Interviewing Sharon Doering

Hello!

Last week I really enjoyed She Lies Close by Sharon Doering a fantastically tee and unsettling thriller which kept me on my toes as to what was going on. Sharon has very kindly agreed to answer a few questions on her book and the road to being a debut novelist

So how would you usually tempt someone into reading She Lies Close?

One reviewer compared my book to an adult version of Alice in Wonderland – a darkly twisted tale with some humour and some crazy. I love that.

My dark psychological thriller digs into the question – How far would you go to protect your children?

She Lies Close has short chapters, shocking scenes, funny chapter titles, and a couple of great sex scenes! The book explores intellectual questions regarding hypervigilance, parenting, our obsession with media, and drug/environmental effects on neuroscience psychology.

Usually a thriller focuses on the victim, detective or even the perpetrator – with Grace you’ve focused more on someone who is impacted by the news of the crime. What led to that choice?

The inspiration for She Lies Close came from my family’s move to a new neighborhood years ago and finding out that a guy down the street was being prosecuted for a child crime. Within months he was convicted, sold his house, and went to prison. While it was creepy (and I wouldn't let my little boys play near his house), I never felt desperate. I had a good support system in my husband.

It got me thinking though…What if you moved right next door to a dangerous man, a suspect in a child kidnapping (maybe murder), and what if you had no support system, no sounding board? What if you were recently divorced and financially strapped? What if you had secrets of your own and mental health issues complicating your life? What if your sinister neighbor started talking to your little girl, giving her gifts?

I took the premise of a dangerous next-door neighbor and added a big old bag of What Ifs.

The story was Grace’s from the start. Once I had the idea for the book, Grace’s voice came on strong. I wanted to write a psychological thriller that was dark, desperate, and also funny. It might be easier to be funny and irreverent if you’re not writing from the point of view of the victim or detective.

Your depiction of the highs and lows parenthood is extremely realistic in how Grace reacts. Was that a deliberate choice as often we’re sold only on perfection?

Yeah, it was deliberate. Even in the happiest, most sturdy families, there can be a bit of madness.

I wanted to bring the kids in from the side-lines and write them as real characters. Kids are sweet and generous, and they are selfish and cruel. They do unpredictable, nonsensical stuff like overflow the bathtub on purpose or pour beads down the sink on purpose.

In addition to feeding their kids and cleaning up after them and stimulating their brains, parents are supposed to teach kids important life lessons and model good choices. I wanted to explore the demands (and madness) of parenting as another source of Grace’s anxiety.

I’m not sure I’d like to be next door to Grace – what is the key for you writing an unlikeable lead character?

Get inside their head and see things from their point of view. Once you are in their head, you have empathy. You do a bit of a mind-meld so you don’t necessary think of them as unlikeable. You think of them as memorable.

How have you found the road to getting published? Any surprises?

It’s a potholed, hilly, long road. Driving on it has been scary, tiring, thrilling, and wonderful!

I had been writing for twenty years before a publisher offered me a contract. I have had an agent for twelve, and I've written dozens of short stories and seven novels (horror, romance, PI, 3 tech thrillers, and this psychological thriller).

As I approached 19 years of writing without a book deal, for the first time I was feeling desperate as a writer. I gave some of that desperation to Grace. She doesn’t feel desperate about writing, but she feels desperate about, well, pretty much everything. The book Big Magic by Elizabeth Gilbert helped me examine the question, did I really want to continue working my ass off writing when there is never a guarantee of publication? The answer for me was, Yes.

I learned to not expect anything from my writing. I continued to write because I love the process.

As for logistics, everything has been a surprise! I never knew about the levels and order of edits. First you get editorial notes and comments on your book, then you work on a major structural edit. Several smaller edits follow. Next, copyediting, and finally, proofreading. I never knew there was so much back and forth.

Even this blog tour was surprising. I had no idea that writers wrote essays for blogs and magazines to get word out about their book.

I didn’t know authors wrote emails to other authors, asking for this huge favor – Would you consider reading my book and, if you like it, providing a blurb?

I was not on social media before; I was really writing in a bubble. Jumping onto twitter has been lovely because I can read about what all these other writers are thinking, working on, struggling with. Jumping onto Instagram has been incredible because I can learn what readers are looking for, what they think, and what books I should read.

It would have been wise to get on social media earlier. At the same time, if I were on earlier, it would have taken me so much longer to finish my book.

Do you have anything else coming up soon and where can we find out more?

I am working on another stand-alone psychological thriller with Titan Books. Confess To Me will be out in June 2021.

If you could get everyone to read one book (not your own) what would it be?

Oh, this is tricky because I push different books onto different people! My husband is a reluctant reader and only wants a fun/happy book, so I pressed Ready Player One by Ernest Cline into his hands because I knew he would enjoy it. My teens are also reluctant readers. I pushed them to read The Girl With All The Gifts by M.R. Carey. My pitch was, “It’s original, compelling, and touching. Plus, there’s zombies, violence, language, and sci-fi. What more could you want?” For my girlfriends, I recommend Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn. I have recommended Black House, Tommyknockers, and Pet Sematary by Stephen King so many times. Lately, I’ve been recommending Come Closer by Sara Gran because it’s a gorgeously written horror novel, and it’s short, which I think is helpful during these strange times.

Thanks so much for having me!