Day 2 - Pages 185-284

Setting is a very important element in any novel, but perhaps to a greater degree in DEAD BEFORE DARK, due to the nature of the plot.

I chose to set this section of the book in Chicago for a very simple reason: it’s one of my favorite cities, and one I know well enough to feel comfortable writing about it. I wasn’t as familiar with Philadelphia, though I had visited the city. I had made it Lucinda’s hometown when I wrote DYING BREATH because of its proximity to Long Beach Island and because I liked the idea of Lucinda as a disowned Mainline debutante. As I wrote, I spent a lot of time online checking and double-checking my Philly facts. When I got to Chicago in Part II, it felt more second nature to me.

DYING BREATH was set at the Jersey Shore in the heart of the summer beach season. Now we’re back in the off-season: bleak, desolate, deserted. I chose to revisit some of the same places—such as the fictional Sandbucket Grill—we had first seen in DYING BREATH. I liked the way the before and after scenes reflected a place that had been forever changed by murder. I really wanted to use the change of seasons to give a more haunting quality to the locale in the aftermath of last summer’s bloodbath.

Some writers work from a very detailed outline and know, before they start writing, exactly what’s going to happen, and why, and how, and where... .

I’m not one of them. When forced to create a synopsis as a marketing tool, I create as broad an outline as possible so that the publisher gets the gist of the story. But when I write the book itself, I tend to plot by the seat of my pants, holding my breath throughout the process and breathing a huge sigh of relief when I manage to make all the plotlines come organically together in the end.

The writing process is anything but smooth, though. Whenever I feel as though I’ve written myself into a corner, I take a step back, try not to think about it…and then, when I sit down again, I somehow sense just how to write my way out of the bind. It always happens that way, thank goodness, and so far, I have never had to abandon a plotline because I couldn’t make it work. I’ve learned, after almost two decades in this business, to trust my instincts.

That’s how it was with the subplot involving Cam’s sister Ava—I was more or less clueless. I didn’t know who had been with her on the rooftop the night she died, or why, when I wrote DYING BREATH. In fact, I still didn’t know when I wrote the first part of DEAD BEFORE DARK, though I did have a general sense of what might have happened. It began to gel as I got into the story.

Being in the dark (so to speak) when you’re the author can be somewhat terrifying, but in a sense, it allows you to see things from the reader’s perspective. I feel like I can create a more satisfying thriller if I’m also feeling the tension and being surprised as the plot unfolds.

Another of my quirks: sometimes, a phrase will just pop into my head out of left field as I write. Typically, I try to ignore it—but if it persists, I will usually put it into the story and see where it takes me.

That happened here, in Jaime’s murder scene, with the phrase “Because of Scarlet.”

I wrote that out of the blue, looked at it, and thought, “Huh?” Who—or what—was Scarlet? I had no idea—and I couldn’t wait to find out. I left the phrase intact, thinking I could always take it out later if I couldn’t make sense of it. But I liked the way it read. It was creepy and intriguing.

Sounds crazy, right? Even crazier: I figured out the meaning of the Scarlet phrase one morning at about four-thirty a.m. as I lay awake after hitting the snooze alarm. There I was, gearing up to head to my desk and wondering about Scarlet, and, Bam! There it was. I knew. I don’t think the answer had come to me in my sleep, exactly, but close to it. My mind tends to go a million miles an hour all day, so I do some of my best thinking in the pre-dawn quiet.


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