Stacy Willingham Drops Some Hints About Her Suspenseful Sophomore Novel

Goodreads: This book. The main character. I now want to name my dog Izzy.

Stacy Willingham: [Laughs.] Thank you. I love that.

GR: I wanted to start by asking you—you've become, early on in your career, some readers’ favorite author—who are some of your favorite authors to read?

SW: So, I have always looked up to Gillian Flynn. Even before the Gone Girl phenomenon. I was a big fan of Sharp Objects and Dark Places, and I always admired the way she was able to both write heavily descriptive books that were also fast-paced. She managed to find just the perfect balance, and that's tough to do, but she does it really well. So, I've always looked up to her.

I've always loved Tana French and Megan Abbott. Really, most of my favorite authors are women who write very descriptive thrillers.

GR: What is most challenging to you about writing a suspenseful psychological crime novel?

SW: There are different challenges that come throughout the whole writing process. The biggest challenge for me is probably getting the ending right. I don't plot my books. I know the ending in advance, so I know what the big idea is and I know what the twist is, but I don't know what I need to do to get there. And so a lot of times, by the time I get to the end, it's easy to rush it and just kind of get it written and get it on the page. So I go back and edit my ending multiple times to try and take my time with it and draw it out.

And the other one I would say is clue placement. Because you want the clues, you want the reader to not even really register the fact that they're reading a clue until they come to the ending, and then they remember that it was important. So I'm pretty meticulous with that.

GR: How many times did you edit the ending of All the Dangerous Things?

SW: That one was probably about four or five times. Which is actually not that much compared to A Flicker in the Dark, which I edited probably 10 or 15 times. It worked out. That was my first one, though. So maybe I'm getting better? [Laughs.]

GR: A Flicker in the Dark revolves around a father, while All the Dangerous Things is about a mother. What is it about the parental dynamic that you enjoy exploring?

SW: [Laughs.] I don't know. And I feel the need to say that my parents are wonderful. I think I even put that in my acknowledgements this time around, that my fascination with dysfunctional families has nothing to do with my own because they're great. 

But there is something about a family dynamic that I find really interesting because you can't choose your family. So if you are in these terrible situations like Chloe and Isabelle are, they didn't choose that. Yet that's kind of what life handed them. And so how would you make the most of it? How would you deal with it? And how would it affect who you are as a person? I find that really interesting.
 
GR: Indeed. Was there a particular crime that inspired All the Dangerous Things?

SW: Yes, but I don't really wanna say it because it gives away a twist.

GR: Hmm…

SW: I can tell you off the record if you're curious. But I'd rather it not be printed. [Laughs.]

GR: Deal. Tell me at the end. You do such an excellent job of weaving the past and the present into a really compelling narrative. Is there something in your own past that drew you to becoming a writer?

SW: I've always wanted to be a writer. From as early as I can remember, I was writing little stories as a kid. And, you know, I talk about how wonderful my parents are. They did raise me, my dad specifically, on mysteries. Like, I grew up watching Alfred Hitchcock and [the TV shows] Columbo and the Twilight Zone.

So I've always loved to write, and simultaneously, I've always been interested in mysteries. I think it just became kind of natural that I then wanted to write mysteries for a while. I wanted to be an investigative journalist and write a kind of In Cold Blood–type book, a true-crime nonfiction book. But when I started dabbling in fiction for the first time, I found I just loved the creative freedom that it gave me to just make stuff up. 

GR: What was the first mystery novel you read?

SW: Oh man. The very first one? I don't know if I can remember the very first mystery novel, but I do remember I loved The Witches by Roald Dahl, and that was the first kind of spooky book. I mean, it scared me at a young age. It's a little freaky. That's the first book that I was just completely enthralled with. I couldn't put it down.

GR: I love that. It's such a great book.

SW: Yeah. It's so good.

GR: Isabelle has problems sleeping. What keeps you up at night? 

SW: My books. I wouldn't call myself an insomniac, but I am one of those people that lays there and thinks about everything. And then before I know, it's been three hours and I'm still awake. And usually I'm thinking about my day and whatever's worrying me, but a lot of the times I'm thinking about my books. 

If it's like a certain plot point that isn't working, I'm just kind of picking over it in my head. Or if I don't know what to do next, if I'm at a point where I'm stuck, I'm just running through a million scenarios. And then of course moments like now where the publication is coming up, I'm laying there wondering how it's all going to go and worrying about the reception and things like that. Izzy has it bad, but I can empathize. 

GR: Izzy's really good, though, at trying to distract herself from her inability to sleep. Do you have any kind of little tricks you use for yourself? 

SW: Ooh, that's a good one. A couple years ago I started using white noise, which has actually really helped me. I don't know why. I think it's something about not just laying in a silent room. That's a little bit distracting. 

I also read before I get in bed. I try not to fall asleep with a racing mind. So I'll read, and then I read to the point where my eyelids are so heavy I can barely keep them open, and that's when I turn off the light and try to fall asleep. Those have seemed to help. 

GR: Do you have a go-to book to help you sleep? 

SW: I'm not much of a book re-reader, funny enough. There's so many that I want to read. I'm just constantly picking up something new. But I will say The Girls by Emma Cline is one of my favorite books. When I have writer's block I tend to just flip it open and either read the prologue or flip to a random page and read that book over and over again because it's so good. 

GR: You're already on people's list of books they want to read that are coming out in 2023 with All the Dangerous Things. Who is on your list of who you're looking forward to reading? 

SW: Oh, man. Hmm, let me think. That's a good question. I am really excited to read The Villa by Rachel Hawkins. That one has been on my list for a while. There's also The Widow Maker by Hannah Morrissey. I just picked up my copy, and that just came out. So I guess, I guess that's a this-year book.

I have read some [advance reader copies] for books coming out in 2023 that I loved. They were The Drowning Woman by Robyn Harding, Out of the Ashes by Kara Thomas, and Cutting Teeth by Chandler Baker.

Two I haven’t read yet but am looking forward to are The Angel Maker by Alex North and A Likeable Woman by May Cobb.

GR: You seem to enjoy setting your books in the South. Why Savannah for your new one?

SW: I live in the South. I live in Charleston, South Carolina. So that's one way that I can write what I know. I guess when you're writing about being the daughter of a serial killer or having your child go missing, those are things that I don't personally know.

I can empathize with those things, but I've never directly experienced it. But I know my setting very intimately. Charleston and Savannah are pretty similar, so I feel like I can describe Savannah very well. My husband's family is from there. And there's something about these old southern towns that are just a bit spooky to me. 

They're beautiful but creepy. They have these massive gnarled trees and Spanish moss that just kind of looks like hanging cobwebs. And there's old graveyards, you know, every couple blocks. So they're full of history, and they're gorgeous. But if you really kind of look at it in a certain light, it's a little eerie, too. That's what I like to bring out in my books. 

GR: I can see it. You mentioned in your author's note that you were nervous writing about a main character who was a mother, given that you don't have children. What did you learn about motherhood writing this book, if anything? 

SW: That's a good question. I did a lot of research for this book, and I spoke to a lot of friends and family members who are mothers, too, because I didn't want to get it wrong. I was very afraid of getting it wrong. 

I think that the biggest thing that I learned is there's such a huge spectrum of emotions that come along with motherhood. Some of them are incredible and some of them are not, but they're all normal. What kind of broke my heart doing the research is that women feel like they can't talk about the bad emotions because they feel ashamed. And a big part of this book centered on the guilt and shame that mothers have, but also that women have in general, for some reason. I think women just feel guilty about everything.

I found it interesting and also upsetting that there's this whole side of motherhood that women feel like they can't talk about because they feel guilty for experiencing it, when actually everybody else experiences it, too. 

GR: You have so many complicated women in the book. Do you have a favorite among the female characters? 

SW: Another good question. You know, this seems like a bad answer, but I think Izzy because I spent the most time with her. She's my main character. So obviously I was in her head the whole time, and she has a very complicated past and she has a lot working against her. But she's a strong woman who really does not give up when her son goes missing, and she wants to find the answer. Despite everything standing in her past, she finds it. 

GR: Do you have a least favorite character? 

SW: I do, but I feel like that would also be a spoiler. 

GR: No spoilers, no spoilers! Do you have a favorite fictional mother? 

SW: I don't know if I would classify her as my favorite because she's not a good mother. And this is another spoiler, too, so I'm not sure if you want to print this, but the mother in Sharp Objects is a fascinating character to me. I don't know if I'd call her a favorite because she's not very likable, but she's complicated and multifaceted, and I like that.  

GR: Speaking of multifaceted, I loved Izzy's relationship with her sister. Do you have siblings? 

SW: Yes, I have an older sister. And a lot of Izzy and Margaret's relationship is based on my sister and I. Nothing that happens in the book actually happened in my real life. I don't write about real things that happen, but the protectiveness that Izzy has over Margaret and her willingness to let Margaret just kind of follow her around is very much my big sister with me. 

GR: You write with such great voice when it comes to Izzy. Did she make you want to become a mother or did she push you away from motherhood? 

SW: You know, I definitely want to have kids. I've never been the kind of person like chomping at the bit, you know? I want to have them, but I'm not in any kind of real rush. But I do think that getting in her head and experiencing just the undying love for her kid that she has has made me more excited to have kids and just experience what that's like. On the flip side, it's also brought some fear along with it because there's a lot of anxieties that mothers have that I have not experienced. But yeah. I definitely want kids one day.

GR: My final question for you is: What are you working on now?

SW: I'm always working on my next book, pretty much. As soon as I ship my whatever-I'm-working-on off to my editor, I get started on the next one. So I am working on my third book right now.
 
I'm on the second draft, so it's very early. I still have at least six months or so of editing, but I'm really excited. The third one is another thriller, but I will say it's probably the most different of the three. It's set on a fictional college campus in Charleston, South Carolina. And it’s bit of a dark academia–type of book. The protagonists are all much younger. They're in their teens. I’m really, really excited about it.