Interview — Susan Finlay

When did you decide to become a writer?

The stories have always swirled around in my head, even when I was a little girl. In school, English (reading, spelling, etc.) was always my best subject, too, so it would have been natural for me to start writing when I was young. But creative writing wasn’t taught in my schools and wasn’t encouraged. Instead, my creativity came out in artwork—mainly pencil drawings of people–and in playing dress-up and make-believe with friends.

As an adult, I wrote business reports on my job. It wasn’t until a year or two before I left my job that I started writing fiction. That was almost ten years ago. When I began, I didn’t care if I ever got published. I just wanted to finally write stories—long stories.

Writing a novel wasn’t daunting, and I had plenty of ideas for my characters and plots. I was only limited by my lack of know-how. I began reading books about writing. I’ve probably read them all. While I don’t necessarily believe you have to follow strict rules, I find the books helpful because they remind me to add the sensory details, to pay attention to syntax, etc. Also, writing mysteries is a bit more complicated than some genres because you have to learn the techniques for building suspense, leaving clues and red herrings, and playing fair with the reader. Mystery readers don’t want to be cheated out of the fun of trying to figure it all out before the sleuth.

I read, learned, practiced. Now, three computers later, I’m still writing—only now I’m getting published.

Your writing seems to focus mainly on mystery and suspense. Do you enjoy reading mysteries as well as writing them? Are there other genres you enjoy writing as well?

I read mostly non-fiction, mysteries, suspense, and crime fiction. I’ve read all of those off and on since I was a child. When I was in my teens and early twenties, I especially liked gothic romantic mysteries by Victoria Holt, Barbara Michaels, Phyllis A. Whitney, and others. My favorite of Holt’s books is On the Night of the Seventh Moon.

I went through a long period where I also read a lot of biographies, historical novels, literary novels, and romance novels, too. In many of the books I write, there’s a romance, but I don’t really write ‘romance novels’. Mine are far too complicated to fit that genre.

Somewhere along the way I discovered time travel stories—my first was The Outlanders series by Diana Gabaldon. It’s such a great series that it’s now being made into a television series. Since then, I’ve read a lot of time travel stories by various authors, and I’ve written one which I will be rewriting soon.

I think time travel novels appeal to me because they allow the reader to experience the past through a modern character’s eyes and really compare the differences in time periods. That intrigues me. I plan to write a lot more time travel books.

You say you have set some parts of your Outsiders series in a troglodyte village. Can you elaborate on that?

Much of my mystery novel, The Outsiders is set in the tiny village of Reynier, France, which I modeled after a real place, the village of Troo. Troo began as a walled town high on a hill. As I understand it, over the centuries, the village changed and actually went inside the hill (through excavation) for a while, creating a labyrinthine cave system. Then, it spread out again and down the hillside. The caves have been used for many things over the centuries, and in the late 1800’s a large group of people again made makeshift homes inside the caves. The more civilized French citizens nicknamed those cave-dwellers ‘troglodytes’ because they saw them as ignorant half-human savages.

Today, some of its cave system has been converted into cave homes, called troglodyte cave dwellings or troglos for short.

In The Outsiders, my protagonist, Dave Martin, a former cop from Chicago, travels to Reynier to tend his ill grandmother. There, he spends time exploring the caves and he meets an enigmatic young woman who doesn’t belong there and who is obviously hiding something. His past won’t let him ignore her, and he slowly gets pulled into the mystery surrounding her.

In the second book, readers get to experience what it’s like living in one of those troglos. To give you give you an idea of what troglodyte dwellings are like, I’m sharing this video I found online: http://youtu.be/DSbQ3t-j41Y

What are you planning to work on next?

That’s a really good question—I’ve been trying to figure that out. I think I need a clone of myself because I have too many projects going on at the same time. The Outsiders is almost ready for publication. It’s scheduled for September/October. The second book, Provenance (working title), is finished and will need editing soon. The third book, Lies in the Past, is in the early stages of writing. In that book, my main characters travel to the U.S. (Columbia, Missouri) and get caught up in a murder mystery.

I also began working on an unrelated mystery novel, The High Road, in December, 2012. And then there are my time travel novels—at least four of them—and they are in various stages of development.

My suspense novel, Chameleon, ended in such a way that I feel compelled to write a sequel. That book, tentatively titled No Place Like Home has only one chapter so far.
Do you ever find feelings from your writing work creeping into your real life?

Well, mostly it’s more like my writing—and thinking about my writing—intrudes on my real life. I’ll be watching television or cooking dinner and my mind will drift into my story world. Sometimes I have to rush to find a pencil and paper and jot down some quick notes so that I won’t forget an idea or thought before my next writing session.

Which of your characters do you feel closest to? Have you ever been surprised by feelings you had for a character?

Hmmm. That’s a really tough question.

I guess since I’ve lived most of my life in big cities, I found it fascinating to create the small village of Reynier filled with a tight-knit group of people. It was almost like creating imaginary friends–I love them all, even the not-so-nice town gossips.

If I have to pick a single character, though, I would probably have to say Claire Constantine from Chameleon. She’s a genius who is forced to lie in order to protect herself and her young son. She hates lying and has great difficulty with it, both in the actual execution and in her moral belief system. I admire her intelligence and her strength, and I feel for her as she makes mistakes and stumbles over her words. That book is really, in many ways, about the social issues of deceit and trust.

You interview other authors regularly on your blog, Susansbooks37. Where do you find the time and energy to conduct so many interviews? How do you decide what questions to ask?

When I first started the interviews, I had no idea how many I would do. I didn’t have a plan or a goal. As I posted the first one on my blog, I numbered it. That seemed logical. Then I numbered the second. I kept going in that manner mainly because it helped me keep track of them. It wasn’t easy figuring out who I’d sent questionnaires to, who I needed write questions for, etc. Soon, I had to prepare an interview schedule where I could post all of that information. I don’t number the bonus interviews or my book reviews since those are less frequent.

With each interviewee, I do some research online. I look at their blogs or websites, Amazon.com, Facebook, etc. and figure out what questions to ask. It takes time, but I can usually average one or two per day. Now, after more than sixty interviews, I’m slowing down and trying to add more variety to my blog posts. I’m starting to get guest bloggers who will post articles or excerpts from their books.

Is there anything you’d especially like to mention?

My publisher, Grey Cells Press, an imprint of Holland House Books, is looking for new submissions of mystery novels. I hope that if any of your readers write mysteries/crime fiction, they’ll check out his website. I asked what he is looking for and he sent me this:
Grey Cells Press is all about Mystery – whodunits, police procedurals, and hardboiled. We also look for those quirky, unusual novels that stretch the genre. Our first publications are due out early 2013, but we are still keen to find more great books and talented authors.
http://www.greycellspress.co.uk/submissions/
Email: submissions@greycellspress.co.uk
Susan’s books can be found here: (link)
http://www.greycellspress.co.uk/pre-order-our-titles/