Day 1 Developing the Novel

CREATING THE TITLE
I have always had a hard time coming up with titles for my books. Sometimes, my longtime editor and I are still brainstorming long after the book is written. As we bounce titles off each other, it’s rare that one will appeal to us both—and even when that happens, there’s no guarantee that the sales department will give it a thumbs up.

It was different with my latest thriller. I had the title long before the book was written, because it’s a sequel and I had to tie it into its predecessor, DYING BREATH. The sequel had to be DYING-something…or so my editor and I decided. We discarded several possibilities before setting on DYING LIGHT. There. We were done, almost two years before the book was scheduled to come out. It seemed too good to be true.

CRAFTING THE PLOT
Next, I had to come up with a plot that would not only tie into DYING BREATH, which I was writing at the time, but one that would suit Lucinda’s character (she had originally been named Alexandra, or Xandra, which my editor said would have been fine for a supporting character but not for a future heroine). And the premise had to fit the pre-determined title. Sounds like a tall order, but over the course of my career…not so much. I felt like I was already ahead of the game.

Mark and I and the kids were on an 8 hour road trip home the weekend before I was to write the proposal for the new book, and I was still clueless about the plot. I really wanted a clock-ticking kind of plot this time. And it had to have something to do with dusk, or sunset. Somewhere on the New York State Thruway on the perimeter of the Adirondacks, inspiration struck and the diabolical serial killer The Night Watchman was born.

My editor loved it. I was good to go.

I started writing the book fresh from a visit to Alcatraz prison, so the prison subplot—which had originally been conceived as a minor detail—became more vivid when I began the process. I had grown up not far from Attica and remembered the uprising there. Plus, I had just been to Alcatraz and seen—well, heard, via the Parks Service headphones--the uprising there re-enacted. So when I began writing scenes from the Night Watchman’s viewpoint, I found myself inspired to build in plot details stemming from what I had learned about prison life and riots at Attica and Alcatraz.

Remember how that title situation seemed too good to be true? Yeah. Turned out it was.

TITLE REVISITED
I was just about finished writing DYING LIGHT a few months ago when my editor called to say that sales thought the title was too “quiet.” They wanted something more…deadly. Something with Dead in the title, maybe. Dead. Not Dying. Apparently, Dying wasn’t loud enough.

Of course I didn’t argue. I’m an author. My job is to write the books, not market them. When it comes to titles, cover art, tag lines, etc., Sales Departments know best, and I trust them.

Back to the drawing board. I had 24 hours. Emails flew back and forth between John and me. When I came up with Dead Before Dark, I didn’t love it. It was one in a list of potential titles. But John really liked it. So did the powers-that-be. Dead Before Dark, it was. And it did grow on me. Especially after I tweaked the plot a bit to make it reflect the title.

STAYING TRUE TO “DYING BREATH”
Writing a sequel is easier in some ways, as the stage is already set. But you have to stay true to elements you might have thrown into the last book arbitrarily, and you spend a lot of time searching through the earlier manuscript for established details like eye color. The process was somewhat exhausting in that sense.

We had met Lucinda’s detective friend Neal in passing in the last book, but I was intrigued by him and knew I wanted to bring him back. We already knew that Neal was a loveable but cranky homebody, a family man with a doting wife and a bunch of grandkids. In Dead Before Dark, I had the chance to delve deeper into his world. As the story progressed, I chose to explore the solid marriage between Neal and his wife, Erma. In light of all the troubled marriages in the book, I thought it was important to depict a solid, healthy, longtime marriage. Not a marriage without tension, because there is no such thing—but a marriage that works.

When Neal interacts with his grandkids in Erma’s absence, I draw from my widowed father and father-in-law. Both love their grandchildren dearly and enjoy their company, but can be a little overwhelmed by them when they have to handle them without Grandma around. As for Erma’s many collections, both my mom and mother-in-law were “collectors”—apples, dolls, angels, roses, Christmas ornaments, old advertising tins…

If you purchased a copy of DYING BREATH last year with the sequel excerpt in the back (then entitled DYING LIGHT), you will see that there are differences between those scenes and the ones in the prologue that was ultimately published in DEAD BEFORE DARK. Again, as the plot evolved, I had to go back repeatedly to earlier scenes in the novel, tweaking and revising to reflect the changes I had made.

This is always part of the process with any novel. But typically, I don’t do a major rewrite halfway through. Had I never seen Zodiac , this would have been a more linear, straightforward plot. By giving myself permission to go darker, I was able to create a richer, more complex plot that ultimately proved to be a departure—I hope a welcome one—from the rhythm of my other thrillers. After writing a dozen thrillers, it’s always a challenge to keep things fresh, and I think I pulled it off with DEAD BEFORE DARK.

Please leave you comments or questions below (no spoilers!)

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