First of all, YAY about this interview. I couldn’t believe author Joy Fielding wanted to answer my questions. If you haven’t yet, be sure to check out my review of her book. Next add this book to your Goodreads list or pre-order it on Amazon.com.
Me: First of all, I want to say that you are one of my favorite authors! So, I’m honored you have agreed to a Q&A with me. My first question is about your latest book “All the Wrong Places.” What inspired you to write a dramatic thriller about online dating? Joy: It’s very hard to pinpoint the exact source of an inspiration. My mind is always full of ideas. The hard part is figuring out what to do with these ideas. I’ve always been comfortable with a good, strong plot and I love suspense. But one of the things I’ve always tried to do with my novels is to write about “real women.” They’re not necessarily super-gorgeous or super-rich or super-sleuths. They’re the women I know – strong, capable, smart, sensitive, neurotic, funny, etc. and I want readers to read about these women and think, “I know her. That’s my mother or my sister or my friend, or my God, that’s me!” So I decided to tell the story of four women friends and relatives and what is going on at a particularly vulnerable period in each of their lives: Paige, reeling from the loss of both her live-in boyfriend and her job; her mother Joan, lonely after two years of widowhood; Paige’s best friend Chloe, dealing with her husband’s latest infidelity; and Paige’s cousin, Heather, whose insecurities and jealousies constantly overwhelm her better judgment. Online dating seemed a good way to connect the four women and also to introduce the element of danger and suspense. As a writer, you sometimes feel isolated, and having been married for 45 years (to the same man!), I’m fascinated by the whole notion of meeting someone online. I knew nothing about how it worked, and I have to thank my hairdresser for showing me the finer points of how it all plays out. Also, I wanted to write something current that would, at the same time, be of interest to women of all ages.
Me: You depicted the woes of online dating perfectly! What was your process when writing this book? Did anything about writing this take you by surprise?
Joy: My process for writing this book was pretty much my focus for writing all my books: I get an idea and sit with it a while, then when I think I’m ready, I write an outline, anywhere from one to twelve pages. The outline is like a blueprint of the important plot points that are going to happen, and it helps me to organize my thoughts. I try to summarize what the book is about in an opening statement of 25 words or less. I figure that if I can’t do that, then I really don’t know what my book is about, and if I don’t know, my reader won’t know. In this case, my brief synopsis was: 4 women; multiple dating apps; 1 serial killer. I had to know some basic things about each of the women. I had to know how I was going to structure the book, whose voice, or in this case, multiple voices, I was going to use. I had to know how each voice would be different from the others. I had to get in the head of a cold-blooded killer. I knew the beginning of the book and the end and a few key episodes along the way. Then I sat down, started writing, and waited to see what would happen. So, yes, in answer to the second part of the question, there were a number of things that transpired that took me by surprise. This is one of the best things about writing – the surprises. Sometimes it’s a character; sometimes it’s an event; sometimes you don’t even realize that you’ve already laid the groundwork and your subconscious knew all along. But as Flannery O’Connor once remarked, “if you’re not surprised, how can you expect the reader to be?”
Me: I love hearing about your process. This leads me to a question I can’t help but ask – are you a “pantser” or a “plotter”? And why?
Joy: I’m a definite plotter. I like to have a clear vision of where I’m going. I find this is particularly necessary when writing suspense. You have to know where you’re going in order to construct the plot and build the tension. You have to always be upping the ante; everything that happens has to be a little bigger than what’s happened before, leading to at the eventual climax. If you just start writing without any sense of where you’re headed, then all that means to me is that you’re going to be doing an awful lot of rewriting. That works for some writers, but I work best with a good, solid structure.
Me: I can see why that structure would be so important to writing suspense! So, the beginning sure took me by surprise! How did you get in the mindset of a killer?
Joy: It’s actually not that difficult to get into the mindset of a sociopath. (Not sure what that says about me!) But I’ve done a lot of reading about serial killers and psychopaths and what I’ve learned is that they’re really pretty simple – if awful – creatures. They’re totally self-absorbed, compartmentalize easily, and have zero empathy. The only real emotion they feel is anger. Since there’s nothing terribly complex about them, it’s not hard to get inside what is essentially an empty vessel.
Me: You really depicted the killer’s mind excellently! What does a typical day of writing look like for you?
Joy: A typical day of writing usually starts between 9 and 10 a.m. I try to write for at least 3 hours. If I have no other appointments that day, I take a short break for lunch, then write for a more few hours. Some days I’ll work for only 3 hours, some days as much as 7, although I find 4 is the optimum number. It’s hard to concentrate and produce anything worthwhile if I go longer than that. I usually spend the first hour (or more) rewriting what I wrote the day before, so sometimes I don’t get a whole lot of new stuff done, which can be frustrating. I used to aim for 5 pages a day (between 2000-2500 words) but I find I’m slowing down a bit these days. Don’t know if this is because I’m more careful or just getting older.
Me: That still sounds impressive to me! If you could go back and give yourself any advice, what would you say?
Joy: If I could go back and give myself advice, I’d say to relax. Try not to worry so much about getting another idea. You’ll get one; you always have; you will again. And don’t worry about what other people want to read: concentrate on what you want to write.
Me: I love that advice! What books did you enjoy reading as a kid?
Joy: Oddly enough, as a kid, I don’t recall doing a lot of reading, although I do remember my fourth grade teacher reading aloud to her class every day a chapter from an adult novel called “Linegan and the Ants” (not sure if I spelled the name correctly). It was about a bunch of flesh-eating ants in Africa, and was later made into a movie called “The Naked Jungle,” a much better title. I found the whole experience of listening to the book unfold to be thrilling. Not sure if this is when I decided to be a writer, but it was then that I realized the power of books to engage and even transform. Later, I loved all the Nancy Drew books.
Me: Same here! I loved Nancy Drew books. What books are you looking forward to in 2019?
Joy: Books I’m looking forward to in 2019: The books currently on my nightstand are Michelle Obama’s BECOMING; CALYPSO by David Sedaris; AN OCEAN OF LIMITS by Thea Lim, and two books by my new favorite author, Fredrik Backman: THE DEAL OF A LIFETIME (and other stories), and US AGAINST YOU. I recently discovered Fredrik Backman after a friend recommended BEAR TOWN, a novel I can’t recommend highly enough.
Me: I’ll have to check these out! What is next for you? Can we expect a sequel to “All the Wrong Places”?
Joy: What’s next for me? I have a new idea and I’m letting it percolate before writing anything down. Hopefully soon it will be sufficiently formed to start an outline. I don’t think there will be a sequel to ALL THE WRONG PLACES, as I’ve never done a sequel before. I always enjoy creating something totally new and different in style and content from the book before. But you never know. We’ll just wait and see what happens.
I can’t wait to see what you come up with next! Thank you again for joining me and answering my Q&A!
Great interview! I just started doing author interviews last year, for Shelf Awareness, and I am really enjoying it! It's just so much fun to chat with an author, especially about a book that I loved.
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Good answers, particularly about getting into the mind of a killer.
Great interview! I just started doing author interviews last year, for Shelf Awareness, and I am really enjoying it! It's just so much fun to chat with an author, especially about a book that I loved.
Sue
Book By Book
I don't know how I've been so slack but she is unfamiliar to me. Silly me – thanx for bringing her to my attention
So cool that you got to interview one of your favorites!!