Until I Come Back for You follows a young girl, the youngest of five siblings, as her family escapes the dangers of Detroit and tries to build a new life in the countryside, only to encounter a menacing and violent new neighbor. What was the inspiration for the setup of your story?

That’s easy – my real life! My family really did leave Detroit in the early 70s, and my city-slicker parents really did buy a small farm on a dirt road in rural Michigan. The bad guy is fictionalized, but the setting and family characters are all real.

What was your approach to writing the interactions between characters?

For me, the key to dialogue is to let it come quickly, naturally, and not overthink it. Don’t argue with your characters – let them speak. Let them stutter. Let them mispronounce words. Because that is how humans talk. Dialogue should “play” in the readers’ heads as if they can hear it, and so it has to “sound” authentic. If a writer edits dialogue the same way she edits the narrative, you lose that authenticity.

How do you balance story development with shocking plot twists? Or can they be the same thing?

For story development, I’m an avid plotter. I map out the big parts of the story, the bones. For this story, I focused on “the event” and worked backwards to include everything that had to come before it. Then worked forward, writing all the consequences and fallout.

The plot twist(s) were afterthoughts that organically stemmed from the story. There is a writing rule: “Get your protagonist in trouble. Then get them in more trouble and more trouble.” When I did that, she really surprised me, and it was just my job to capture that.

What is the next book that you’re working on, and when can your fans expect it out?

For right now, I’m having so much fun with this book, I can’t even think about another. This was a bucket list goal for me, so I’m just allowing myself to revel in this moment.

Author Links: GoodReads | Facebook | Website | Instagram | Amazon