Plotting Out a Thriller, Including Twists and Turns, and Marketing a Debut Book by Trish Lundy and The One That Got Away With Murder Giveaway and IWSG Post

Happy Wednesday Everyone! Today I’m thrilled to have debut author Trish Lundy here to share her advice on writing a thriller and about her YA thriller The One That Got Away. I’m interested in writing a mystery/thriller someday, but I haven’t found much advice on how to write one. So I’m excited to hear Trish’s advice. And her book sounds like a total page-turner that I’m going to love.

Here's a blurb from Goodreads:

 

Be careful who you fall for...

Robbie and Trevor Cresmont have a body count—the killer kind. Handsome and privileged, the Crestmont brothers' have enough wealth to ensure they’ll never be found guilty of any wrongdoing, even if all of Happy Valley believes they're behind the deaths of their ex-girlfriends. First there was soccer star Victoria Moreno, Robbie’s ex, who mysteriously drowned at the family lake house. Then, a year later, Trevor’s girlfriend died of a suspicious overdose.

But the Crestmonts aren’t the only ones with secrets. Lauren O'Brian might be the new girl at school, but she's never been a good girl. With a dark past of her own, she's desperate for a fresh start. Except when she starts a no-strings-attached relationship with Robbie, her chance is put in jeopardy. During what’s meant to be their last weekend together, Lauren stumbles across shocking evidence that just might implicate Robbie.

With danger closing in, Lauren doesn't know who to trust. And after a third death rocks the town, she must decide whether to end things with Robbie or risk becoming another cautionary tale.

This is an edge-of-your-seat debut YA thriller about a teen who is forced to confront her past in order to catch a murderer before she ends up the next victim. Perfect for fans of Karen McManus and Holly Jackson.

 

Before I get to Trish’s interview post, I have my IWSG post.

Posting: The first Wednesday is officially Insecure Writer's Support Group Day.

Purpose: To share and encourage. Writers can express doubts and concerns without fear of appearing foolish or weak. Those who have been through the fire can offer assistance and guidance. It’s a safe haven for insecure writers of all kinds!

The awesome co-hosts this month are: Janet Alcorn, T. Powell Coltrin, and me!

Optional Question: How long have you been blogging? What do you think about it and how has it changed?

I’ve been blogging since March 2011 and am still very committed to Literary Rambles, even though it takes a lot of work to maintain by database of agents. It helps that I have a mission to help other writers and authors on whatever path to publication they choose.

I really think blogging is one of the best forms of social media because you can say so much more in a blog post than on Instagram or Twitter. You make real friends through blogging. However it is time-consuming to follow and leave comments on other bloggers’ blogs, but it’s essential to have a thriving blog.

I’ve been saddened over the years to see so many writers stop blogging and following other blogs. Also, there has been a big drop in readers following blogs. I’m so grateful that Literary Rambles gets an average of 70,000 to over 100,000 page views a month. But I’ve seen a real drop in people stopping by and leaving a comment for my author interviews when they aren’t tied to my IWSG post. In the good old days, I’d get 50+ comments and feel like I was really helping the author. It’s much harder to support authors now, which is one reason I don’t post more than two author interviews/guest posts most months anymore.

I wish there was a way that we could get more writers and authors to join the IWSG and commit to blogging at least once a month.

Interview With Trish Lundy

Hi Trish! Thanks so much for joining us.

1. Tell us about yourself and how you became a writer.

Thank you for having me! I grew up playing in the snow and cheering on the Red Wings in Rochester, NY. Right before my junior year of high school, I moved to California, and I’ve been on the West Coast ever since. I was a daily diarist beginning in middle school; I chronicled every moment of my life (usually focused on my crushes, if I’m being honest!) and that was my introduction to a regular writing practice. I dabbled in poetry a bit, too, and wrote a half-finished screenplay before the end of high school. While at UCLA, I was fortunate to take a short story class taught by Fae Myenne Ng, who taught me how to cultivate my writing sanctuary: essentially, the place, both physically and mentally, that I’d go to write. My goal back then was to write for two hours a day on most days, and by the time I graduated, I’d written several short stories and a novel. After college, I worked in marketing and experimented with genres and figuring out what my own voice was like as a writer in the mornings before work. I published a few of those short stories and wrote a few more novel-sized manuscripts. Learning how to prioritize my writing and learning how to be disciplined with my time are what have allowed me to continue writing even in the busiest seasons of life. It is like working out a muscle. Writing feels as essential to me as, say, brushing my teeth! I don’t often get the luxury of a two-hour writing session these days, and I definitely do not write every single day, nor do I believe that you need to do that, but consistency is important to me.

2. It’s awesome that you’ve been so dedicated to your writing since you were a teen. Where did you get the idea for The One That Got Away With Murder?

I knew I wanted to lean fully into the YA thriller genre, but I had never written a young adult thriller before, so The One That Got Away with Murder was a way to challenge myself to do that, I suppose. I had written a couple of coming of age/mystery stories, but I wanted to pull out all the stops for my next go. Thrillers and mysteries are my comfort genre; they’re what I grew up on. They are my favorite genre to read and watch to this day (I am quite obsessed with the latest season of True Detective starring Kali Reis and Jodie Foster). I really feel that they peel the curtain back on the darkest parts of life in a very grounded, real way.

When I’m in brainstorming mode for a story, I usually carry a notebook around with me and make time to sit on the couch for an hour and just *think.* It is really how I do my best thinking—either that or when I’m blow-drying my hair. I write down thoughts, nuggets, or key phrases that come to me. The first image I had for this story was two brothers who each had a dead ex-girlfriend. I was intrigued by them. Then I thought: how do I get to know more about them? What are they hiding? And more importantly, what kind of character would want to—or have the guts to, really—get close to these brothers? Lauren was my way into the story of the Crestmont brothers, and the opening chapter really flowed from there.

Your Writing Process

3. How did you plot out your story? What advice do you have for other writers who want to write a mystery or thriller?

I always know who the killer(s) is/are and how the story ends before I write a very, very brief outline. I do think it’s helpful to know who your antagonist is so that you can set up breadcrumbs along the way that lead to them, as well as red herrings that distract from them. For the outline, I jot down the major plot points of a loose three Act Structure. During drafting, my big moments usually don’t change, but often the way I get to and from those moments does. I’m very much a discovery writer and sometimes I veer off outline if something isn’t working to get me to where the story needs to go. There are different kinds of mysteries and thrillers, and sometimes it’s helpful to first assess what kind of story you want to tell. Is it a whodunit or a whydunit? Is your main character a reliable narrator, or does this story have a psychological element to it that makes it difficult for us to trust them? If you’re writing a whodunit, it’s great to give every character a secret, or to pick a couple of suspects and really flesh out the red herrings for those suspects. It’s always satisfying when a reader is surprised by the reveal of who the villain is, but can look back and find clues along the way. Even if those clues are subtle! I’m a huge fan of clues that seem innocuous on a first read and sinister on the second.

4. Those are great tips. A lot of reviewers commented that they loved the twists and turns in the story that they didn’t see coming and that made them want to turn the page even more. How did you weave them into your story?

Some of my twists and turns have existed since the first draft, but I’m the kind of writer who definitely adds things in on sequential drafts to strengthen red herrings and clues. I think it’s always easier to build layers of suspicion once you have a first draft completed. Just get that first draft done! It doesn’t need to be perfect (I’m telling myself that now as I’m working on book 2). My editors (Mark Podesta and Ann Marie Wong) had some really great ideas to beef up the suspiciousness of certain characters who they thought could be guilty on their first read through—so I added those details to make the reader second guess everyone a little bit more. Something else that helped this particular story was having a main character who has some secrets of her own. Although the reader knows Lauren isn’t the killer, her furtiveness, at times, adds mystery to the story and it also informs how she reacts to the current mystery. It’s a great way to ramp up tension.

5. Really good thrillers and mysteries not only have tight plots but also have compelling characters. Share a bit about how Lauren developed as a character and your tips about creating the main characters in a thriller that readers want to root for.

I wanted to explore writing a character who might be tempted to make “bad” decisions, even harmful decisions, because of her unresolved personal trauma. That’s how Lauren was born. She doesn’t intend to get herself into the situations she finds herself in, but on some level, she thinks she deserves it based on the mistakes she’s made. It takes her the course of the book to understand that she doesn’t deserve any of the bad things that have happened to her. She’s also a teenager, and as a former teenager, teenagers can be messy! They should be allowed to be messy. They’re in between childhood and adulthood and they’re trying to figure it out—especially when they’re thrown into adult situations before they’re ready. I think for your audience to care about your character, they need to know what your character cares about. For Lauren, it’s her ex-boyfriend Clint. It’s her mom. It's her new friends in Happy Valley. The important people in her life often drive her reasoning and her decision making—for better or worse.

6. Do you have any craft books or other resources you’d recommend for writers who want to learn how to write a mystery or thriller?

I think the best way to learn how to write a mystery or thriller is to read a lot of mysteries and thrillers. See what genres you are drawn to within those genres, and learn the conventions of those subgenres. The One That Got Away with Murder is a whodunit, so there’s a lot of suspicious characters. That won’t necessarily be the case for a whydunit, for example. I think Save the Cat is a great craft resource. It’s very accessible and a lot of craft books can be quite dense. I like On Writing by Stephen King, too. I think you should take what works for you from craft books and abandon the rest. Trust your own process! Building your process is pretty much cobbling together what you’ve learned from other processes and sticking to what works best for you. Then, lastly, find a couple of trusted first readers or critique partners to share your work with, and bonus points if they’re well-versed in or love reading thrillers.

Your Road to Publication

7.  I really like Save the Cat too. Kristin van Ogtrop and Stephen Barbara are your agents. How did they become your agents and what was your road to publication like? How has having two agents benefited you?

I had an interesting road to publication. First of all, I started querying back in 2014. After getting a lot of rejections, I realized my writing wasn’t quite ready for professional publication. I continued writing manuscripts and I wrote a lot of short fiction, too, to experiment with genres and to find my voice. In the fall of 2021, I had a YA manuscript I was very confident in and felt it was the right time for me to query again. I sent out my initial query package to about eight agents, and I received one full request. During this time, my grandmother passed away. I traveled to State College, PA, for her funeral, and I spoke to a woman who was very kind and we got to talking. She asked me what I did, and I hesitated (I thought: do I tell her about my day job or about my passion?). I told her I’d recently finished a YA manuscript and she told me her sister was a literary agent! She offered to connect us so I could pick her sister’s brain about publishing advice. I had a call with Kristin a couple of months later. At the end of the call, she asked me to send her my query package. The same day, she asked for either the first fifty pages or the entire manuscript, I can’t remember which, exactly, but I was elated. She ended up loving the manuscript and we set up a call with her and her colleague Stephen. They asked me if I’d consider doing an R&R. Based on their feedback, I agreed with their vision and felt it was aligned with mine. I did the R&R, and they offered me representation! They are the. best. Kristin is my more editorial agent and Stephen is my more sales agent, so to speak, but they both overlap greatly. They give the best notes and guidance and I just can’t say enough good things about them. We went on submission with that initial manuscript and after a few months of getting some very close acceptances but a lot of passes, I channeled my on-submission anxiety into working on a new manuscript and THE ONE THAT GOT AWAY WITH MURDER was born! I had a feeling it was going to be the one. We went out with it and within a couple weeks we had multiple interested editors! I feel very lucky to have landed at Henry Holt.

Promoting Your Book

8. That’s an amazing story of how to get an agent. How are you promoting The One That Got Away? What tips do you have on marketing for other authors who have a debut book coming out?

Instagram is my favorite channel/platform and that’s where I’m the most active in promotion. I also have a newsletter for more longer-form thoughts, which I do enjoy drafting, too. It is honestly one of my favorite creative outlets. Nicole Brinkley has a great piece on authors and social media marketing that I would encourage any writer or author to read. I think it’s healthy to view social media as not a be-all and end-all, but something that can enhance a connection with your readers. My advice would be to not be shy or bashful about promoting your work! People want to support you and your art, and they need reminders. I think of how often I mean to preorder someone’s book and I forget and then I see a recent post and I’m like oh yes—doing that right now! My other piece of advice would be to have fun with it. Join your debut author slack/discord and ask for help with graphics or promotion if it’s not your forte. Of course, while your publisher is going to market your book and while they can move the needle more than any individual author can, I think it’s important to have a platform of your own to express yourself outside of your publisher and connect with your readers.

9. Thanks for sharing your tips. You’ve got a balanced approach to social media promotion. What are you working on now?

I’m working on a new YA thriller that I’m very excited about. I don’t want to give too much away because it is not yet announced, but I will say that I’m having a lot of fun experimenting with a new character’s voice. Hopefully I’ll be able to say more in the near future!

Thanks for sharing all your advice, Trish. You can find Trish at trishlundy.com and on Instagram at @trishlundy.

Giveaway Details

Trish’s publisher is generously offering a hardback of The One That Got Away With Murer for a giveaway. To enter, all you need to do is be a follower of my blog (via the follower gadget, email, or bloglovin’ on the right sidebar) and leave a comment by April 13th. If your email is not on your Google Profile, you must leave it in the comments to enter the contest. Please be sure I have your email address.

If you mention this contest on Twitter, Facebook, or your blog and/or follow me on Twitter or Trish on her social media sites, mention this in the comments and I'll give you an extra entry for each. You must be 13 years old or older to enter. This book giveaway is U.S.

Upcoming Interviews, Guest Posts, and Blog Hops

Monday, April 8th I have an agent spotlight interview with Paula Weiman and a query critique giveaway

Monday, April 15th I have a review and giveaway of Finally Heard by Kelly Yang

Tuesday, April 16th I’m participating in the Rain Drop on Roses Giveaway Hop

Monday, April 22nd I have an agent spotlight interview with Hillary Fazzari and a query critique giveaway

I hope to see you on Monday!