7 Questions with Wendy Walker

While everyone has their own particular opinion as to what makes an exceptional thriller...well…exceptional, for me much of it comes back to whether it’s realistic. The more realistic the thriller, the more terrifying I find it to be. And it is for this reason that Wendy Walker’s newest, Don’t Look for Me scared the living daylights out of me.

Before you run out and grab a copy of Wendy Walker’s newest novel, get to know her a little better by checking out her answers to our 7 questions.

1. What's your favorite drink?

An ice cold, light pink, filled to the rim Cosmopolitan! I’m in my fifties. You know – Sex and the City. Girls Night Out. 

2. Where and when do you write?

I move around the house with my laptop. On a cold day, I sit in a chaise lounge chair with the fire going. On a warm, sunny day, I sit at the kitchen table with the outside door open. Other times, I actually sit at my desk! But one thing is always the same – it’s morning and the house is not just quiet, but empty! If I don’t start right away, I will get busy with other things and won’t be able to pull my “writer’s” brain back into focus. And if any of my kids are home (and awake), all bets are off. While they are older now and usually ignore me, we are in the “Ma! Meatloaf!” stage, for those of you who recognize the reference!

3. What does your prewriting process look like?

I am always thinking about books. Even when I don’t have time to write, I am thinking, obsessing, jotting down notes, recording ideas on my phone in the middle of the night, and essentially coming up with the twists and turns and character backstories. When I have the basic plot, and finally time to work uninterrupted, I will start to outline the plot. This can be scribbles on a blank piece of paper or a written list of disclosures and events that have to happen, or both. From there, I write a detailed outline. Only then will I begin writing! And then, of course, new ideas come and characters change and develop. But I really need to have this outline before I can begin attacking that blank screen. My thrillers require a great deal of structure to pull off the fun surprises!

4. What's up next?

During the pandemic, I wrote an Audible Original called Hold Your Breath. It’s a shorter novel and only available as an audio book. It provided a wonderful opportunity to reprise one of my favorite characters from my debut thriller, All Is Not Forgotten. There’s a new character in Hold Your Breath who might just appear in my next thriller which I plan to begin this fall!

5. Molly and Nic, the mother and daughter pair who acted basically as co-protagonists in this novel, were very different, yet you captured them both so richly. Which character did you find easiest to write? Which character did you enjoy writing the most?

Molly’s chapters were much easier to write. She started in a very powerful emotional place and then immediately faced a horrific situation. Her chapters had a clear propulsive force to them, but also many opportunities to linger in the eerie and terrifying environment where she is held captive. Nicole’s chapters were much more technical to write because I had to include her search for her mother – the people and clues she was encountering – but also build in her emotions as they started to emerge and change. I needed to move the plot in those chapters, but I wanted to make sure readers attached to Nicole as much as they did with Molly. It’s very nice to hear that you found them both well-developed!

6. *Spoiler Alert* - One of the things that made this book so terrifying was that the home in which Molly found herself trapped felt so real. How did you create such a rich, visceral vision of this unarguably eerie space? 

Once I had Alice in my mind, her backstory, and also why Molly was being held, the rest just fell into place. I am not a huge horror fan, so I didn’t have a lot of material to draw from. I tried to think about what makes a little girl creepy. Not just the physical things like the Barbie dolls she makes Molly play with, and the old plaster one that sits on the shelf, but the things she could say that would be shocking. I had some moments of pure writer’s joy when I came up with those one-liners! It’s amazing where the mind can go when you just ask the question – what would be really terrifying about this situation?

7. Though, on the surface, this novel was about a missing woman and her daughter’s search for her, it was truly about this (perhaps irreparably) damaged family. How would your story have been different if the family wasn’t already so broken when the tragedy depicted in this novel took place?

The family dynamic was absolutely crucial to this story. First, it explains why Molly got herself into such danger, and why the family was so quick to believe she had walked away from her life. But also, I believe that the best entertainment, the kind that truly pulls us in and lets us escape, involves stories that are not just suspenseful, but deeply emotional. Caring about and rooting for the characters makes any story so much more exciting and enhances the experience. Giving Molly and Nicole backstories that readers could relate to and feel empathy for, was a main focus as I was writing. Finally, being able to show how the urgency of both Molly and Nicole’s situations allowed them to finally get their fight back, to find their strength and feel their love for one another, gave the story a second level of suspense. Will Molly ever be found? But also, will this family finally be able to heal now that they have been pushed to the brink of their emotional limits? Don’t Look for Me would have been a far less powerful story without this family dynamic.

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