At the beginning, I often make assumptions about my themes and characters that turn out to be wrong. I usually have a nebulous idea of what the end will be like, but that almost always changes as I work my way further into a book.
That’s where Kelly being an artist came from.įrom a craft perspective (and without giving anything away!), do you have a clear idea of what is going to happen when you start writing, or do you like to discover the answer to the mystery along the way? Do you have any writing advice for aspiring mystery/thriller authors? So I wanted to explore how someone might deal with it when they’ve formed their identity around doing a certain thing and then that thing goes away. To avoid spoilers, I won’t name the plot device, but usually, this type of story is told from a certain point of view, and I decided to switch that around.Īt the time I had also gone through a lot of life changes, and I had pretty much stopped playing music, which was something that had defined me through my twenties. The spark of the idea came from me wanting to look at a particular trope from a different angle. Where did the idea start for this twisty tale? She has no idea what happened to her life before and why she’s thrust into this new life that is so unfamiliar. One minute your main character Kelly is at a Chicago art gallery and the next she’s back in her small hometown in Michigan. It was ridiculously fast by publishing standards! That editor emailed on Monday morning asking if we could hold off on sending the manuscript to anyone else because her imprint, Berkley, wanted to make an offer! A flurry of negotiations followed, and before the end of the week, I had a book deal in the works. My agent emailed the manuscript to one editor on a Friday to give her an advance look before we went on sub in earnest. I signed with that agent, did one more revision, and settled in to wait for months while my agent shopped the book around to editors. She was kind enough to refer me to an agent she knew, who asked me to revise and resubmit. I didn’t get in, but PW mentor Layne Fargo (who’s also an amazing author) loved my manuscript.
I took a few years to get the book to where I thought it was ready to query, and then I entered the Pitch Wars mentoring program, which I’d read good things about online. When I started writing, I had no idea that it would be a thriller-I was having more upmarket/literary thoughts, though still with the speculative element, and the original pacing and ending reflected that. Sarah: Thanks for having me! The book that eventually became THE OTHER ME went through several rewrites on its way to publication. Danielle: Welcome to Fresh Fiction, Sarah, and congrats on your debut novel, THE OTHER ME! Can you tell us a little about your journey into publishing this book?
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