Tying Past and Present Together: How to Write Satisfying Resolutions in Suspense Fiction with Marybeth Mayhew

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Marybeth Mayhew Whalen

David Gwyn: [00:00:00] Do you want to write the kinds of stories that thrill readers? If you're looking for an inside track on a writing career you can be proud of, then you're in the right place. Because my guest today and I talk about plotting, characters, and everything in between.

 I'm David Gwyn, a writer navigating the world of traditional publishing. During the second season of the Thriller 101 podcast, we are going to continue our focus on building the skills necessary to write the kinds of thrillers that land you, an agent, and readers. During this season, I'll be sharing some of my own insights while also talking to agents, authors, and other publishing professionals about the best way to write a novel. If you want the expert secrets, Thriller 101 is where you're going to find them. Last week on the podcast I talked to Michelle Shannard. 

Michelle Chouinard: But nowadays, we, you know, your readers, really savvy readers are going to want to see that growth arc.

So, whatever that growth arc is, How does it relate to the crime? What is it about this crime that you're detective, whether it's a professional detective, amateur detective, whatever? What is it about the crime that is pushing them in a way [00:01:00] that is uncomfortable?

David Gwyn: I've linked that episode in the description if you want to check it out. Today's guest is Mary Beth Mayhew Whelan.

She's the author of Every Moment Since and nine previous novels. She received a BA in English with a concentration in writing and editing from NC State University. She's the co founder of the Booktide, an online community of readers.

She and her husband are the parents of six kids who are all now in various stages of adulting. She's a native of Charlotte, North Carolina, and now lives in Sunset Beach, North Carolina.

And today, she's gonna help us write better books.

Let's get into the interview.

So Marybeth, thanks so much for being here on the Thriller 101 podcast. 

Marybeth Mayhew Whalen: Yeah, thanks for having me. 

David Gwyn: Yeah, I'm really excited to chat with you. I really want to hear about Every Moment Since. But first, I want to ask you, since this will release, I think on the day or day after that the book comes out, how do you think you're feeling with the release here?

Marybeth Mayhew Whalen: Just, you know, it's such a runway to get, get the thing off the ground. It will be very nice for it to just be launched and all of the [00:02:00] millions of to do list things ticked off and just to sit back and go, okay, it's launched. And, and I, now I can enjoy interacting with readers and. Just seeing it out in the world.

So 

David Gwyn: that's cool. So I asked you before we got on here. This is your 10th book So do you feel like the public launch day you feel relaxed or usually trying to put a bunch of things together? 

Marybeth Mayhew Whalen: You know, it's so funny Years ago when I think it was my first or second book came out the day comes and you expect perhaps a ticker tape Parade will go by your house or something auspicious and nothing happens I mean you might somebody might send you flowers or something But for the most part, it's just a normal day.

The only thing that, you know, is a lot different is obviously social. I mean, as far as my experience so far is social media, you know, just you're on social media all that day, just interacting. And that's a, that's a good thing. That's what you want. So, but other than that, it's a pretty normal day, unless you do something to [00:03:00] make it significant.

It's kind of up to you. 

David Gwyn: Yeah. That's funny. You're, you're not the first author who's told me that I've talked to a few authors and they're like, they expect like. Things to be different and they just, they wake up just like they normally do and just go about their day

Marybeth Mayhew Whalen: really cool. 

David Gwyn: So can you tell us a little bit about what Every Moment Since. is about?

Marybeth Mayhew Whalen: Sure. It is about in 1985 in a small southern town, a little boy goes missing. And he is wearing a very distinct jacket when he goes missing. And 21 years later, that very distinct jacket is found and it reignites the cold case. And the story focuses on four people who have ties to that night, who the ripple effects of that night are still playing out in their lives.

And the discovery of this jacket and the media sensation that comes after that just really forces them to kind of look at things that they've perhaps been avoiding. 

David Gwyn: Yeah. Very cool. And so where did the story come from? How did you come up with this one? 

Marybeth Mayhew Whalen: Well, in actually in the, I think it's an author's note.

I don't think it's in the acknowledgements. Actually the [00:04:00] opening of the book. The dedication is to, boys who disappeared within the late 70s to the early 90s. And those were the boys that I, I did extensive research just on their individual cases to learn how much our laws have changed, how child disappearances were handled back then versus, you know, how we think of them now.

And, and how honestly their cases have helped. Law enforcement now, and I've just in my author's note I talked about how I saw the movie Adam as a child About Adam Walsh and I can still tell you exact things from that movie And then there's another movie called without a trace and it's not the same as the show It's it's Kate Nelligan and Judd Hirsch and I can remember watching that on like a Saturday afternoon at my dad's house on HBO and I because he had HBO, which was very special, and I can remember watching that, and there's [00:05:00] still, again, there's still moments from that movie, even as watching it as a kid, who should not have been watching it, by the way, but even watching it, I can still remember specific moments from that movie.

So for whatever reason, that really stuck with me, and I just knew I always wanted to write about that, and how it affects a family. And this, this is just what presented itself back in 2020 as the story I needed to write. And it started with, it really started with Thaddeus. He's Davy's brother. He was with him that night and he obviously has been dramatically affected by the loss of his brother.

And but also his mother, Tabitha. And when I first, my characters kind of come to me and I don't always know exactly who they are or what they're supposed to be. But when I saw her for the very first time, she was I could only see the back of her and she was writing, standing at her kitchen counter, writing.

And I didn't know what she was writing but I had to find out. And turns out it was a regret list. And that's not a spoiler at all. She that's the first scene you see her. She is working on her regret list for the week. [00:06:00] So. 

David Gwyn: I always love listening to authors talk about how the story comes up because it's, it always feels like this like confluence of a few different things.

It is interesting that that story sounds like then it's been percolating for a while. , Oh, what do you think it was that made it? You'll like the right time for this story. Because there's something like a tipping point or you don't know. It just all of a 

Marybeth Mayhew Whalen: sudden, it just clicked. I can't tell you how this happens.

It just does. I, I walk around with. A bunch of stories inside of me and a bunch of characters. My husband makes fun of me, but it's true. We were just talking actually this weekend about I'm writing one now, but the one I want to write after the one I'm writing now. And I was telling him all about the characters and very specific things.

And he was like, how do you know all that? I was like, I've been living with them for, I mean, years. And you know, the more you're with them, the more emerges. And so I just, I joke about it. That I say, I have a waiting room in my head and they're all just sitting up there waiting for their turn. And and I kind of cast, you know, I'll come up with a, a concept.[00:07:00]

like a boy goes missing in 1985. And I will kind of cast around and go, all right, who's in this story? And I'm like, okay, you, the lady that was, that's right. That's working on that paper. And I don't know, maybe you're his mom. And it's, it's this whole mysterious, like you said, it's a confluence of just idea, characters, twists, all that has to come with it.

And I usually don't write it unless I know the end. And unless I know, maybe a twist or two 

David Gwyn: That's cool. You just, you head into the weight room and see who's there. 

Marybeth Mayhew Whalen: I'm just like, okay, who's, who's, you're up. It's finally your turn. And the great thing about that is once I write them, they go away. So my husband says this is sanctioned schizophrenia, but you know, whatever.

David Gwyn: It only helps if you're clearing out room in the in the waiting room, right? If more, more keep showing up. 

Marybeth Mayhew Whalen: Yeah. Seriously, it drives me crazy. So I mean to a degree, I mean crazy in a, in a normal term. 

David Gwyn: Of course. Yeah. So how much can you talk about what you're working on now? 

Marybeth Mayhew Whalen: [00:08:00] Okay. Yeah, I can talk about that.

It's it's due. Well, it's not due till March, but I'm definitely working on it. It is about a small town post office and a Three women are in line and a domestic situation gets out of control and the husband in the domestic situation barricades them in and now they are in a hostage situation. And so it is, I say it's still Magnolia's in a hostage situation.

So the three of them, it's very much a book about marriage, but at the heart of it this whole negotiation is going on and it is very much a It's what women do. I mean, they're, they're, they're three strange. Well, it's actually four strangers because the postal worker is one of them and it's four strangers in a room with the guy and they, what do they do?

They start telling stories, they start sharing their lives. And so these three strangers, three completely different generations, four technically [00:09:00] they, they all have to get to know each other. And the kind of the key core element of the story is each one of them came in to that, that post office.

carrying something that if they mail it will change their lives and so what they're carrying is a big part of what they have to kind of deal with. And like divulge throughout the story, so 

David Gwyn: very cool. That's very cool. I like that. 

Okay, let's pause there for a second. I love the way Mary Beth talks about her characters. It's clear she spends so much time developing them and fleshing them out so that when it's time to get into the actual storytelling, she knows these characters intimately. Before we get to the next part of the interview, it's official ish that I'm starting a community for thriller, suspense, mystery, and crime writers.

It's going to be an absolute master class in writing and is going to have a variety of different guests.

and special insights that you'll only get if you're part of the community. beI'm Building this so that it is absolutely invaluable for serious writers trying to write their next book, find an agent, and build connectivity in the [00:10:00] industry. You're not going to want to miss out on this because I'm only accepting a certain number of writers to act as founding members.

If you want to be considered for one of those spots, then sign up the link in the description to be the first to get notified when the doors open if you're a serious writer who wants to take the next step in their writing career then you need to sign up right now so you can be on the fast track to writing your best book ever. In the next part of the interview, we talk even more about Mary Beth's characters, how she structures her novels, and just like a heads up, this is the first time I've heard a process quite like this.

We also talk about how she thinks about keeping pacing up, even as she moves back and forth from past to present. It was really an interesting conversation, and I'm glad I get to share it with you, so let's head back to the interview.

So let's let's shift gears a little bit here. I want to talk about every moment since and a little bit about how you handle the structure of this novel, which I thought was so well done.

I love stories that are blending kind of that past and present, and I think yours works this in in like a really unique way. And so. I'd love to hear about how you [00:11:00] structured the novel but also just kind of thinking about how you kind of blended past and present, especially with like the memoir that Thaddeus is writing, which I thought was such a well done aspect of the story.

Marybeth Mayhew Whalen: Thank you. Actually, the memoir was always key. That was always going to be the crux of the novel. And when I first wrote it, I was. The truth of the matter is my agent and I parted ways kind of over this book because I wanted to write it that much and she kind of wanted me to do something different and I, I sort of dug my heels in and said, this is the book I have to write.

And so, with her blessing, it was not, you know, it was just. We just saw things differently. And so I was in an agent search and the first time I wrote it, I wrote it. The memoir was the way you heard what happened that night. And then the rest of the story was the rest of the story. And there was no 1985 timeline.

And I kept, people kept using this word removed. There's, there's something about it. I feel removed from [00:12:00] the story. And I was like, I, sometimes. Literary people will use words that are kind of grandiose, and I was like, what does that mean, remove? I don't, and I couldn't get my hands around what exactly I had done wrong, so I'm like, tell me so I can fix it, and all of a sudden it dawned on me if I'm telling you this story, then it's coming from me, but if I wrote about this story, and then you read about it, then it is kind of once removed, because it's his memoir, instead of the story's not on the page, it's him telling the story, so that immediacy was not there, because the story is kind of, I don't know, almost pedantic, I mean a little bit slower, it slowed it down, I think, and so the memoir is still in there, in the revised version, But it does not play as key a role as it did in the original version.

So, but I did, I did want to keep that memoir. Cause I think you see a lot about Thaddeus character and the reality of who he really is through his words. 

David Gwyn: And how did you, how do you handle the pacing of [00:13:00] something like this? I, I, I find when I read books like this with multiple characters and different timelines, it's, it's sometimes, I imagine the pacing has got to be tricky to figure out like when and where and how, how did you, how did you navigate that?

Marybeth Mayhew Whalen: I don't know. Working and then reworking and then reworking. I mean, it doesn't come natural by any stretch. I do try to keep my chapter short. I try to not, I, if you ever read my stuff, I don't do a lot of description. I read the way, I write the way I like to read, which I don't, that's just me and I, I guess it works, but I, I feel like the pacing of it is a little brisker, because I'm keeping the chapter short, and I'm not, you know, telling you a lot about what they look like, or, you know, what the tree looks like, cause I, the world we live in now, y'all all know what a tree looks like, I don't need to tell ya.

So That is, just for me personally, the way I like to read, so, I mean, I guess that's selfish, right? That's just the way I keep the pacing up. Well, it's working, it's working. Yeah, I don't, I mean, I honestly, I don't [00:14:00] really, really don't have any, like, way that I do it with that in mind. With keeping the pacing in mind.

David Gwyn: So. And do you, do you work from an outline at all, or are you, do you write kind of beginning to end? 

Marybeth Mayhew Whalen: I'm ridiculous. So I, I have such an outline. It's, it's really crazy. My friends that don't do that when I try to explain what I do, as soon as they see it, I mean, it can have like 120 points. Yeah. So I have a way I do it.

I've done it the same way every time. I can't, you know, you get kind of superstitious about all that kind of stuff. And so now I just, I don't want to do it if I don't have my outline on. So, And the reason why I did that, when I first started writing, I had six kids at home, my youngest was three, and so when I did get a chance to write, I, if I had twenty minutes, and I wasted all of that twenty minutes trying to figure out what's happening next, I'd burned up my time, and I wasn't going to get to write.

So, it was very important that when I sat down to write, I was like, okay, today we're writing, you know, the scene where they go on a [00:15:00] date, or whatever. Nobody goes on a date in this book, but just as an example, there's not really time for dating in this book. But I, that, the point is when I sit down, I'm like, okay, this is what we're writing today, and I can just take off and write.

I don't know everything that's gonna happen, I just know the key thing that has to happen to move the story forward. And 

David Gwyn: Obviously it's a pretty extensive outline. So did this have like plot and character, or was it like figuring out character as you go?

Marybeth Mayhew Whalen: So before I write a book, I interview the characters. Yeah. That is another key part of my process. I hate that word, but it's true. It is, it is a process. Before I write the first word, I interview the characters, and it is such a weird thing to do, and it sounds so strange, but they do tell me things I don't know.

And it is, it is such a neat process. I, I always, any of my friends that are writers, I'm like, just try it. It is pretty amazing. And I actually, I, I can't take credit for this. [00:16:00] Susan Meissner, I don't know if you're familiar with her. She's, she's historical fiction. And years ago, before I'd written any books, I went to her, a writing workshop and she taught us that.

And I still have the original handout at the workshop. That's what I use to do the interview, just like she taught us. And I get it out every time and it works. It just works. And I mean, if you Google, if somebody's listening to this and you Google character interviews, there are, they are on, you know, you don't have to just use the one I use.

But it is, mean, like, One of the best questions on it is, what are you afraid of? And that is such a cool thing to ask them. And you will get so much character insight and, and plot points too. I mean, you'll, that's why I do it before I do the plot. Because I will find out things about them from doing that.

David Gwyn: I've heard of character interviews before, but I feel like I maybe haven't committed. Maybe I should. 

Marybeth Mayhew Whalen: It's always just been a really neat process for me. Really, really neat process for me. And, and I, like I said, I think it adds something to the book and it gives you a [00:17:00] confidence that you do know these people before you wade in.

They're not really divulging as much because you kind of get it out of the way in the beginning. 

David Gwyn: And so I, I'm really curious because you mentioned that you'd like to know the end of the story before, before you really start. And I'm, I'm wondering, do you think about an ending as like a satisfying ending for a reader?

And if you are, is there like a, is there like a place you get to at the ending where you're like, okay, now I'm ready to write this book because you know, it's going to be what you want it to be? Like, how does that? process of you kind of knowing the ending and then writing to it. 

Marybeth Mayhew Whalen: So when I say I know the ending, what I mean is I know the last line. 

David Gwyn: Oh. 

Marybeth Mayhew Whalen: Another weird thing that I do, I don't write it till I know the last line and I write towards that last line. 

David Gwyn: Oh, so you don't really necessarily have a sense of exactly how it's going to end. 

Marybeth Mayhew Whalen: I know that the scene that is One of the things I try to do in all my books is have a scene, because I, I usually do have a, like a multiple [00:18:00] cast of characters many, many POVs, and I try at one point to at least get them all in the same place, because in all my stories they start off very disparate, and I, my goal is to somehow get them in the same place.

So I kind of knew that was going to be in play. I don't want to say too much, but I kind of knew that was going to be in play and I knew the last line. But I didn't know how or what, what or when or any of that stuff. Not, I mean I did obviously when I did the plot outline, but. I will say this, this ending changed at least three times.

Once editors,

David Gwyn: That's always the case, isn't it? 

Marybeth Mayhew Whalen: Yeah. So the ending that I have the, I mean, I did hang onto that last line, but the ending that I have did change. So that's so 

David Gwyn: Marybeth, this was so much fun. It was, I thoroughly enjoyed talking to you.

I, I love hearing about your writing process. It's so unique and, and interesting. So just before we leave, can you tell people where they can find you, where they can look you up? 

Marybeth Mayhew Whalen: Absolutely. I am mary marybeth [00:19:00] wayland.com and I'm also on Instagram. I'm also on Facebook, but I tend to hang out on Instagram a lot more.

I also have a sub stack, but if you go to marybethwhalen. com, you can sign up for my newsletter and find out way more stuff than you probably ever want to know about me. 

David Gwyn: That's great. So if you're listening to this and you, you want to get hear more from Marybeth, I will link to the website Marybeth, thanks again so much for hanging out.

This was a lot of fun. 

Marybeth Mayhew Whalen: Yeah, thank you.

David Gwyn: Okay, so that's it.

I always love hearing about an author's process, and Mary Beth's is really cool. I think it's great that she's done so much with the story before she actually dives in. Between an extensive outline and a waiting room full of characters, she has a process that works for her. But remember, it's not about taking someone else's process.

It's about using stories like this to find your process. 

Don't forget to sign up to be a founding member of the Thriller 101 community. There will be more information about it in the next couple days, and the people who sign up will be the first to know everything important. Next week, I'm sharing Rakulik, the author of Hidden Pictures, which Stephen King said [00:20:00] he quote unquote loved.

His new book, The Last One at the Wedding, is out next week, so be sure to subscribe if you haven't already to be notified when that interview drops.

Alright, so that's it, and I will see you next week.