TODAY’S Mystery Thriller Writer IS:
George Weinstein,
author of Aftermath, an amateur sleuth mystery
WHAT MADE YOU WANT TO WRITE?
I have to write—it’s how I’m wired. I’ve written since I was six years old, when I created plays for my stuffed animals to act out, to entertain my brother and sister. I wrote love letters to woo the woman who, I decided, could be my soulmate (now my wife of 25 years). It’s my calling, along with helping other writers through the Atlanta Writers Conference that I direct twice yearly for the Atlanta Writers Club.
ARE YOU A PLOTTER OR PANTSER? I pantsed my way through countless manuscripts, which have resulted in five published novels so far. However, I decided to become more efficient and outline before I started writing my current work-in-progress, a thriller this time. I still have some of the usual nagging doubts about whether I can pull-off the creation of an engaging story with memorable characters, but at least I'm not fretting about where the hell the story is going.
HOW DID YOU COME UP WITH THE IDEA OF YOUR BOOK? Aftermath started as a what-if exercise: what if a woman returned to the tiny Southern town where she was born to reinvent herself but gets embroiled in a murder mystery? From there, as I answered questions I posed to myself—who was killed, how does the murder affect her, what drew her back home instead of going anywhere else, who will be her allies/opponents/both--Janet Wright, my protagonist, began to take shape, as did the other characters. Also, the plot developed the twists, dead ends, red herrings, and other aspects that readers expect in a mystery, along with some features that hopefully surprises them.
After Janet Wright returns to Graylee, GA as the inheritor of her murdered father’s estate, she gets tangled in a web of secrets and scandals—and in fear for her life.
Only one stop, I promised myself, and then I’d go to my father’s house — where he had been murdered in July. I wasn’t exactly looking forward to that. On Main Street in tiny Graylee, Georgia, I parked the rental car I’d picked up after landing in Atlanta that morning. Seventy-degree weather in late December and BBQ smoke on the breeze through my open windows reminded me I had returned to the Deep South, way below the Gnat Line. Though I’d been born in Graylee, I only lived there until I was fie and had no memory of it. I assumed the place would be just another backwater burg, decorated as countless others were a few days before Christmas. However, instead of check-cashing parlors and pawnshops, the town somehow supported quaint bistros, boutiques, salons, and spas, with upscale cars parked in front of each one. Manhattan it wasn’t, but it wasn’t the sticks either.
No comments:
Post a Comment