently expose.

Scottie combats the unfairness of working by working [00:03:00] in a sexual violence prevention center. And when Scottie becomes the target of men Roar, because of her work, CC’s mama bear ferocity kicks in and she creates a hit list of the local members. One of CC’s victims is Jim Baxter, a brazen, unrepentant, groper.

When Luke looks into his father’s death, his father is Jim Baxter. He discovers CC’s murderous activities, and the tables turn. CC becomes the hunted. So despite her best efforts, nothing happens as planned. And her vigilantism exacts a devastating price.

Mark: That’s great. Thank you. That’s a wonderful pitch.

Lizzie: Yeah, you bet.

Mark: So there’s a lot of layers here. Let’s, uh, let’s start with where did the idea come from for the book?

Lizzie: Interestingly, my daughter did work in a sexual assault prevention center and a male supremacist hate group targeted them. And [00:04:00] started calling the hotline and giving very disturbing accounts of trauma in, in their efforts to traumatize some of the counselors.

The other thing they were trying to do was to jam the phone lines for real callers, and I was so enraged. You know, it took them, literally weeks to get everything resolved and be able to help the population that they were really trying to help. So I was. You know, furious about that. And then I had spent years working in the advertising field back in the nineties when sexual harassment was almost a daily thing, truly, almost a daily thing.

I even had female bosses tell me, you know, when I reported it, female bosses tell me, Hey, suck it up buttercup. This is, this is what life is. so you know, that frustration, oh, you know, I guess you’d call my daughter’s experience the inciting incident, but that frustration also played into, getting this [00:05:00] story out there.

Mark: And was it, was it plot that came first? Where did.

Lizzie: Yeah, well, the, the char, I would say CC Crane came first. That character came first. Just knowing, you know, the, the frustration and the rage that she was feeling that she, her daughters were still going through these kinds of things and that her employees, her female employees were still going through these kinds of things.

 So that kind of came into my head first. I would say the plot point of the male supremacist hate group, you know, came kind of, that was what incited the whole thought process.

Mark: And is this, this is not your first book, right? This is, is this idea number, which one? It

Lizzie: was actually the first published book, but I have four thrillers published so far.

Two more, very soon to be released, hopefully. Fingers crossed.

Mark: Oh, congratulations.

Lizzie: So yeah, it wasn’t the, [00:06:00] actually the first book I wrote, but it was the first book I published.

Mark: Okay. And why, why so many different characters in so many different points of view? Because you could have, I mean, I guess I could jump to conclusions based on what you’ve said already, but why, why Luke as a point of view and why the daughters?

Lizzie: Yeah. Well first off, I love writing in first person. I feel like it grabs your emotions more strongly when you’re writing from first person and, but when you’re writing from first person, of course you can only present what that person is seeing, feeling, experiencing. Mm-hmm. So to get a well-rounded story from such, with such a complex issue, I did feel like I needed more points of view.

You know, Megan has a very distinct point of view, uh, being a stay at home mom. And, you know, Scottie is more the activist point of view, but Luke’s important too because, you know, nobody’s all bad. And even though he’s [00:07:00] the villain the complexities of how did he get to this point? How did he, why does he think these things about women?

You know, I think those are important issues to explore. So, you know, I felt like to get a well-rounded story, we needed all those characters.

Mark: Okay. What was the writing process like?

Lizzie: That book was super easy for me. It actually, I started it during COVID, so my day job, which a lot of us authors have, my day job was put on hold because of COVID, so I was able to devote, you know, eight hours a day, five days a week to writing Power Surge.

And I was able to come through, finish it in three months. Of course the revisions, yeah, revisions took longer. But that first draft was out in three months and it was I also think it was, you know, because of my anger at the situation with my daughter, it was a burning story. It was burning to get out.

So, you know, com, those two things [00:08:00] combined made this the easiest book that I’ve ever written.

Mark: And what kind of research did you have to do for this book?

Lizzie: Yeah, I had to do a lot. So I’m a little bit technologically challenged and there’s a lot in this book about the dark web and, and how to find assassins.

So, you know, I, I had to do a lot of research on that. And it was disturbing. The other thing I had to, to research were male supremacist hate groups. You know, and I was stunned at how many are out there and stunned at the, just the rhetoric, you know, the things that they actually say believe and the propaganda that they’re putting out there.

It just, it was, you know, a lot of days I was really disturbed by what I was finding. But that made it even more important I felt to, to tell the story. So the research was a little tough. You know, those [00:09:00] were the kinds of things that I had to dive into. And at the end of the day I kind of like, I need a shower.

This is, this is dark stuff.

Mark: Yeah.

Lizzie: But again, you know, I think it’s an important message to get out while providing entertainment.

Mark: Yeah. Yeah. And did the research impact the story as you were. I’m assuming you didn’t like do all the research up front and then write the book. There was probably some like middle ground where you’re, you know, writing the book and then going back to research.

Did anything in your research change how the story was told?

Lizzie: Yes, definitely. Because of the mechanisms of finding things on the dark web, which I didn’t know prior to writing the story. Then I realized, you know, some of the things that I was saying weren’t really accurate, so I had to go back in and show how you actually, you know, how these groups were functioning.

On the dark web and how CC would’ve been able to find some of the [00:10:00] things. Now there’s fiction element. Can you really find assassins on the dark web? I, I don’t know. You know, probably not. But, I wanted it at least to, be accurate as far as how you access that. You know, it’s in the dark web

you can’t just type in search for assassins. You know, there’s a whole different way and websites are actually, you know, the links to the websites are changing all the time. So yeah, that kind of stuff did play into, the story itself, how I had to make things happen. And also even with the structure of some of the, the male supremacist hate groups, you know, how they structured themselves, those kinds of things, impacted how the story was told.

Mark: And when you were putting the characters together, that, do you have like a sort of like a recipe list, I guess you could say, of, of the personality? Or did you just kind of see those characters come to life and then you put that life on the page?

Lizzie: So when I develop characters, I always try, [00:11:00] I kind of do it like I make friends.

The first a hundred pages is me kind of meeting them. What do they look like, what do they wear, uh, what is, what are the tone of their voice? Do they have quirks in their speech pattern, things like that. I kind of start to just meet them as you would a, a person on the street. And then as the pages, you know, as I’m continuing to write some of their backstory, I’ll think like, well, how, how did they get along with their siblings?

Do they have siblings? Are they married? Do they have kids? So I create a whole file for every character. Including what do they like to drink in the morning, what car do they drive, are they messy? All those little details. I don’t use them all, of course, but I feel like in order to present their side of things, I need to really know them intimately.

And I would say I don’t really know my characters until I’m about a hundred pages in. So I often see myself going back to the beginning and rewriting some of those [00:12:00] early chapters to actually follow what the character has become. And then once I am about a hundred characters in, I mean a hundred pages in the characters do kind of lead me as far as, you know, well, how would CC react to this?

And then that gets me to the next chapter. Well, how would Luke react? You know, what’s his motivation? What are his fears behind, behind his behavior? Those kinds of things. So yeah, for me, character development, that’s kind of my thing. I’m, I’m known for strong character development and, I take a lot of time in creating those files with all the little details.

Mark: So that’s, is that your form of outlining is, is creating the character details before you start the book and then.

Lizzie: I don’t do

Mark: pants after a hundred or do pants up to a hundred pages and then you get to know the characters. How does that work?

Lizzie: Yeah, I, I would say a little bit, you know, I’ll have a general idea of what the [00:13:00] story’s gonna be and where it’s gonna end, and I’ll have a general idea of the characters that I think are gonna be included.

But yeah, I pants it a little bit till for the beginning, as I’m developing those character files. Once I have them established, then I actually do create an outline, not a, you know, a plot outline once I’m about a hundred words in. ’cause then I can see me more where it’s going. But, you know, I’ve even gotten to 500 pages and I’ll write a line for a character

and I, when I go and read it back, I’m, I’m like, oh my gosh she would never say that. Like, that is so out of her voice and I have to cut the line. I really do try to let them speak to me. But yes, you know, at the first, at the first start, it’s kind of, more of a pantser, and then I go into the outline.

Mark: And how do you balance so many characters in your mind? I know I wrote one, I have a trilogy with a lot of characters, the same idea. And, it’s very challenging. I almost [00:14:00] have to, I use Scrivener and I almost have to open up Scrivener, go through the character, look at all the things I said, and then go back at the start

just that writing session because I’m, I have a hard time holding onto. You know, who is this person that I’m writing now? Because they have to be so distinct in their voices. How do you balance all that?

Lizzie: Yeah, you’re absolutely right. They do have to be distinct in their voices. You know, I like, even though I have a headline on the chapter that says who is who, which voice it is.

 I want the reader to be able to tell who it is just by reading, you know, I don’t want them to have to rely on it. And for me, well, the file is one thing. You know, each little detail that I add, you know, like if I say she’s, allergic to lactose, I do add that into the file so that I have that to refer back to if I, if I forget anything.

But as far as tone of voice and, and what they would say and their, their emotions and how they express them I honestly, before I sit down to write a chapter, I kind of just sit [00:15:00] there for a minute and I, I’m like, okay, you’re CC. Now let’s, let’s go back into CC’s world. Let’s go back into CC’s body.

And I take a minute to kind of center myself in their voice. Before I start writing, and then when I go to the next chapter, same, you know, same thing. When I go to the next voice, I take a minute to kind of just reflect on where they’re coming from, you know, what their, what, what’s their driving motivation and just really center myself in their world before I try to even start writing their chapter.

Mark: And did you write this book in a linear fashion like chapter one and then change voice chapter two instead of writing all of CC’s story and then writing all of another character?

Lizzie: Yep. I’ve tried it a couple of, ’cause most of my books. Most of my books have at least two point of view, two points of view.

Most of my books are, are first person and I have tried to, write [00:16:00] just one characters through the whole story, and it just doesn’t work for me. I get too confused and plotting like, well, wait a minute. What’s happening next? So, yes, I definitely write it in a linear fashion, but just taking the time to center myself.

Now, occasionally I have to add in, I might have to add in some chapters in a point of view, so then it’ll be out of order, but generally linear.

Mark: Was there a time where you almost gave up on the book? I know you mentioned you wrote it very quickly, so probably not.

Lizzie: Yeah. This one. No, no. It, it, it was there, you know, that story

it was just there. And once I started, like I couldn’t wait to get up in the morning and get back at the computer. So this one was super, super easy. Some of my books Sure. I think, ugh. Boy, you know, it’s seventh re-write? And I’m like, wow, is this ever gonna be done? But this one, no.

Mark: And in your process, how do you create characters that, that you [00:17:00] want to readers to stick with readers? Like what’s the thought process on how do I make this person relatable? Or how do I capture readers through this personality?

Lizzie: I think first I try to think of somebody that I know, like a real person that I know.

Because, you know, then I’m able to dive a little, you know, to, to have some a point of reference, I guess is what I’m trying to say. A point of reference from a person that I know. But I will tell you I couldn’t, I I have always wanted to write, but until I had experienced a lot of life and met a lot of people and had some tragedies, had some successes, but also some failures and tragedies, I needed to have gone through a whole host of emotions before I was able to put those emotions on a page.

So, I feel like most of us, [00:18:00] you know, a trauma is gonna be whatever causes the trauma, the trauma response is still still similar in humans. So I try to put myself in that place and remember something from my experience that was traumatizing or frightening or whatever. I try to put myself in that position as I’m writing because real emotions then will come out on the page.

That’s also why, for me, writing is exhausting. When I am writing something difficult, like I am feeling those emotion emotions, sometimes I, I’m making the faces, if, if I’m sad, I’m making, or my character is sad, I’m making that face first of all ’cause so I can describe it, but also so I’m feeling it, you know, so I really try to embody those characters and I think that that does, those emotions do come out on the page when I’m able to do that.

Mark: Do you ever use music [00:19:00] or theme music? One thing I’ve done during, during some of my, my writing sessions is use, you know, if there’s a, if their character is supposed to be in a storm, I’ll have like a lightning storm in the background so I don’t forget, yes, I need to move the plot and I can’t keep pointing at the storm, but there is very much a storm happening here, or there’s this, this is an action or fight scene

so I want, you know, I put on a music that’s like very exciting so that as I’m writing I’m like, you know, I get that, that energy. And then the same thing with, with being like down, or, or a, a sad moment, I’ll put on music that, you know, might be a violin or some calm music that will like, make me almost feel sad to write that tragic scene.

Lizzie: I haven’t tried that, but I, I like the idea. So I think I might, typically for me, I kind of write in silence, but I, I really like that idea, like you said, that atmospheric, because I often, like I said, uh, um, you know, if I’m trying to describe facial features or gestures, I make them, I make the facial feature and look in the mirror and I’m like, okay, what’s happening to my mouth?

What’s happening to my eyes? So, [00:20:00] I mean, that would just add to it. So, nice tip. I’m gonna give that a try.

Mark: I will. I have to try the face one too. I haven’t tried mimicking that. All right. Was there a character you liked writing the most?

Lizzie: I’d have to say CC, of course. CC has a lot, you know, every, everything, every character I write has a little bit of me in them, but, CC has a lot of me in her.

Just, you know, her experiences in the advertising field were very similar to mine. I, you know, i’m not going to hire assassins, but I’m not gonna say that the thought hasn’t crossed my mind, you know, in certain situations. But yeah, I think she was my favorite character in this book to write.

Mark: So I got a couple more questions for you as we’re kind of wrapping up a little bit. And the first one is for authors who are listening to the podcast and what would be your advice to someone who has published like book one or two and is trying to go build from [00:21:00] there.

Lizzie: You mean like from a marketing standpoint or

Mark: Either.

Lizzie: Okay. Yeah.

Mark: Yeah. They’re trying to get their book out there. I mean, yeah, you could obviously write the next book. This would be one, one piece of advice, but whatever, whatever you want to go with.

Lizzie: Yeah. Well, I think for writers in general, the biggest thing that I learned is write what I wanna read. I, instead of me worrying about like, oh, I’m trying to write the next bestseller, or what’s trendy or hot right now, or, what, you know, what are readers gonna like?

In fact, I was just at a critique group recently. And I’m, I’m working on my next book and the gentleman there suggested maybe I pull back a little bit on some of these hot button issues that I’m putting in this book. And, you know, my thought was, Nope, I’m gonna lean totally into it. You know, that’s, mm-hmm.

That’s what I write. I write from my heart, I write, I lean into difficult issues. My books are probably gonna piss people off, [00:22:00] but at some, in some way. But, I’m not trying to appeal to everybody I’m writing what I, in, what I have a passion for and the things that I wanna, you know, read.

And I think that the, if you write from your heart, if you’re writing with passion, all of that’s gonna be on the page. So that, that would be my number one thing is write for you, write from, from your heart, write with passion. Whatever happens after that will happen. Because marketing is tough. You know, getting, getting the word out there is tough.

And if you don’t 100% believe in, in what you’re offering, it’s even harder. So I think that’s, you know, that’s the key is just writing what you love and where your passion is coming from.

Mark: Thank you. I love that advice. You don’t have to write to market. It may be the quickest way to sell a book, but it’s not the quickest way to fill that passion and feel good about what you’re doing.

And a long sustainable career.

Lizzie: Exactly.

Mark: Often not done with just something you don’t really care to write, but [00:23:00] you’re trying to sell. Yeah. Thank you. That’s great.

Lizzie: Yeah.

Mark: Last question. Where can people find you, find your books and hear more about them.

Lizzie: Well, Amazon, of course, everybody can order on Amazon.

Lots of books, places, books A million, Barnes and Noble, that kind of thing. But also on my website, lizzieqnert.com. So I can do signed autograph copies from there. And there’s, you know, my, all my books are on there and you’ll find out more, more about each one and a little bio about me. So, yep.

Mark: Oh, that’s great.

Thank you so much for taking the time outta your schedule. Absolutely. If you don’t mind sticking around for a couple of minutes after the show, we have a couple of bonus questions for our newsletter subscribers that they get when they sign up for the newsletter.

Lizzie: Awesome. Of course.

Mark: Thank you.

Lizzie: Thank you.

Mark: Thank you for listening to the show and thank you to the new Patreon members who joined to support the podcast and me as an author. If you enjoyed this episode, you can also support the podcast and get my novella cognitive [00:24:00] breach, along with short stories, novellas, and more from podcast guests. The link is in the show notes.

And if you’re into heart stopping action, a tropical storm with a stranger, check out Monsoon Rendezvous. If you like the show, please follow, write and share it with another Thriller fan. It really helps, and I’ll see you in the next episode when I sit down with Ox Dever, author of what I’m calling an adventure thriller, the Devil’s Eye.

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TPP Episode 5 with Sara Ennis

[00:00:00]

Mark: Hello and welcome to the Thriller Pitch Podcast, where you come for the pitch and stay for the story behind the story. I’m your host, Mark P.J. Nadon, and you are listening to episode number five. Today’s episode is brought to you by my novel, the Genesis Project, which is like Inception meets Jack Ryan.

A former operator joins a top secret project designed to help soldiers with PTSD. Side effects may include assassination. If you’re an author and wanna sponsor a future episode, just head to markpjnadon.ca/thrillerpitchpodcast. Links will be in the show notes. Today’s guest is Sarah Ennis, an author known for dark, emotionally layered thrillers that dig deep into the human mind.

Her stories are tense, sometimes horrific, always character driven and unafraid to explore trauma, justice, and survival. But one thing, certain, [00:01:00] the dog never dies.

Mark: Sarah, welcome to the podcast. Thank you so much for taking time out of your schedule to be here and to chat about your book, the Dollhouse.

Sara: Thank you for inviting me.

I’m always willing to talk about my book.

Mark: So let’s jump right into it. Let’s start with the pitch for the Dollhouse.

Sara: I’ve been told it sort of like Saw meets Flowers in the Attic with some Silence of the Lambs and a little bit of Room. But it’s about a man who’s trying to recreate his past.

Based on a photo album that he has of his family history. And so he keeps abducting people, young people who look like he did as a child, and then he makes them reenact scenes, but he tells the stories differently than what the photos show. So it’s a little bit dark. There are three teenagers in it, but it’s definitely not YA.

And it’s, it was really fun to write. It was my first book, but, um, so it, it got a lot of love and a lot of time and I researched [00:02:00] everything. It was inspired by Shasta and Dylan Groene, who are in Idaho, were abducted in Idaho. And Elizabeth Smart, who is taken out of Utah, I believe. So it was inspired by them, but it’s not at all.

You know, based on their cases. It’s just the bad guys in those cases were interesting to me.

Mark: Okay. So you started with the idea of just having seen those cases and then you thought, yeah. So how did that work? You thought, I’ll, I should write a story like this, and then where did the idea inspire from there?

Sara: No, I’ve always had a really twisted brain, and so since I was a little kid, I’ve retold stories differently than they were actually written, like fairytales. I would change the endings. And so I just started like, so what’s Elizabeth Smart gonna be like when she gets away from this? You know, or, or I don’t know if you’re familiar with the Dylan and Shasta Groene case, but only one of them.

They were seven and eight when they were taken and their family was killed in the process and only Shasta survived. And I, I kind of just wondered what she would be [00:03:00] like as she got older. So it was more me imagining their futures a little bit. Okay. And. I, you know, as, as you do too, as a writer, we have crazy imaginations.

We can make a walk around the block, turn into all sorts of chaos if we let our brains go.

Mark Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. So, yeah, there’s a lot of fun in that.

Sara: Yes, exactly. Although, I don’t know, sometimes our family members might get tired of it, but yeah, it’s fun. It’s nice having that kind of a weird brain that see.

Bodies where there probably aren’t any, but maybe who knows what’s behind closed doors.

Mark: Yeah. Well I have to, I have to commend you on, on the book blurb in that, for this book. I mean, I happen to like dark psychological thrillers as well. I kind of write a little bit of those myself. Yes,

Sara: yes you do. And

Mark: yeah, and when I read this, this back cover blurb, I was like, I have got to read this book.

So it sounded so good. So yeah, I had to jump in and find out what, what’s happening here and Oh, good. And you did a great job just pulling me right in, like right from the, from the first page with, with, [00:04:00] Angel and Bud and, and their, you know, what’s going on with them and

Sara: thank you.

Mark: And it just pulled me right in.

So, yeah, I appreciate it. It’s very good. I haven’t had a chance to finish it yet, but I’m definitely Oh, oh, you have it. Okay. Definitely getting into it.

Sara: You probably have a pretty good twist coming then, so. Okay, good. It’s fun to hear how people respond to that.

Mark: So what was the writing process like for this book?

Was it, was it fast, was it messy? Was it like really structured?

Sara: Um, all of the above. I wrote it during COVID ’cause I was bored. I, my day job at was work from home, which was fine. I’m a big time loner. I’m fine to be by myself, not talking to other humans a lot. But I had extra time because even like the nonprofit boards I was on weren’t getting together, so I thought.

I’ve been writing my whole life, but never ever seriously really, I mean, my career has always involved writing so fiction. It was like, well, now it’s time to write that book. So I did, and for that book I hired two different developmental editors who had [00:05:00] very different views on things. So I kind of realized, okay, they’re, they’re not the be all end all, they’re just opinions.

And then I have to make the final choice. I learned a lot about both the writing process and the publishing process from that book. I’m still learning from that. But I am, um, I like to say I’m not a pantser and I’m not a plotter. I know like, i’m going, I’m driving from Iowa to LA and I wanna stop in Vegas.

You know, I know what’s gonna happen at the end. I know where I’m starting. I know a major point in the middle, and I don’t know how I’m gonna get there. I might decide to go through Colorado, or I might decide to drop down and go south. I’ll find out as I go, as long as I hit my middle and my end. That’s pretty much how I write.

Mark: And what kind of research did you have to do for this book?

Sara: For that one. I did a lot of reading about the cases that inspired me, and then I actually lived in Casper, Wyoming, where it set for a year as a kid. So I didn’t have great memories and I thought [00:06:00] that’d be a good place to put this book. The one thing I had to really research was I had to find out, I don’t know if you’re to the part yet.

Has Angel been to a store to the little shop yet? No. Okay, well, so you don’t, okay. There’s a point in there where basically Netflix video, the original videos that you would get in the mail and ship back mm-hmm. That becomes important. So that part, I got to actually talk to the people at Netflix to find out what the process was about a certain thing.

And that was pretty fun. So that was the only research that was not, you know, just me being a loony bird.

Mark: What about the, what about the looney bird research?

Sara: That’s just me trying to figure out how far I can go with things.

Mark: On, you mean like on the psychological elements? Like what, how far can I take?

Sara: Yeah. In some of the, I don’t know how far you’ve gotten, but there’s some parts, like I said, it’s, some people say it’s like the SAW movies. There are some games. That are played that involve power tools and things like that. And so, one of my good friends is a woodworker, and so we spent a lot of time in his [00:07:00] shop trying to figure out how some things would work.

So things like that, which are fun. So, yeah.

Mark: Yeah. That’s crazy.

Sara: Well, it’s fun. I mean, it’s good have those sources.

Mark: It would, yeah. Yeah. Well, ’cause I can imagine it would be a lot of research into and into the psych psychological too, because Yes. I mean, this is. This is book one. So you’re, you know, you’re kind of setting up mm-hmm.

How this is gonna continue. Yes. But like the, that kind of trauma, like what are the effects of that kind of trauma and how are they gonna come out? That would be a, yeah, that would be a lot to look at.

Sara: I actually did. I sort of forgot about this, but I shouldn’t have. I hired a psychologist who specializes in trauma to review it and make sure I had both his story and the kid’s story correct.

Because the kids, some of the kids maybe, um, continue in other books and that doctor became a character in the series.

Mark: Oh, nice.

Sara: So, she’s inspiration for a character in the series. Yeah. So that was pretty cool. I, it was important to me to honor and [00:08:00] respect people who’ve been through bad stuff. I didn’t wanna make fun of it or make it a joke, so.

Yeah. Yeah. Or make stuff up about mental health. You know, I know sometimes in TV and movies people will do something for the plot and I wanted to make sure, of course I have to do it a little bit, but I didn’t wanna do it absolutely over the top. So I did have her check, she reviewed the book and we talked in deep discussion about how certain characters would react to certain things now and in the past and in the future. And that was a big deal for me.

Mark: So is there anything you got in like the earlier drafts, let’s say from the developmental editor or from your psychologist that you kind of got wrong, that you learned and thought, oh wow, that’s, I didn’t think of that and now I have to like adjust the book a little bit?

Sara: Not really. And this may be TMI, I went through some trauma, you know, my younger life. And so I, some of this stuff is kind of based on me without the extreme reactions to what happened? So no, not [00:09:00] really. The one thing I got from the developmental editor that I thought was funny is he did not though there was a man who was in his sixties, but he’s put out a bunch of books and movies and then there was a younger woman who was like 26 or 27 very different views on things. He did not like that I have the Bud swear. And I would not let go because I’m like a young man held captive with his sister and another girl and he’s not big, and the captor is big. He’s gonna fight back with whatever tools he has. And to a teenage boy, swearing and acting tough is the only thing he would have.

And that was one that, she said yes. That was definitely how a kid that age would act. So that was interesting.

Mark: Yeah.

Sara: But he hated it. He was like, nobody’s gonna buy your book because he’s swearing. And I’m like, wait a minute, we’re talking thrillers in 2020, whatever one, they’ll be okay. They’ll be fine with it.

Mark: Yeah. And I thought it was good ’cause he didn’t have like a normal upbringing. Like they’re, no, they’re [00:10:00] already struggling. So he’s getting, his parenting essentially is coming from, well, whatever kind of media and stuff and friends that, that he’s getting. Right. So,

Sara: Very much.

Mark: Swearing would definitely be part of that. Yeah. Especially when that’s, you know, it’s kind of accepted more so now than ever.

Sara: Right. Yeah, exactly. Exactly.

Mark: Was there ever a point where you almost gave up on the book, on the writing, the first book?

Sara: No, I was obsessed with it. I was driving everybody crazy talking about it. It was all I talked about to my poor friends and family.

I have the bad habit in both writing and life of, I keep going with things far beyond where normal people give up. I’ve had two businesses that have both done, I’ve done that. And all of my books, I just keep going. I don’t know. I don’t, I think because I’m usually, ’cause I know the end, I don’t have that problem of, oh, I don’t know where this is going.

I don’t, I think I’m done with it. Yeah, I just, I think having, knowing the end does help avoid that. Yeah. It might get messy in the middle and I might [00:11:00] get frustrated and screaming and wondering what the heck I’m doing and, and there’s always imposter syndrome about you’re a terrible writer. Why are you doing this?

Blah, blah, blah. Which you may know too. Um, yeah. But no, I’ve never thought about quitting a project once I was in. I would say if I’ve got more than 10,000 words, I’m, I’m good. I’m not, I’m not stopping.

Mark: You’re in. Yeah.

Sara: That Dollhouse is the longest in my books though, because the feedback I got from a lot of reviewers and readers was, this is too long. And the funny thing is they all said you needed an editor. And I’m like, I paid for two editors.

Mark: Yeah.

Sara: But that book was a hundred thousand words. And most of my new thrillers are much shorter though, between 60 and 70. Because the other thing is I like dialogue and I like action. I write books that are more like a movie.

There’s not a whole lot of introspection or a whole lot of pondering the wallpaper. I just that I won’t read it when they’re like that. I skip it. Mm-hmm. And so I don’t write it. So, um. For good or bad. If people are looking for a deep [00:12:00] read, I’m probably not their person.

Mark: Yeah. Yeah. I liked how fast it moved, I mean mm-hmm.

I’m also like, it’s a thriller, right. You’re, you’re right. Looking for it to kind of get going a little bit. Yes. Sure. We have to take a breath at points, but I, yeah.

Sara: Yeah. I,

Mark: I really enjoyed how fast it was and

Sara: Oh, thank you. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you. Um, have you read, uh, any S.A. Cosby Books?

Mark: No, I have not.

Sara: Oh, well I highly recommend them for one, but they’re crime fiction, but they have a little bit of a literary bent to them in that he likes similes a lot. Okay. I’ve heard he is only allowed to have three similes per page or something like that. ’cause he likes them a lot. But he’s the only author that I know of that I will sit still and listen or read his explorations of the wallpaper because he does it in such a way that it’s still moving the story. So you know, some people can get away with that. Just not me. I’m not that talented.

Mark: Yeah. Yeah. That was CS Crosby, you said?

Sara: S.A. Cosby.

Mark: S.A. Cosby.

Sara: Yeah, he wrote, um, his newest [00:13:00] book is King of Ashes. He’s also got Razor Blade Tears. All the Sins Bleed. I think he’s got five books out now. But if you read what they’re crime fiction and they’re very, very crime fiction. Okay. Yeah. Blacktop Wasteland, I think made me cry harder than any crime book ever has. So, uh, yeah, if you like that kind of stuff, you, and it’s based in the American South, so it’s, you know, it’s, he, he’s Black and his characters are African American and living that life and Okay. It’s a deep dive, but it’s so good.

Mark: Oh, I’ll have to check that out.

Sara: Yeah. Highly recommend. Are you in Canada?

Mark: Yeah, I’m in Ottawa. Yeah.

Sara: Oh, okay. Okay. Yeah. Boot is, I, I’m like, oh, I catch a Canadian accent there.

Mark: Yeah.

Sara: Didn’t realize.

Mark: So what would you, your book is, it’s kind of pumped up as, or from what I gather was like a psychological thriller.

Mm-hmm. Yeah. Would you say for readers, is that, is it more, is it like a psy, [00:14:00] a horror psychological thriller? Like would you throw horror in there because.

Sara: Yeah, it’s a little bit, yeah, it’s a little bit psychological horror, which I don’t know if we have that as an official genre yet, but we should. Um, yeah.

Yeah. It’s very much psychological horror. Okay. It’s not crime because it’s not, you know, traditional crime thriller. It’s, it’s definitely psychological. Um, and it’s bordering on horror. One thing I don’t tend to write. I figure our brains like the reader’s brains, and especially for writers, we are much worse when it comes to envisioning something if we’re given just enough information that our brains take over.

I know we make it way worse than the author ever could, so I like to do that to readers. I like to let their brain do the deep dive on the gore and the physical stuff. I just give ’em enough to. To get them there.

Mark: Okay.

Sara: Yeah. So there’s not, there’s not a ton of, there’s a lot of intensity, but there’s not a lot of physical description of blood and guts or anything like that.

Mark: Okay. , Yeah. [00:15:00] Okay. Yeah. So with the characters, how did you come up with, with the characters and let’s say, I mean, I guess Angel, Bud, and Olivia. Yeah. Yeah. So who, like, how did you come up with them? What was like, I know you, the inspiration came from…

Sara: yeah, so Elizabeth Smart was Olivia and Angel and Bud were Shasta and Dylan, although the ages were changed on all of them. I. Basically I just, I envisioned who would be good to be in this. So Angel is very shy and very timid and easily made insecure because of her relationship with her mom. And Olivia is very stoic and very, it is what it is so I’m gonna just, you know, exist and do the best I can. And she’s, she’s a little bit like bossy older sister, even though they’re not by birth related ’cause they’re together for quite like six months or something, I don’t remember now. And she is very mothering in a weird way, but not mothering, but more the attitude of, I know it’s better for you kind of thing sometimes. [00:16:00] So, I don’t know. Uh, this is another one of those weird things. I lived in an orphanage for the year I was in Wyoming, and I was thinking about some of the relationships of the girls that were in the dorm that I was in and how, you know, you can be a year older and then you act like you know everything in the person that’s a year younger than you, you know, there’s just a kid. And it was very much that dynamic. So that applied a little bit in this locked up environment. So I think that helped. And then, the bad guys, the bad guy.

Mark: Yeah. Yeah. So do you, do you build, when you’re building characters, do you just start the story and then the character comes to life for you? Or is there like a, an interview, kind of interview process with the character to get to know them sort of.

Sara: Um, I’m character first, which is interesting, I think to me, that they come to me fully formed. They tell me who they are. I don’t have to, I don’t have to do anything. Even the bad guys, like the bad guy in the Dollhouse, he has a pretty interesting backstory.

And I’d say that’s true of all [00:17:00] my bad guys, except for one in The Hunted. She is just a psychopath. To be a psychopath. Yeah. Yeah. Um, yeah. But, they’re just people in my brain. I just finished and put out the Doll Master, which is the follow up. The, there’s a few books in the series, but The Doll Master is sort of the second half of The Dollhouse, and I thought it was gonna end one way and nope. Nope. It ended a whole different way that surprised the heck outta me, and it was because the character said, this is what happens. You’re not telling me what I’m doing. I don’t care it. Okay. So thanks for that book.

Mark: Yeah. I used to outline a lot and in detail, I think the first book I wrote had like 40. It was like 40,000 words of an outline, which is almost a written book that was, yeah. Just had no detail in it. Wow. But then when I really got into the story of actually writing, the characters came to life. Mm-hmm. And, and then I realized, wait, they’re not gonna do these things. And then I just went with the story in a totally different direction. Yeah.

So by the time the book was done, [00:18:00] I think maybe like 15,000 words were actually useful and…

Sara: wow.

Mark: So now I don’t do these gigantic yeah gigantic outlines anymore. They’re just, just like you. It’s kind of like beginning. I, I usually know the middle and then Yeah, the end. So I have like the three acts sort of Yeah.

Somewhat figured out, but I’m, I’m, I don’t do characters really deep. So I also jump into, allow the story to go wherever it goes. Yeah. Because characters will do what they do and once you get to know them, it’s like, wow, like this person is just so fascinating and this is what they’re gonna do.

Isn’t, and that’s, it’s so fun.

Sara: And they have those little like mannerisms. That they insist on that I don’t, I don’t know. I feel like there’s some part back here in our brains that knows what they’re doing, but like all of a sudden you’ll have a character that does a certain thing or says a certain thing all the time and you’re like, did I consciously do that or did they project that through my fingers onto the screen?

I mean, it’s weird. Yeah, we’re all a little bit nuts, I think, but in a good way. In a nice, safe, good way. Yeah.

Mark: Yeah.

Sara: Better to do this than actually go around killing people. [00:19:00]

Mark: Yeah, that’s fair. Yeah. Yeah.

Sara: Yeah.

Mark: And so what character was the most fun to write?

Sara: Oh, Angel is my favorite, I think because I connect the most with her. There is a, a character in Small Gods, which is fifth I think. Yeah fifth, that she, again, all of my characters are like me, even the bad ones, but she is again, very much like me at my worst. And that was fun to write because I got to let out my bad side, and be bad. Mm-hmm. But I’d say Angel is the one I’m most attached to, I have a character named CB who comes up in The Hunted and she’s kinda like a little bit J-Lo, she’s a badass, five foot, nothing who wears pink but drives a semi. And she’s mouthy and she’s actually from kind of a well bred family in Chicago, but she doesn’t live that life. So, she’s, she’s one of my favorite characters to write [00:20:00] because she just is so mouthy and in your face and sassy and she dresses cute and weird. Um, so that’s fun to write. I like the fact,

Mark: I love that.

Sara: Yeah. Yeah. And then on my cozy side, I have some great characters. Like I have a guy named Marv who runs a convenience store called Pump and Circumstance. And he is always inventing things, and so he’s like Henry Winkler when he is 70 in, you know, in, I don’t know. So, I don’t know. I love characters. Characters are my favorite thing on the planet. If I could just write characters all the time, that’d be great.

Yeah. Who’s your favorite character?

Mark: So who’s, oh, so sorry, I just wanna touch on who is, your other books, are they under the same name, Sara Ennis, or is cozy under

Sara: Well, the cozys, no, the cozys are Sarah Isabelle, because I, I, okay.

Figured the thriller people could wander into the cozys and would be okay, but if the cozy people wandered into a thriller, they would not be okay. So I wanted to put some space between them, but my website is just Call Me Sarah, because [00:21:00] either way it’s me. So that’s the best way to do it. But yeah, I’m, I’m careful.

The thriller people know about the cozys and the cozy people can discover the thrillers, but I don’t want them to accidentally find that they would not do well.

Mark: Yeah, I could imagine that crossover would be tough because yeah, if you like cozy and, and then you go to like your Dollhouse, that’s not, yeah, that’s, so it’s not gonna work.

Even if you wanted to try it, I would almost say, I don’t know. No, no. I do. You might like the writer, but…

Sara: Yeah, I do have people who like both, but they started with the thrillers. Okay. It’s fine to go from dark to light, but it’s not good to start with the light and go to dark, I think. Yeah. Um, because the cozys are funny.

They’re, they’re. Like laugh out loud, funny. They’re completely different than this, so, yeah.

Mark: Yeah. Okay. Uh, yeah, so my favorite character from your book was Bud so far. Oh, well that makes sense. Early on, but, yeah. Yeah.

Sara: But I meant of yours. Do you have, do your, is your your book series or are they [00:22:00] one off? Are they two?

Mark: Oh, I have both. Yeah. Oh, okay. I kind, I, I jump. There’s sub genres of thrillers, so, oh, okay. Yeah. I have a trilogy that’s in a post-apocalyptic setting, and then I have a military thriller and then I have a psychological, so I kind of jump all over the place.

Sara: That we can’t all stick to one. We’re not good at it.

Mark: Yeah. Uh, yeah. Fa favorite characters? That’s a good question. Um, well, I have a, there’s one character. It’s same thing I like, like the spunky fun, confident character. I, so I in my book two, it hasn’t come out, it comes out on Tuesday, actually.

Sara: Oh. Congrats.

Mark: Called, The Chosen it’s book two in the trilogy, and there’s a character in there called Poppy. And, and she, she is just fun because she has that like I’ll take on anything. I don’t, I’m not afraid, like, you know. Yeah. Despite being in a wheelchair, she has found in this post apocalyptic world how to get by and be an impactful, an impactful, yeah. Part of that, their group.

Sara: So, wow. So what inspired that?

Mark: And she was a lot of fun to write.

Sara: Who inspired her? Anybody? [00:23:00] Or you just made her up?

Mark: I think I just made her up. Yeah. I just, she just kind of, it’s kind of, she just popped into my head during that scene. I was like, yeah, you know, they heard the creaking of wheels and then all of a sudden Poppy came.

Sara: Oh, that sounds awesome. It was a lot of fun. Yeah. Okay. So is she in both books or just in the second one?

Mark: She’s not in the first, she’s in the second and the third. Okay.

Sara: Yeah. Okay. Okay. Well now I, I’ve never read, well, you know there’s few, but um, I’ve never really read Postapocalyptic thriller. Is there any humor in it at all or are they very serious humor?

Mark: No, it’s dark. Okay. Well I don’t…

Sara: be dark and funny.

Mark: Yeah. Yeah. I don’t do it. Dexter like Joe Abercrombie. Yeah. Oh yeah. Dexter too. Yeah, yeah,

Sara: yeah. And I do try to make Alfred funny. I wanted Alfred to think he was funny, even if nobody else thought he was funny. So there’s some bad dad jokes in that book.

Okay, well, I might have to check it out and see if I can do purely dark. I’ve never tried that.

Mark: Oh yeah, for sure. I can send you a copy of that. I’d be happy to.

Sara: Well, sending from Canada to the US is ridiculous. Don’t do that. I’ll go find it, [00:24:00] but thank you.

Mark: So we’re gonna, we’re gonna get into a couple wrap up questions. Okay. And these are for authors that are listening. Oh, okay. What advice would you give someone who just published their first or second book? So they’ve kind of gone through that learning curve a little bit and as you know, or well may or may not know, like it can be very challenging. Mm-hmm. To get your book out there, to get it to an audience.

So what? Yes. And to want to write the next one when the first one maybe doesn’t do as well. ’cause everyone thinks, oh, it’s my first book once it’s out there. Yeah. Like it’s gonna go big and I’ll be able to write full time and Yeah. It’s almost never that way.

Sara: No. I would say, and I am dead serious about this, find author friends.

Because not only are they good for when you’re having, I’m gonna quit and go work at Costco Day but they are also really good at advice. Like I’m redoing all my covers now because I paid a bunch of money for my first three covers, think, and I hired somebody who worked at Random House doing their covers and I didn’t know any better.

And we went for cool covers [00:25:00] instead of market covers. And people have for a long time thought that they were fantasy instead of thrillers because they don’t look at all like thrillers. So I spent, you know, $3,000 on covers that I, that did not do me any service. Um, so I don’t, I. I don’t necessarily have a great eye for covers.

And so I have my, my group of thriller writers, we have a little mastermind and they are, they are helping me help the designer redo my covers because I’ll think something’s great and they’ll point out Nope. Why it’s not great. Yeah. And I would never have got it. So have writer friends because they can give you good advice.

They will be honest. You can do things together. Like, on TikTok, we have a shared TikTok account where we, um, do book reviews. Of books, but we also talk about our own books. It’s kind of like that. I think if you know what 20 books is, it’s the, yeah, the rising, rising tide lifts all boats. It’s very much that philosophy.

Yeah. So try to find some thriller [00:26:00] writer friends if you write thrillers or whatever, right. I also have another group on the cozy side that’s equally fantastic. That would be number one. Number two, listen to any Becca Syme podcast you can find, because she will help you keep your head straight. Um, she really will.

Yeah. She’ll, she will remind you this is not an overnight thing for anybody even like some of the people that we think of as overnight successes have got 13 or 14 books out before we hear about them. Yeah. And think that they suddenly are great. Um. Don’t give up. If you really enjoy it, keep doing it. If you, if you would do it anyway, even if you weren’t making money, then it’s worth keep doing.

If you are only doing it for money and you’re not doing well, it might not work. I mean, you might as well, you know, go find another thing that you like that might make you money. ’cause it’s gonna break your heart. Yeah. It’s so hard. It’s hard emotionally, it’s hard financially, it’s. Time-wise, if you have a day job and you’re trying to do that around it, I’m lucky in that I got laid off, so I ended up being able to write [00:27:00] full-time.

But financially that was scary as hell. Yeah. Um, and still is, I’m not, you know, I do have to have side gigs to help, but you have to love it enough. Mm-hmm. That you would do it even if you don’t get great success. Otherwise, you know, you’re just torturing yourself.

Mark: Yeah, yeah. Anyone who thinks that this is, yeah.

A way to make money is, uh, yeah. There’s way easier ways to make your fortune than writing.

Sara: we can get into a whole conversation about Amazon and authors and all the ways that Yeah. I mean, they, people think we get rich ’cause our books are 1499 on Amazon and we get $2 out of that, you know? Yeah. They, yeah. They, the big world doesn’t understand how it works, but No, we do.

Yeah,

Mark: yeah, yeah, yeah,

Sara: yeah. So

Mark: if you could pick one thing that you felt led to your success so far, what would it be like, what worked best for you?

Sara: I lucked out. I had no idea what I was doing when I published the Dollhouse. I went on Instagram and found some people that talked [00:28:00] about thriller books, and I very naively, I didn’t realize this was something that all sorts of people did.

I messaged a few of them and said, Hey, can I send you my book? And I went and made this fancy little package that turned out wasn’t fancy at all compared to what they actually get, but to me it was fancy. I sent it to a couple of people and I just lucked out. They talked about it to their friends and they got their friends to talk about it, and it got past the hump of the cover, not matching, because if people just looked at the cover, they never would’ve picked it up.

And I didn’t know that at that point. So just lucky and trying, you know, being too dumb not to know, to, to know, you know, not to do this or that. You’re not the only one doing this to think I was it, um, just kind of going out and trying stuff, whether you know it’s gonna work or hope it’s gonna work. 20 things that you’d hope are gonna work, aren’t gonna work and maybe one will.

Mark: [00:29:00] Yeah.

Sara: But, um, the other thing I would say is. I’m on TikTok. That’s probably where I spend my most time. But I have noticed that Instagram is great for building awareness. You’re not gonna sell books there, but people will get to know who you are. The times I’ve noticed big spikes in my sales is when somebody unrelated to me goes and talks about my book in one of the reader groups on Facebook.

That’s gold. Mm-hmm. So if you can get somebody there to like your books, um, and talk about it, that’s fantastic. The other thing is there’s a bunch of Stuff Your Kindle days now, have you done any of those? Where you participate and it’s like, the last one I did was 500 authors give away their book for free for a day.

And they have, uh, emails and websites and all the stuff that goes out. And it started in romance. Now it’s in all sorts of genres. I was thinking those aren’t great anymore because on the Stuff Your Kindle Day, me, Sarah Reader goes [00:30:00] and looks at every book in this list and downloads it onto my Kindle for free.

I now have a hundred books on there that I’m probably gonna, you know, and then somebody I know is gonna put a book out. I’m never gonna get to that. Yeah. Maybe, maybe. I’m trying an experiment where I, I’m in a cozy one this next week. So the first book is gonna be free, and I put the other six on a countdown deal.

So because people, that’s the goal, the hope is that if you get one for free, they’ll go read your other books and they’ll pay for them.

Mark: Yeah.

Sara: So people like things on sale. So hopefully when they click on my first book and then see the others in the series are on sale, they’ll buy those. And then if they have more than one of my books on their phone, they might prioritize it.

Oh, okay. I have four books by the Yeah, exactly. Read it. So I’m gonna give that a shot. I have no idea if it’ll work, but it did work for another friend of mine, so we’ll see. We’ll see what happens. Yeah. So again, it’s try whatever you can.

Mark: Yeah, for sure.

Sara: Look for stuff that’s free or at least not money outta your pocket, like a Kindle count [00:31:00] down deal doesn’t cost you anything in cash. ’cause that’s the other thing is everything’s expensive. I don’t think BookBub feature deals work as well as they used to. Have you ever done one of those?

Mark: Yeah, I tried it. It didn’t work very well. Yeah. Oh

Sara: yeah. Yeah. They just don’t pay. They used to, but now they’ve got so many books in every email. You just get lost and they’re too expensive for that. So I think they’re gonna have to change their model. Yeah.

Mark: And they don’t have post apocalyptic, so they’re still Oh, they don’t like, they don’t. Get deep into the genres. So, oh, for me, I think they put my, my first book in in like an action and Oh yeah, I think it was Action Adventure or something and yeah. Yeah, it missed because it didn’t work. It’s not like that audience was not, was not the right audience. So, yeah.

Sara: It’s so hard. That’s the thing, people don’t realize that you’re gonna spend at least as much time trying to get people to know about your book as you do writing your books.

Mark: Yeah. And that’s a lot.

Sara: You really are. You really are. And it’s exhausting. Yeah. ’cause at least the writing is fun. The marketing can be not that fun. Yeah. Especially ’cause you, like I had a book pop off and I have no idea why. I don’t know why. [00:32:00] So I can’t go and go, okay, that worked because I did this and go do that again. No, I have no clue why I did it.

So I’m just like, okay, well thank you. Now what do I do? Yeah. It’s really frustrating. It’s, it’s not the most happy business to be in, but it’s satisfying if you like your stories.

Mark: Yeah. Yeah, for sure. Well, congratulations on the success you’ve had because you’ve, well, thank you. You’ve done well. Thank you.

Thank you. I have so far really enjoyed the Dollhouse, and I will be, well thanks. Getting more into that and I will leave a review. Okay. Those, well, I wanna know what you

Sara: think about the, I can’t wait to hear that part.

Mark: Okay. Uh, so as we wrap up here, what, where can people find your book? And find you on social.

Sara: Um, I’m on Amazon because Amazon owns us under Sarah Ennis. And then I have a website called justcallmesara.com. And then I have instagram, TikTok and Facebook accounts. I have a private reader group on Facebook, but mostly there, I just share inappropriate memes. So it’s not, it’s not okay, you know, [00:33:00] but the people there appreciate it.

Um, so for my, just if you look for Sara Ennis Writes, ’cause there’s also a stripper named Sarah Enni on TikTok. Anyway, um, so Sarah Ennis writes is me. I keep my call. Okay. Which everybody appreciates.

Mark: Okay. Um,

Sara: but yeah, if you just look for Sarah and US Rights anywhere, you’ll find me.

Mark: Okay. That’s great.

Yeah. Well, thank you so much for being here. This has been a, have a wonderful conversation. Really enjoyed learning more. It was

Sara: fun

Mark: and yeah, it was great. So if you don’t mind sticking around for a couple minutes. Yeah. Uh, for some bonus questions. My newsletter subscribers get some, some bonus questions that others don’t get, so, oh, that’s cool.

Sara: You have to

Mark: join the newsletter to jump in on, on those bonus questions. Very

Sara: smart. Very smart. Okay. Yeah.

Mark: So thank you.

Sara: You are welcome. I wanna hear about that once we’re off.

Mark: Thanks for listening to the show. If you enjoyed this episode, you can support the podcast and get early access to future episodes on Patreon. Some guests are also sharing bonus content, like short stories and novellas that are hard to find [00:34:00] elsewhere. And even if you just joined Patreon now, you can still get all those novellas that were posted. And if you’re into mind manipulation and assassination in a military setting, check out the Genesis project.

If you like the show, please follow, rate and share it with another Thriller fan. It really helps make a difference in growing the podcast. I’ll see you in the next episode when I sit down with Lizzie Qnert, author of the Psychological vigilante thriller Power Surge.

TPP Episode 4 with Faye Arcand

Mark: [00:00:00] Hello and welcome to the Thriller Pitch Podcast, where you come for the pitch and stay for the story behind the story. I’m your host, Mark PJ Nadon, and you’re listening to episode number four. There is no plot twist on today’s sponsor. It’s me. If you’re an author and you wanna sponsor a future episode, just head to markpjnadon.ca

Links are in the show notes.

In my novella, Monsoon Rendezvous, Clara Gaines access to the Genesis Project Technology, which plunges her into a dream 20 years in the past to a monsoon ravaged village in Bangladesh where her relationship with her husband Blake first began. As the monsoon unleashes chaos and rising waters threaten everything, Clara has to navigate the storm and rediscover what brought them together in the first place.

Monsoon [00:01:00] Rendezvous is an environmental romance thriller. Today’s guest is Faye Arcon. Faye has a background in criminal justice and has witnessed a wide range of behaviors and situations that peak the interest of her creative brain. Having lived with a twisted writer brain her entire adult life, she allows stories and personalities to emerge that are unique, disturbing, relatable, and even a tad bit perplexing.

Inside, outside is her debut novel.

Mark: Hello Faye.

Thank you for coming.

Faye: Hi,

Mark: Welcome to the show.

Faye: Thank you so much.

Mark: I’m very excited to get into this. I have your book here Inside Outside. I have read the book. Really enjoyed it. So I’m very excited to get into this, but for those who haven’t, haven’t had the chance to read the book or don’t know about it, let’s start with our two minute pitch.

Faye: Inside Outside is what we call a domestic psychological suspense.

So with this [00:02:00] particular story. What happens is we start with Leslie, who is, she’s a broken woman. She has had a heck of a ride so far. She’s in her thirties and she’s a writer. And she’s starts, or the book starts in a grocery store where she sees her ex-husband. And instead of just going with the flow she hides.

And I don’t know about you, Mark, but I know I’ve done that, you know, walking through Walmart and it’s like, oh my God, you know, I don’t want to talk to that person. You know, like, you know, there’s, I got no makeup on. You know, it’s like, ah. So, you know, you, you, you dive behind the, dive behind the pillar in the store, and you, you, you.

You know, sneak your way out. So she’s a, she’s a real person and I think we can all relate to her. And what she does is she likes to sit [00:03:00] at her window and watch a little park across the street and in that park is the pickup for the local high school, the bus pickup. So the bus stops there every morning and on this one morning, she sees a young girl who reminds her so much of herself that she gets a little obsessed, shall we say. So that’s it in a nutshell. It’s the story of her inserting herself into, this young girl’s life and how these two people’s stories parallel each other and yet are so divergent, they heal each other even though they’re both so broken. Now it’s under the thriller genre, but leans more towards our own backyards. If that makes any sense.

Very often we’ll read, [00:04:00] we’ll read thrillers and there’ll be something so big and, and you know, there’ll be guns and mystery and chases and things like that. So, but domestic thrillers are something that can happen in your own backyard, and that’s what this story is about. And we don’t know what happens behind closed doors ever doesn’t make any difference who it is.

Like there is an inside person and there’s an outside person. Every time we go in and out of our door we change our persona and which one is the real one? And do you really want the world seeing what that inside persona is? Because it can be a little sick and twisted without even realizing it.

Mark: Yeah. Thank you. Yeah, that’s great. I’m glad you brought up domestic thrillers and explained that because I used to also think that every thriller labeled thriller was high [00:05:00] action, like high octane, high stakes. So now that I read even more thrillers from broad sub genres, I guess you could say, it really helps to have an understanding of, there’s lots of types of thrillers that it’s not just spy or crime thrillers.

There’s lots of really good books out there, so thanks for mentioning that.

Faye: Oh, you’re welcome. And, and you know, what kind of gets me though is when people hear the word domestic, they think domestic violence, domestic thrillers are not about domestic violence. Domestic thrillers are stories that can happen in your own world, it could be your own school, it could be at work, in your church, wherever. But the, it’s, it’s not about violence. It’s usually more psychologically based. As we explore all of those feelings and tensions and things that come up every single day.

Mark: Yeah. So what, what inspired this story?

Faye: What inspired this story? To tell you the truth, this story fell out of the end of my [00:06:00] fingers, onto on the keyboard. There was no, I did not set out to, to say, okay, I am going to write a domestic thriller today. It just, the story itself actually just kind of fell out. If I look back on things that I’ve read Girl On A Train I think was probably an inspiration simply because that was one of the first domestic thrillers that came out that discussed this whole thing of kind of like distant observation, the watching of the things that go on around us and how they affect us without us even realizing it. And in that particular book. It started with, you know, she was a girl on a train and she saw an incident happen and she acted on it. So I, that would probably be a jumping off point for my inspiration.

But as we, as I got further into the story and [00:07:00] into the characters it definitely took on a life of its own.

Mark: So would you say you’re sort of like a pantser, I guess? I think Stephen King coined the term pantser where you just sat down and just started typing story and then everything came to life and you went from there.

Faye: Yeah. Yeah. For, for any writer that doesn’t know you’ve, you’ve got a pantser and a plotter and so a plotter is somebody who, you know drafts every little chapter, every little scene. I can’t do that I need to be more organic in my writing. And so I have a very good idea in my head as to who the characters are, and I let the characters lead me.

And, so I kind of fly by the seat of my pants. But, the, it’s, it’s very, it’s almost cathartic because these characters like Leslie and Selena, they live in my head. They talk to me at night, [00:08:00] you know, we’ll be driving and we’ll be driving, I’ll be driving. They’re not allowed to drive, so I’ll be driving and, you know, they’re chattering away.

So these particular characters lived a long time prior to reaching the page.

Mark: Okay. And was there a mo,

Faye: was there a moment? Sorry, I’m just gonna say sense. Was there a moment in my life

Mark: That influenced the, writing of the story? As you wrote, did you, was there a moment where you thought this kind of paralleled experiences you have as a like for the character or the plot?

Faye: Hmm. That’s an interesting question. Thanks for that. I think what I need, it would. My background is criminal justice. So for several years after I, I have a degree in criminology, I entered into the correction system of Canada as a, as an officer. So there I was 22 years old, sling in a, [00:09:00] you know, AR 15 on my back.

It is like, okay. I, I can now look back and see why my parents were a little bit concerned.

Mark: Yeah.

Faye: It was like, ah, but I got this, and then, you know, that led me into investigations and into a lot of different, different positions where there was a lot of discussion and a lot of awareness of, for example, family violence and which Leslie does experience.

So as far as inspiration or personal, it’s, I think, I think any author who writes a book and puts words on pages, puts a piece of themselves on the page every single time.

Mark: Yeah.

Faye: So where I can’t pinpoint, like a particular instance that this happened to me. So, so this is what I wrote.

It’s not, it’s all intertwined with [00:10:00] just who I am.

Mark: Okay.

Faye: Which is a little sick and twisted. Yes.

Mark: Yeah. So did you have to do research for this story?

Faye: I didn’t do any research for this story. That’s, well, that’s not true. There was, there was a few things in, there’s a scene that takes place in a hospital and there was some research done there and I, I talked to a medical professional, um, to make sure that I was on track with where I was taking that story.

And if. Just, just to make sure that it was plausible, right? Mm-hmm. Uh, but other than that, you know, it’s just experience observation. Yeah. It’s, it’s that little muse that sits on my shoulder saying, write this, write this.

Mark: So I know pantsers are I won’t generalize necessarily, but to say like I have talked to pantsers that, I’m a kind of in between myself, but who, write until they kind of run out of inspiration. It’s kind of like they, ’cause they don’t know where the [00:11:00] story’s going, so they just write their way into a corner and they don’t know how to get out kind of thing.

Did you have any of those moments where, in this story you were writing and you were like, I don’t know where this is going, and you had to readjust.

Faye: In this particular, I, I have had that experience for sure, but in this particular experience of writing this book , it just came, in fact, there was a point where in my head. I had it going this way, and all of a sudden something else came on the page. I was like, oh, oh, is that what’s gonna happen? Oh my God. And, and, and I can’t, I can’t take well, though it came through me it’s, it’s like stepping back and allowing the muse to just work its magic. It’s really quite incredible to have that happen.

Now, on the other hand, I have painted myself into a corner and I know in one situation I got to about 40,000 words and I thought, oh my God, this is [00:12:00] like, you know, like, where in the world am I going with this? And I ended up tossing it and I have started now. In my old age, I guess, putting together some loose, loose, outlines.

Okay. So, yeah. Okay. And it helps or not,

Mark: yeah. It’s hard to say, right? Because the characters do what they’re gonna do.

Faye: They are, they take on a life of their own. They really do. Yeah.

Mark: I’ve done, I’ve done both. pantsing didn’t work very well for me. That’s why I’m kind of in between. But I’ve done the outline where I worked and worked and worked and then a couple hundred pages into writing the story, everything just went out the window because it was like, these people are gonna do something completely different and this is where I have to go ’cause that’s where they wanted me to go, essentially.

Faye: And that’s what we have to remember is these characters are the ones that are in charge and [00:13:00] because my, because I deal with domestic suspense or domestic situations and setting those characters are the strengths that push the for the story forward. So I just got back from New York. I was at Thriller Fest. Which is a huge beast of a festival. I, it was fantastic. And there was a thousand people and one of the keynote speakers was James Patterson. James Patterson has been, has probably written 50 million books and you know, but he is a deep exacting plotter.

Like he will, he will take a chapter and break down every little thing, every little word, and plot it out. So it’s um, interesting to see that.

Mark: Yeah, I couldn’t do that. That must have been very [00:14:00] cool to be in the room though.

Faye: It it, it was very cool to be in. Grisham was there too. Oh, nice. So it was nice.

It, it was, it was quite the event, but it was, I think every writer is individual and I think they grow in their craft as to which way they’re going to go and you know, whether it be Pat or pantsing or plotting, it doesn’t matter, or a hybrid of both. And you have to do what works for you for sure.

Mark: Yeah. So one of the things that stuck with me in this book was Leslie was, I felt for Leslie throughout this book because I connected with her. And I’m curious if, when you are, when you’re writing a character, are you looking for these moments of connection? Like to establish connection?

I know you’re saying you’re pantsing, so it’s kind of just, just coming off. But do you notice like, oh, that’s a great moment where I know people will connect with this personality

Faye: there’s no, for [00:15:00] myself, there’s no real conscious thought as because I’m just presenting a character and she is who she is and, you know, she’s very flawed. She’s very very sympathetic character as well as we learn as we go along.

Yeah, it’s, that’s such an interesting question Mark, because I don’t really sit and think about it as far as connection. I think I have, I always have a question in the back of my mind as to whether this, whether this particular character is likable. Mm-hmm. You know, like, because sometimes it can be very hard to connect with someone that is really nasty, but she’s not nasty. She’s got her moments. But yeah. Sorry, that doesn’t, that doesn’t really answer your question, but it’s, she just [00:16:00] presented herself as who she was.

Take it. Take it or leave. That was, that works. Yeah, that was, that was who she was, is, yeah,

Mark: yeah, yeah. And I took it. Yeah, it was, it was good. Yeah.

Faye: How did you connect with her? What, on, on what level or where?

Mark: It was almost right from the get go. It was like the trauma that she had been through. And even though I wouldn’t have reacted in the way that she did with how she behaved necessarily, and her responses to it, I could feel for what she was going through and what it felt like for like, the betrayal of that relationship that she was in and all those struggles that she went through.

So immediately that I was like, yeah, I know, anything could happen at that point. ’cause I know what, I know what that feels like. So that’s why I really connected with her. Yeah,

Faye: that’s so through that makes me happy. It makes me happy. You were so traumatized. Yeah. No, no, no. No, that’s that’s great to hear because, um, because that’s

I guess as a writer, I think we set out with our characters to connect [00:17:00] without even realizing it. Mm-hmm. Because I think we are as, just as, as human beings, very connected in so many ways that we don’t even really consider.

Mark: Yeah. And do you have a character that was the favorite to write? Did you have one that you were writing and just loved this personality?

Faye: Mama. Yeah. So yeah, it’s a, she wasn’t my favorite, but she was kind of fun to write because she was so evil and such a bitch.

Mark: Yeah.

Faye: And, and I have no idea where that came from. I don’t know anybody like that. Um. And it, and it’s interesting that this whole character persona emerged. I don’t know where she came from.

Oh, yeah, it was interesting. But there, she was a character. A couple. She was a character [00:18:00] for sure. But you know, I did both of the, the main characters, Selena and Leslie were a part of my heart. And they were you know, they were both strong and independent in their own way and became even more so I hope.

Mark: Yeah. Was there anything you cut from the book? Any scenes or anything that you had to cut out that maybe you wish you had put back in there? Well,

Faye: Not that I wish that I had put back in. No, there was nothing. I mean, there was, there was obviously edits. There was, there was huge hunks that I take out when I, and when I edit, what I do is

I have a separate file called Dead Darlings, and so I put all of my, my work there just in case I wanna get it back. Those, like all of those words that we write that end up on the floor, I like to have ’em in a nice little file, but those particular cuts [00:19:00] I, I think, make the story tighter. Yeah.

Mark: Awesome. So we’re gonna get into the final wrap up here. A couple of other questions. What advice would you give someone who had just published their first or maybe second book,

Faye: and what kind of publishing are we talking?

Mark: Either let’s say, yeah, I can say either.

Faye: Okay, so, or traditionally, okay, so when you publish that first book, after you publish that first book, you need to make a decision. The writer, author, creator, needs to make a decision as to whether it is a passion. And something that you’re going to continue or is this just a hobby? Because what happens is after you publish that first book, it is now a business and [00:20:00] your, the author’s mindset needs to change.

And it needs to, if, if you want any semblance of, of success, it is a lot of work. So I, with, with Inside Outside, I had, I went through two different agents. So I had an agent pick it up pretty much right away, soon as I put it out into the world. And it was just before COVID. Yeah. Oh, yay. Right. And then the agent would come back and say, well, you know, I want this changed, I want that changed.

And then. You know, there’s a, there’s a saying and it says no agent is better than the wrong agent, and she was not the right fit for me. So we parted ways and then I went with another agency. And they ended up going outta business. And so it was like, you know, like, is the writing on the wall here?

Is [00:21:00] somebody trying to tell me something? What’s going on? So I got a publisher and I decided to go with a small indie press. And, um, it, it was a bit of a challenge because that particular publisher, one of the things he said to me was, don’t worry about your cover because you’re only gonna sell 30 or 40 copies and the copy and the cover doesn’t matter.

And I was like, what? You know, like, wow. I like, like this is my cover.

Mark: Yeah.

Faye: Like. That’s a powerful cover. And, and I’ve had, many, many compliments on it. And so anyway, so I left that publisher and decided to go on my own and self-publish. But when you do self-publish, it is a lot of, you, you [00:22:00] are your own marketer. You are your own everything. So it’s, um, it’s a lot of work.

Mark: Yeah.

Faye: I’ve enjoyed it though. I, I already have a I have a blog called My Twisted Writer Brain that’s been going for years and that afforded me uh, a platform. So that was, that was good. And I also ran a festival for five years, so that also allowed me a platform.

So advice, know what you’re getting yourself into. It’s nobody’s, nobody’s gonna come bang down your door, you know? And, and if you’re, and if you’re serious about moving forward with the business get that second book written and published.

Mark: Awesome. Thank you. I love that advice. You’re welcome. Yeah.

Decide if you’re, if you’re doing a, if you’re gonna be a hobbyist or a business ’cause this, the moment [00:23:00] you wanna make money off this, this business, you have to become a business.

Faye: You have to become a business. Exactly. And you have to, and you have to, you know, switch that mindset a little bit. So, yeah.

Mark: So where can people find your book?

Faye: My book is in Amazon and both, right now it’s just print and ebook. Hope to get the audiobook out soon and you can request it at the library. You can also request it through Indigo, through the Okanagan, which is where I live in central BC, south Central.

It’s in most libraries here, so yeah. And go to my web page, fayarcand.com. Easy as that. You can just get it right from there.

Mark: Awesome. I’ll link that in the show notes for you.

Faye: Thank you.

Mark: Thank you so much for being here. I really appreciate you taking the time outta your schedule.

Faye: I really, I really appreciate this opportunity [00:24:00] to talk about the book, talk about domestic thrillers or psychological.

I will say that I’ve won a couple of awards already for this book, and one of them, it was, it was quite interesting because what they did, I had entered in a suspense category, I think, and the people who ran the uh, the contest wanted the book to be number one. So what they did was they moved it into a different category because there was already somebody in suspense that was that, that they had chosen.

And, and the category that it won in, which I found interesting was mental health. And fiction mental health. And it was like, wow. Like, like I felt for sure. Yeah. I felt like the writer really got it, or not the writer, the reader, whoever read it for this particular, um, contest or the um, event [00:25:00] really understood Leslie, for sure.

Mark: Yeah. Yeah, I agree. Yeah.

Yeah. So, yeah.

Awesome. Thank you. So if you don’t mind sticking around after the show, we’ve got a couple of questions for our newsletter subscribers. A couple of questions that only they get when they subscribe. Okay.

Faye: The secret stuff?

Mark: Yes. Okay. Thanks so much,

Faye: mark.

Bye-Bye.

Mark: And thank you for listening to today’s show. If you enjoyed this episode, you can support the podcast and get early access to future episodes on Patreon. Links are in the show notes. Some guests are also sharing bonus content on our Patreon, like short stories behind the scenes extras, novellas. Even if you are just joining now, you can still get access to all the stuff that has been posted there prior to, so jump into that opportunity.

If you’re into environmental thrillers with a stormy romance twist, check out the Novella Monsoon Rendezvous. If you like the show, please follow, [00:26:00] rate and share it with another Thriller fan. It really helps make a difference, and I’ll see you in the next episode where I sit down with Sara Ennis, author of the Psychological Horror Thriller, the Dollhouse.

TPP Episode 3 with Cole Chase

[00:00:00]

Mark: Hello and welcome to the Thriller Pitch Podcast, where you come for the pitch and stay for the story behind the story. I’m your host, Mark P.J. Nadon, and you are listening to episode three, the sponsor for this episode, still me. If you’re an author and you wanna sponsor a future episode, just head to markpjnadon.ca links in the show notes.

In my Novela cognitive breach, Homeland Security captures an AI architect who suspected of terrorism. When standard interrogation fails, they turn to the Genesis Project Technology Captain David Garner enters her dreams, uncovers a deadly conspiracy involving weaponized AI and a growing connection that could compromise everything.

Cognitive breach is a high stake psychological thriller where the truth hides deep in the battlefield of dreams. Today’s guest is Cole Chase, who [00:01:00] studied advanced commercial fiction at the University of Washington under Stephen King’s editor, the one who famously cut 500 pages from the stand. A former cybersecurity analyst certified and NSA Methods.

Cole brings real world tech savvy to his shadow fast action thriller series. A six book saga about a heavy metal band turn heist crew.

Mark: Cole, thank you. Thank you for being here. Welcome to the show.

Cole: Thanks. I’m glad to be here.

Mark: So we’re gonna get right into it today.

If you wanna pitch me your book.

Cole: I’m ready. I’m here to talk to you about Metal Spies. It’s an action thriller that kicks off a whole series, and one way you could wrap your mind around it is to think about the cast of Oceans 11 taking over a mission impossible movie. Quinn Richards is a con man, the son of a con man. He gets with his ex-army buddies and starts a heavy metal band that they call Shadow Fast.

Because he’s a [00:02:00] conman. Pretty soon it evolves into a heist crew because they find out they can travel to different locales, even other countries or states and do little scams and cons undercover as musicians. So even though they pull off these cons, he lives in a mansion he inherited from his father, and he’s not making enough for upkeep on the mansion.

So he keeps trying to get shadow fast into bigger and bigger scores. I. Well, when he tries that instead of getting into the big leagues, he gets played by the big leagues. And some corrupt politicians hire him for a job simply to entrap them. And shadow fast finds themselves blackmailed by these corrupt politicians, so they must obey.

The politicians have figured out is that there is a tech bro billionaire named Brody Bach, and he has been bribed to the tune of nine figures by actors from the states of Russia and China, and they can tell he’s about to launch a [00:03:00] technological attack on the United States, but they don’t know what it is.

So Shadow Fast has to find out what the attack is and when it is, or they face prison for life. So this kicks us off into a story full of car chases, double crosses, international intrigue, lots of set pieces, quirky characters that readers really love. And, it’s for you if you are a fan of action thrillers and especially if you like kind of team-based ones like.

The ones I’ve mentioned. You know, Oceans 11, Mission Impossible, A-Team. The Losers. If you remember the old movie Sneakers from 1992. It’s that kind of vibe. It’s part heist, thriller, part techno, thriller, and all fun. So you can rock out with your glock out in metal spies.

Mark: So what inspired you to write the book?

Cole: I actually got started, well, first of all, I’ve been a fan all my life of the kinds of things I just referred [00:04:00] to, but what really was the impetus is my daughter, she is a very, very good singer down in Hollywood and unusually for a female. She’s a heavy metal singer. So I was raised in a church culture where I wasn’t allowed to listen to heavy metal, and I was pretty much ignorant of it until I was almost 50.

My daughter Sarah was in all these metal bands and she basically just took me to metal school. And so, yeah, but you haven’t heard this and you haven’t heard this. And I, I found it was really fun and, I, I just kinda loved it. So one of the main characters in the series is an idealized and exaggerated version of my own daughter.

So that’s, that’s what the main impetus was.

Mark: That’s awesome. So Cold Hit, which is the one you were nice enough to, to give to me, is that book four in this series? Is that how the series works out?

Cole: Yeah, I, I wound up, there’s six books in the series now and [00:05:00] I released them as trilogies. So book four actually is the first book of the second trilogy.

Okay. You can read it if you haven’t read the first three. Um, but I probably the best experience is if you go start to finish, but works either way

Mark: And you have the history. Yeah. So I’m curious when you, when you’re writing an action thriller, how you balance that intense action with character development to make the audience kind of care about the action. I’ve found in some stories I get into, there’s like lots of action. The characters at risk, you know, might die all of a sudden, but I’m not, I don’t yet care if they do because as a reader I just don’t have a reason to yet.

Cole: Yes. Yeah. So there’s an evolution through the six books, right?

When I wrote the first trilogy, I had learned that the Tom Cruise, Christopher Mcquarrie Mission Impossibles, they would think up a bunch of set pieces [00:06:00] first and then try to string them together with a plot and I actually took that approach in the first trilogy ’cause I had been writing for corporations for years, and I just really wanted to break out and do something a lot more fun than an executive pep talk.

So the, those first three books were a total blast to write. I put the whole thing together and then looked at, said, okay, but what does this mean and what is going on with the characters? And I was actually a little surprised by what the themes turned out to be. As I mentioned that Quinn is the son of a conman, and what you learned through the course of the books is it doesn’t actually set well with him.

He grew up in it, but he doesn’t know if he wants to be a good guy, a bad guy. They try to have their own little shabby code of honor so that they only pick on, as they call it, assholes, rich people or rich assholes. You know? That’s their. So there [00:07:00] is character development and he has an arc figuring out, am I good?

Am I bad? Where do I wanna be? And then in the second trilogy, there’s actually considerable more character work, but it’s dropped in briefly. Like you, you don’t really get big scenes of people pondering the meaning of life or that kind of thing. It kind of arises from the action.

Mark: Yeah. Yeah. I like that you, there was a lot of action.

I enjoyed, really enjoyed that book. And so what scene or moment was the hardest to write? Like creatively or emotionally?

Cole: Well, in the, in the first trilogy, none of it, it was just pure fun. I mentioned it was a nice break from all the corporate writing I’d been doing in the second trilogy the villains are billionaires who made most of their fortune off of privatized prisons, and they run them in a uniquely heartless way, and I wanted to [00:08:00] juxtapose that with scenes of an actual prisoner in one of their prisons and show the difference between how they pitch it to investors and what the real experience of being there is.

And that prison stuff was. Very hard for me to write ’cause as it turns out, I’ve never been to prison. Uh, so I usually, you know, write my books in the order that you read it, but that one, every time I got to one of the prison scenes, I, I didn’t know enough to make it seem real, and I knew what was supposed to happen in the scene, but I just kind of put a pin there and, and move on.

And finally at the end, I had to read several books by prisoners, watched YouTube channels by people who have been in prison and come out and try to straighten out their lives. And then I could go back and write prison action with things that authentically happened and not just some privileged tech worker sitting up here in Seattle guessing what happens in [00:09:00] prison.

So that Yeah, that’s fair. The hardest.

Mark: Yeah, I could see that. Any major rewrites, like did you find the scene or the plot had to change or something had to change. ’cause you just realize that, oh, if they went through this emotionally, they would be this kind of person instead of that.

Cole: Oh, oh. That has happened to me on other projects, not on this one.

So I was a book packager in the nineties, so I’ve been involved with a lot of books besides just the ones I write north of 70 books. So I kind of know how to mark out the territory without major disruption down the line.

Mark: Okay. So if you had to cut a character outta your series, who would you cut and why?

Cole: I kind of did actually when the. When Shadow Fast first starts, there’s only three people in it and then as you read the first series, it’s kind of the origin of the band. [00:10:00] They wind up in total with seven members. And I had one character that I included ’cause I felt like the genre kind of required that character.

And I found in my beta reads that female readers were not responding to this guy well. And I found that as an author, I usually kind of like all my characters, even the bad guys. I understand where they’re coming from and I didn’t even like this character. So in the second series one of my lead characters dies.

It was something I’ve never done before. It was actually kind of fun to do. Readers report, they’re pretty shocked to find out one of ’em never makes it through the second series. So I kind of did what you’re asking about.

Mark: Yeah. So is your daughter a beta reader? Is she as a rock band expert or a metal band expert?

Is she reading the books and, and giving feedback on the metal band stuff?

Cole: She has read some of them. This is not a genre, [00:11:00] that’s her jam. Okay. So a lot of times if I wonder about how something works, I just ask her. But also. I got to tag along with her for a lot of her band stuff. So that’s where, as far as the music stuff and what it looks like from the stage and what you go through, setting up beforehand, all that

i’ve been with her, I’ve been their band’s videographer, so I know that stuff. And you know, for anybody who cares about the heavy metal side of it, you get some insight into it what the gear is and what goes on during the show from the band’s perspective. So that, to me, it was all fun. I’m actually finding that for most thriller readers, they don’t care either way about the heavy metal out of it, but that’s fine.

It’s, it’s not, the main premise is just something that makes it a little distinct.

Mark: It does, it adds a level of realism because when I read it, I remember thinking like, yeah, this feels like authentic, even though I don’t know if it is. It had that feeling that it [00:12:00] was, which not all books do that. Same with the gaming in the beginning of Cold Hit in the gaming scene.

Cole: That was really, I, I don’t know of any other thriller that has a setting. Of an eSports tournament. So I don’t know either. No, that was a blast to write. And I actually got so into inventing the game that the eSports tournament is about, that again, the early readers were like, there’s so much of the, I had to really back off ’cause I was getting too big a kick out of it.

It wasn’t all forwarding the plot. So I trimmed it down as much as I could.

Mark: So how long did it take you to write?

Cole: Good question. So, well, six books. So the second trilogy took me about five months to write because I Wow, I, in some books on cliffhangers, so I didn’t wanna release one and then just leave people stuck for a year wondering what’ll happen and probably not wondering anymore, [00:13:00] just giving up.

So I, I wrote ’em all and then staged them so they could be released three or four weeks apart from each other. I don’t actually know how long it took me to write the first trilogy because I was still a full-time employee during a lot of it. So I just snuck it in on evenings and weekends whenever I could.

So that. That was probably more like a couple of years. So Wow. I like having it as a full-time job now because you can just sink your teeth into it and go, go, go. Yeah. I try to write 2000 words a day, which to some is a lot and to others is not much, but that’s what I can do. So

Mark: I would, yeah, I would be on the side of, that’s a lot myself.

Three books in five months. That’s impressive. That’s a lot of writing.

Cole: Well, it, it adds up to about 180,000 words all told. So, I mean, that’s one of Mark Greaney’s books, if you know him, he writes the, and [00:14:00] those books are about 160,000 and he puts out a couple a year, I think. I, I think that’s the pace that a lot of tra pub authors are going at now, so,

Mark: yeah. Yeah. Fair enough. I guess it depends on the size of the book too. So what kind of other research went into, went into these books.

Cole: Well, so my background is, I always wanted to be a novel writer, so I wound up with a career that went in a million directions. I mean, I’ve, I’ve built yachts, I’ve dispatched buses, I did all kinds of things.

But what really landed as an area for interest for me is around 2000 I got hired by a firewall company, a cybersecurity company, and they addressed their product was for small to medium businesses, and they found that if they had their own tech writers or engineers write the manuals, these small to medium businesses usually have someone [00:15:00] running the network who is just the person who forgot to step backwards when they asked for volunteers, they didn’t mean to have a career as an IT person. They’re just like wearing that hat. ’cause someone has to. So they wanted documentation that read more like a magazine style than a, a technical publication.

So I didn’t actually know anything about cybersecurity, but they really liked my style. So they took it upon themselves to train me. And over a couple of years I actually wound up a certified information system security professional. I got certified by the NSA and certain methodology. So I really knew hacking and the arms race between people defending a network and people trying to sneak onto your network.

So there’s a ton of research that’s already in my background about all the computer stuff. [00:16:00] And one of the things that happens early in Metal Spies is, a fleet of self-driving cars gets hacked and facial recognition software is installed so that it seems like a normal self-driving car fleet, like you might think of Waymo or some that actually exist, except that if, you know, every self-driving car has eight or nine cameras on it and some of ’em have lidar.

I mean, that’s how they know where they are. Mm-hmm. So they’ve been programmed with facial recognition software that if you see this one astrophysicist accelerate at her and basically they’re set up so if they see this one person, they become little murder cars. I love that. And that hack. Was really done at Defcon.

There were people that came and presented on how they could do it. It was in theory, no one was actually murdered, but they showed that it could be done. So all the technological stuff in the books, it comes short of science fiction. It’s things that are really [00:17:00] happening, things that I’ve become aware of from working in big data and cybersecurity for so long.

But that is where most of the research comes from.

Mark: I love that. That’s awesome. So is that is, do your characters also come from your like variety of backgrounds?

Cole: So I’m always trying to kind of freshen things up. So if you think about other ensemble thrillers, like maybe NCIS or so, the hacker, or even Mission Impossible, the hacker’s always this skinny, nerdy white guy with glasses.

But when I worked in big data, some of the smartest people were from all over and one of the guys I worked with was this huge Samoan dude who looks more like Jason Momoa than Simon Ted. And so I made him my hacker in my book. His name is Manny. which is short for Emmanuel, big Samoan dude, and very much inspired by someone [00:18:00] I knew in real life.

And the other characters are, are kind of similar. They’re pastiches of real people I met from my decades in IT.

Mark: To have that experience to draw on. So this, when they say, write what you know, I guess it helps when you’re, you have a, you had a job that cool to, to write what you know and then apply it to action thrillers. I love that.

Cole: Well, thanks. But it, you know, it, it flips the other way too, right? I, I have not been a cop or a soldier. So when it comes to other staples of the genre, like weaponry, like what kind of tactic would you use to clear a building of hostiles? I have to look up all that stuff. Yeah. It’s, it’s the technology stuff where I’m comfortable and I know what I’m doing is feasible and innovative. But car chase, I had to research a car chase just to see, okay, what does, what does a guy do when he really is counting on this car to save [00:19:00] his life? And what, and I was surprised to find out, oh, they turn off the ABS, they turn off the, you know, a, a bunch of stuff.

They want the car as analog as possible. It’s like, oh, okay. You know? That goes in the book. It’s interesting.

Mark: So who is your favorite character to write?

Cole: I have a couple. I certainly liked writing the one inspired by my daughter, but another one I’ve had a lot of fun with is character who winds up being called Night Boy and he’s called Night Boy in part there, there is a real syndrome that is rare but exists. It’s less than 1% of all humans have ever had. It’s called the Holmes-Adie syndrome.. It usually happens mostly to girls, but it does occasionally happen to males. And what it is, is your pupils are not connected properly, and so they just never contract.

Your pupils will always be at the widest [00:20:00] they can possibly be as if you’ve been in a dark room for 20 minutes or something. And it’s kind of a terrible way to live because all daylight is just overwhelming. If you have Holmes-Adie syndrome and you just go out, normally you would be blinded because the sun would burn through your retina and your cones and rods.

So Night Boy has Holmes-Adie syndrome. He has to wear heavy wraparound sunglasses all the time. But the flip side of that is that at night he basically has perpetual organic night vision sight. So he becomes a kind of a scout and a sneak that can do all kinds of things for the band because he can see in the dark and there is a set piece, especially in the second book, Metal Lies that was really fun to write where he has knife fights in the dark, in a industrial market in South Korea. Again, it’s just something I hadn’t seen someone [00:21:00] else do and it was, it was really fun to have a character who has that unique advantage.

Mark: That’s very cool. So in your research, is that something the people with that syndrome, are they able to see better in the dark or was that like a creative liberty you took for

Cole: the book? Oh, no, that’s, that’s true. I mean, you know, probably from your own experience, if you ever go stargazing, or even if you just sit in your own backyard in the dark some night after 20 minutes or so, you are seeing far better than when you first walked out of your lit house.

And yeah. Plopped down, you know, I mean, it, it is a real thing. If your pupils were completely widely exposed than what looks like night to everybody else would look like twilight to you. Mm-hmm. It’s real. Of course the downside is that all somebody has to do is turn around and shine a flashlight in his eyes and he’s completely disabled.

Yeah. So his kryptonite it’s like having a superpower in a way, but it’s, it’s only good for a [00:22:00] very limited circumstances. Yeah.

Mark: Yeah. I love that. So a couple more questions for you as we wrap up here. What advice would you give to someone who just published their first or second book?

Cole: A couple things. What I, I mean, I’m, I’ve been in the publishing industry. I’ve done a lot of things, but as far as this pen name writing my own self-published thrillers, I’m not even quite two years in. And one of the things I was surprised to find is writing the book is the easiest part. You, you have to embrace marketing or nobody will ever find your book.

And it doesn’t matter if you hate marketing and you don’t wanna do it. It’s like saying, you know what? I gave birth to this baby, but I hate feeding babies, so I’m walking away. You’re just gonna kill it. So brace yourself. You’ve gotta figure out how to attract a following and keep them informed of what you’re doing.

And that usually the best thing you can do is start your own email list [00:23:00] because it’s the one thing nobody can turn off with a twist of an algorithm. Yeah. And I, if I can give two pieces of advice, even though I was only asked for one Sure. That next book, almost nobody can make it on one book or two books.

Keep going. Yeah. Because what starts to make money for you if, if you’re drive is to be commercially viable, is read through from one book to the next. So set a long-term goal for yourself and set your life up so that you can do it long-term. Uh, would be my advice.

Mark: That’s great advice. Thank you. And where can readers find your books?

Cole: Right now I’m exclusive to Amazon. They are in Kindle Unlimited, so if you’re a member there, you can read ’em all for free. Otherwise it’s on Amazon, both in ebook paperback, and the first three books are also in Audible.

Mark: Awesome. Thank you. Thank you [00:24:00] so much for joining me today. If you don’t mind sticking around for a couple minutes after the show, we’re just gonna record a couple extra questions for our newsletter subscribers, which is only available to them.

Cole: My pleasure. Thanks for talking with me.

Mark: Thank you.

Mark: Thanks for listening to the show. If you enjoyed this episode, you can support the show and get early access to future episodes on Patreon. Links are in the show notes and some guests are also sharing bonus content on our Patreon, like short stories behind the scenes extras novellas. So head over there, you get to support the show and get a bunch of goodies.

Don’t forget to check out my psychological thriller, cognitive breach if you’re into high stakes, dream invading tech conspiracies. If you like the show, please follow rate, share with a a Fiddler fan.

It really helps i’ll see you in the next episode where I sit down with author Faye Arcand, author of the domestic thriller Inside, Outside.

TPP Episode 2 with Jenna Moquin

[00:00:00]

Mark: Hello and welcome to the Thriller Pitch Podcast, where you come for the pitch and stay for the story behind the story. I’m your host, Mark P.J. Nadon, and you’re listening to episode two. This episode is also sponsored by me. If you’re an author and wanna sponsor a future episode, just head to markpjnadon.ca links in the show notes.

My book, the Collective explores how far a parent would go to rescue their child. In a world where there’s no one left to help. When Aiden is taken by a religious cult, one that believes parents must sacrifice their kids to fight in an army or donate their organs to save others, his only hope for survival comes from within.

It is a post-apocalyptic thriller, the first in a trilogy, and it has vibes of the road meets the institute.

Today’s guest is Jenna [00:01:00] Moquin. She’s been writing dark fiction and poetry for years with work, appearing in various literary magazines and anthologies. After releasing a collection of short stories and editing a charity anthology, she made her thriller debut in 2024, publishing stocks in the cemetery spot, just six months apart.

Jenna’s stories explore the shadows between everyday life, and she’s currently working on her next twist filled tail.

Jenna. Hello. Thank you so much for being here. Welcome to the show.

Jenna: Thank you, Mark. Thanks for having me.

Mark: I am excited to get into this. Let’s just jump right into the pitch.

Jenna: Great. So the book I’m pitching today is The Cemetery Spot. It is a psychological thriller, came out a little under a year ago.

It features, two sisters April and August who have a very tumultuous relationship and one night April walks in on her sister on a surprise visit, and her sister [00:02:00] August has stabbed her abusive husband, Roy. Who’s lying on the kitchen floor with a knife sticking out of his back. April due to a debt she has from her sister, which is something that’s revealed about halfway through the story, she agrees to help her cover up the murder and bury the body in the woods. But unfortunately they make a lot of mistakes. First time covering up a murder, why wouldn’t you? And as the story unfolds and they start, they realize someone had watched them, and it becomes like a game of cat and mouse.

And throughout the story, April starts questioning, can I really trust my sister? Was she even really telling me the truth about that night?

Mark: Oh, I love that. Yeah,

Jenna: yeah,

Mark: Yeah, I do. I read, like maybe the first six chapters and I was really into it, so I’ll have to get to

Jenna: Oh, cool. I’ll have to get to the rest of the book.

Mark: I, oh,

Jenna: great.

Mark: Quick question comes to mind before we, we get into the whole, behind the story is, I, so I noticed that, Freida McFadden had, commented on, do you know Freida? Like how do you, how did that happen?

Jenna: I do, she’s an old [00:03:00] friend of mine. We met years ago at a writing group in Boston. I was actually an early beta reader for a lot of her self-published titles, like The Surrogate Mother and The Perfect Son, and she’s been such a great help and inspiration for me.

She gives me great writing advice, great publishing advice. She blurbed my very first debut thriller Stalks that came out in 2024. She has a little blurb on it saying she couldn’t put it down. Yeah, I saw that. So I’m very, yeah, I’m very grateful to her. She’s a wonderful woman. Oh, that’s very cool.

Mark: Awesome.

Jenna: Yeah.

Mark: So what inspired you to write this book?

Jenna: I had an idea playing around in my head for a little while. I wanted to write a domestic thriller, but not make it about a husband wife relationship because I feel like that’s very kind of overdone and I wanna do something different. So I thought a sister relationship might be kind of interesting for a domestic thriller.

And then I read this great book years ago called My Sister The Serial Killer by an African author named Oyinkan Braithwaite. I’m not sure if I’m pronouncing her name correctly, [00:04:00] but it was a great book and it was funny, it was suspenseful. And I said, I wanna write something like this. And that was a, that really inspired me to go on with this one.

Mark: And was there a moment in your life that kind of shaped, shaped the story or the characters or anything?

Jenna: Oh yeah, I helped my sister kill her husband years ago.

Mark: Oops. It’s out there now. Hopefully you made fewer mistakes, right?

Jenna: That’s funny. I think it’s mainly just my my own tumultuous relationship with my sister. If anyone who’s had like a same sex sibling, it goes up and down over the years, but you’re always there for each other, even when you wanna wring each other’s neck sometimes. And you love them. You have a relationship with your sibling like no one else in the world.

And I like exploring that in books.

Mark: Awesome. So like how did Exactly, exactly. Siblings, how did the I do, yeah. I have four sisters, yeah.

Jenna: Oh, nice.

Mark: Yeah. Very busy. Very busy household growing up. [00:05:00] Yeah. So how did the writing process go for this book? Was it just like you sat down and started writing the book and it all just kind of came to life?

Jenna: I actually decided to take this idea. I had playing around with two sisters and I put it in for Nanowrimo, and I think it was 2020 or 2021. I Do you, have you heard of Nanowrimo?

Mark: Yeah. Novel writing month, right?

Jenna: Oh, okay. Yeah. And so I decided to do it, and I didn’t win Nanowrimo that year. I only wrote about 25 to 30,000 words in the book, but I kept with it, and then I finished it officially, I think in 2022.

Mark: So did that, so did you have a plot going into n Nanowrimo because you, I. No. No. Okay, so you were pantsing so to

Jenna: speak? Yeah. Okay. Definitely.

Mark: Okay. And then that transitioned eventually to the novel that you have now?

Jenna: Yes, exactly. A couple of the books I’ve written, I definitely don’t know what I’m writing.

I just have like an idea or a vision that I start with and I [00:06:00] just throw it in there. And after I’ve got the first draft down and I’m starting to plot, that’s when I start plotting instead of pantsing. Start off, pantsing, eventually go to plotting.

Mark: Okay. So it was a bit, you start off a bit messy, so to speak, and then it gets a little bit structured as you go along.

Jenna: Yes, definitely. My first drafts were a hot mess.

Mark: And how much research did you do to write the book?

Jenna: I did some research, like I listened to a lot of true crime podcasts to talk about like what people do if, like, they’re trying to hide a body and the little, little things here and there. I read that book, My Sister the Serial Killer.

I also, what a, oh, I also read, a Chevy Stevens novel. Called, what’s the name of that? Oh, Still Missing. And that really inspired me too, ’cause that that’s a book about, without giving a spoiler, it has a very tumultuous family relationship in it that I took, I drew a lot from when I was doing this book.

Mark: Awesome. And was there any points where you almost wanted to give up on the [00:07:00] book?

Jenna: Yes it actually, Fred McFadden is the one, kept me, told me to keep going with it. She’s like, you got a really good story idea here. Don’t, don’t not finish this book. She’s like, you have to finish it.

Mark: That’s awesome. And where That’s awesome.

Where did, where in the story did that happen? I.

Jenna: I really just had like the basic first draft and I didn’t know how I wanted to end it. I had the, the opening part of the book, which she even told me too. She was like, the first half of this book is perfect, but you really need to fix the second half.

And I wasn’t sure how I wanted to end it. I had like three to four different endings in mind, and so I ran it by her and a couple other beta readers and got like feedback on what ending they thought would be best for the book.

Mark: And were the beta readers like contradictory? I know I’ve had beta readers that, you know, one will say, do this, and the other pretty much says the opposite. I know. Do the opposite thing.

Jenna: Oh, I know. The writing group I was in with Freida McFadden, I remember one time they workshopped a chapter and I, there were seven of us in the group. I got [00:08:00] seven different piece of advice on how to go with a story. So I feel that, yeah, that happens. You just gotta, yeah.

Mark: How do you choose? How do you choose whose advice to go with?

Jenna: I think I just go with my instinct. Like I’ll take all of their feedback with a grain of salt and I also kind of think about the type of books I like to read and how I would like it to end. So, and sometimes it isn’t always, it doesn’t always go with like. What I want it to be, whether or not it’s gonna be the type of ending that I think audiences will like.

So sometimes you have to do that. You have to weigh it out.

Mark: And you called this a psychological thriller. Is that mostly what you read?

Jenna: Mostly? Yeah. I also like horror.

Mark: Oh, nice. So how did you go about creating the characters?

Jenna: Well, April and August, they do…I definitely took a lot from me and my own sister.

There’s little pieces of each of us in both [00:09:00] characters. There’s a lot of crossover there. April is the main character and she’s the younger sister. I’m actually the older sister with my sister, but I kind of feel like I’m the younger one sometimes because she’s a lot more mature and responsible than I am.

And so that took a lot from that when I was going back and forth on the characters and how to develop ’em. I like to get inside character’s heads ’cause I feel like that really brings a lot of humanity in for a reader. Mm-hmm. When you get inside a character’s head and you really feel like you’re living the story through their eyes.

Yeah.

Mark: Did you ever stop to consider, I was thinking this when I was reading it, the beginning. Did you ever stop to consider if. Well, I haven’t read the whole thing, so this may be a spoiler, but if the husband should be a, like, would’ve been a good guy, how that would’ve impacted, like at any moment.

Jenna: Okay. Oh yeah, I’ve been, I played around with that a lot.

Okay.

Mark: I won’t make you give up spoilers ’cause who knows what happens in the end with, if there’s any twists or anything. But, yeah, that came to mind. I

Jenna: hope you [00:10:00] like it.

Mark: Oh, so far I’m right into it, so yeah, I definitely have to

Jenna: Oh, cool. Have to

Mark: finish it up. So did you, was there a character who was the most fun to write?

Jenna: Honestly, April, the main character was the most fun to write because I wanted to make her as human as possible. And human beings, we, we all make mistakes all the time. And so I kind of had fun making her a little bumbling throughout the story.

Mark: Yeah, yeah, yeah. She was, yeah, it was good.

How do you go about creating side characters?

Jenna: Side characters I feel can be a little tough. And especially with a psychological thriller, you wanna put in as many red herrings as possible to throw the reader off their track. So I tend to have trouble with side characters because you don’t really develop them as much.

And so if they almost feel like ciphers to me sometimes, but they are very important.

Mark: Awesome. Is there any any characters you had a particularly hard time writing where you just couldn’t quite figure out who they were and you had to like do a bunch of redrafts?

Jenna: There kind of was, and [00:11:00] I don’t wanna spoil it for you, but there’s a character who shows up about halfway through the book that I had a little trouble writing, but the funny thing is, almost everyone who was a beta reader said that this character was their favorite character in the book.

Mark: Awesome. Isn’t that how it goes?

Jenna: Yeah, I know.

Mark: And were there any scenes that were difficult to write for you that you had a hard time either, you know, emo I guess you’d say emotionally or creatively?

Jenna: Yeah. Honestly, without giving away the ending, there’s actually a pivotal climactic scene at the ending between the sisters and another family members that was a little emotional for me to write.

Mark: Okayy. And was there, I know for me in the editing process, sometimes I, I’ll write a scene and it’ll hit me really emotionally, and then I’ll go back to edit the scene and I’m like, oh, it kind of fell flat that second time. Did you, did you have any moments like that happens that Yeah.

Jenna: Oh, [00:12:00] absolutely. That’s what, you know, multiple drafts are for, right? Yeah.

Mark: And how many drafts, what was the process like for this one? How many drafts did you have to go through? You mentioned like getting beta readers and what, what other, you know, who else touched the book? I guess you could say.

Jenna: Pretty much just beta readers.I did a rough draft for Nanowrimo and then sat on it for a little while, revisited it. I hadn’t really figured out the ending yet when I sent it to my beta readers, and then after I got their feedback on what ending should be, how I should do it, I sat on it for a little while longer. I feel like sometimes putting some distance between yourself and the story, you sometimes get even better ideas when you come back and look at it.

Mark: Yeah, for sure. Mm-hmm. Do you have any favorite places where you get ideas like. Nature trail walks or

Jenna: mm-hmm.

Mark: Or the shower. One of my favorite places is the shower. I don’t know why I can come up with so many ideas

Jenna: in the shower. I know the shower is great. I do like walks too. Walks are perfect. Like if you have some writer’s block taking a long walk and just getting outside for a [00:13:00] while.

’cause sometimes just open that up. It’s great. Yeah.

Mark: I used to have a friend that we played Frisbee with. I used to, we used to have like little writing sessions and we’d go out and play Frisbee in between writing sessions. That’s cool. Break. Cool. Yeah. And then we could kind of spitball ideas at the same time, which was nice.

Jenna: Yeah. Yeah. That’s great. You’re getting some exercise always helps. Yeah,

Mark: yeah, yeah, exactly. It’s kind of like breaking up the process, but at the same time giving you a chance to, like, in the back of your mind, you’re still kind of thinking about it. ’cause you, you know, you’re there for that.

Jenna: Exactly.

Mark: Anything you had to cut from the book, any scenes that people were, that maybe you liked and people were like, nah, it doesn’t really work.

Jenna: Yeah, I, I did have some scenes that I felt like were basically me kind of writing out my own relationship with my sister that had nothing to do with the story, and my friends were like, yeah, this is going in her head too much. You might wanna cut that. You know what they mean? That’s what they mean when they say kill your babies.

Right?

Mark: Yeah. Yeah. Those tough scenes that you have. Yeah. Yeah. So it wasn’t essentially, it wasn’t moving the plot forward, right. [00:14:00]

Jenna: Right. Exactly. That’s the problem. I mean, if you find yourself, if the reader finds themselves bored, you gotta cut it.

Mark: Yeah. Is that kind of feedback sometimes you’re, that you’re getting from beta readers?

Like these moments were bored. I was bored.

Jenna: Yeah, yeah, yeah. I do a lot of stream of consciousness writing and it doesn’t always work in thrillers.

Mark: Do you? Do people feel like it reads like a movie? I know some people when they read, they’re like, I feel like when I was reading this, it played it like a video, like a movie.

Jenna: I did have one reader tell me that I thought that was kind of cool. I have envisioned, envisioned this being a movie several times. I picture Julia Lewis and Melanie Linsky as the sisters.

Mark: That’s awesome. And so if you had to cut a chapter, because we know you already did, but if you had to cut one that’s actually in the chapter keeping in mind that obviously everything is in there for a reason, so hopefully there’s nothing you really wanna cut.

But let’s say there [00:15:00] was a, something you had to cut a character or a chapter, who would it be and why?

Jenna: I thought about this and I, I probably would have to cut just ’cause it’s not that necessary. There’s a scene in the book between April and August and the mom and the mom’s kind of punishing them for something.

It’s really not that necessary. I could probably cut the mom right out. It’s really in there for some character development, which is important too.

Mark: Right, right. And how do you balance that when you’re looking at, when you’re looking at your book, what is I. What’s slowing the plot, but what’s also building character and building scenes.

Because the funny, I mean, with thrillers, it’s like fast paced, right? Like that’s, but there also has to be a reason to want to care about the character, right? So you also have to fill in that stuff. How do you balance that?

Jenna: It is a tough balance and that’s something that I think a lot of thriller authors struggle with is where do I put the backstory?

Where do I put this so that they know this about the character? It’s really tough. I feel like with thrillers you might, you start with something that grabs the reader a hook or some, you [00:16:00] know, scene that’s like, oh my God, I can’t believe that happened. So they keep reading. Mm-hmm. And then I think it’s good to introduce backstory on the main character, somewhere between page 40 and 50.

I just feel like that’s a really sweet spot to start introducing some backstory or some background to what’s going on.

Mark: Okay. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. That’s pretty far into the book. I wasn’t, okay. Have you ever had feedback that you, that like I look at the buildup was felt late, I guess.

Jenna: I have had that. I’m really bad with slow burns.

Like I, I like I’ll edge a lot until I get to the big payoff. And so that’s one of my big problems with finishing a book.

Mark: Okay. And that’s just in the editing process that you’re looking at kind of adjusting these things? Yeah. Okay. So , we’re just gonna kind of wrap up a little bit. I want to ask this kind of a selfish question.

What advice would you give to someone who just published like a first or second novel? [00:17:00]

Jenna: Start working on your next book. Seriously. The more books you have out there, the better. And honestly, the more books you have out there, the more income they start bringing in as well. So you finish your book, it’s time to start the next one.

Mark: Just go right to the next one. Okay.

Jenna: Yeah, exactly. Keep writing, especially while those juices are still flowing. Yeah, yeah,

Mark: yeah, yeah, for sure. Mm-hmm. Yeah. And do you believe in series versus trilogies versus, standalones?

Jenna: I do prefer standalones both reading them and writing them, but I know that they’re very popular with readers.

So I have thought about doing a series, nothing in the works.

Mark: Maybe We’ll, we’ll hear about that in the future.

Jenna: Well, the, my debut thriller thriller Stocks that came out in 2024, I have been working on a sequel for it. I’m just not sure if I wanna do a sequel or if I wanna revamp it as a standalone thriller.

’cause it could kind of work either way. Okay.

Mark: And where can listeners find your [00:18:00] books?

Jenna: So Cemetery Spot is is on Amazon. I have it on Kindle Unlimited, so it is exclusive to Amazon, for KU. But a lot of my other titles I’ve cross published on draft to digital, so they’re available on Kobo Hoopla, Barnes and Noble Apple Books.

It’s really just my two psychological thriller full novels that I have on Kindle Unlimited for now. Okay.

Mark: And you have a new one coming out, right? Soon?

Jenna: Yes. So Island is, um, a book I’ve been working on for a really long time and I’m releasing it in January. Are you familiar with the British 1970 Sci-fi series?

The Prisoner? I am not. Have you ever seen that? No. It, it’s a wild show. And I watched it years ago and I thought it was one of the most amazing things I’d ever seen. It’s very cerebral. It’s very twisty and it plays with your mind. And I wanted to write something kind of like it. It’s like a Alice in Wonderland type.

Someone who’s just like thrown into this. She doesn’t know where she is and her trying to [00:19:00] figure out what’s going on there.

Mark: I love those kind of stories.

Jenna: I guess it’s, it’s, oh yeah.

Mark: Yeah. I love those kind of like, almost like amnesia. It can be like, almost like amnesia. I mean, it’s not in that case, but like, you know, there’s just something going on.

What’s going on? You know why am I hear, I love that too. That little bit of reveal. Yeah. It’s a lot of fun. Mm-hmm. To kind of get into that little at a time.

Jenna: Oh, cool. I’m excited. I know I had a lot of fun writing it. In fact, I said to one of my friends, this book is my favorite book out of every book I’ve written.

So I’m really excited about that one. I also have another book coming out next May. I just signed with a British publisher called Baum Books. It’s called The Red Possession. This is a horror novel. I. It’s sort of like a modern day exorcist about a woman who’s battling menopause and a demon that’s trying to possess her at the same time.

Oh, wow.

Mark: Wow. That is quite a story. And that one’s written already. I guess they’re both written there. Yeah.

Jenna: Island’s, I still need to do a little bit of work on it and some editing. It’s basically done, but the Red Possession [00:20:00] is done. I’ve already signed the contract. It’s just not coming out till next year due to the publisher’s schedule.

Mm-hmm. Okay. And so that should be going over a pre-order probably soon. That one’s, that one’s a lot fun too, too.

Mark: Congratulations. That’s, yeah. Thank you. Thank you. So we are gonna wrap this up. I got a couple extra questions for you if you don’t mind sticking around after the show. Sure.

Couple follow up for our newsletter subscribers, kind of behind the scenes stuff, thank you so much for being here. I really appreciate you taking the time. Is there anything else you wanna mention about your book question? Anything we didn’t get to?

Jenna: Let’s see if anyone wants to sign up for my newsletter, I am.

My website is jennamoquin.com. I’m also on TikTok Bluesky and Instagram. I have a substack. I’m just starting it out, so if you’re on Substack, I’m on that too. Thank you so much for having me. This was a lot of fun. Awesome.

Mark: Thank you. I will link to the, to all that in the show notes so people can find you easily.

Jenna: Great.

Thank you.

Thanks for listening to the show. If you enjoyed this episode, you can support the show and get early access to future [00:21:00] episodes on our Patreon links in the show notes. Some guests are also sharing bonus content in our Patreon, like short stories behind the scenes extras and novellas. So check it out over there.

If you’re into post apocalyptic stories about sacrifice, survival, and family, the collective might be for you. If you like the show, please follow, rate or share it with another Thriller fan. It really helps me out. I’ll see you in the next episode where I sit down with Cole Chase, author of the Shadow Fast Thrillers, and we talk about his book Metal Spies.