Anna Willett – Nightmare Thrillers

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 33:07 — 33.5MB) | Embed

Don't miss out on the latest episodes. Subscribe now! Spotify | More

Anna Willet writes nightmare thrillers it’s best not to read before bed – and that’s the way her readers love them.

Hi there, I’m your host Jenny Wheeler, and in todays Binge Reading episode Anna talks about facing her worst fears in her nail biting books and the traumatic experience as a teen that has colored her work.

Six things you’ll learn from this Joys of Binge Reading episode:

• The draw of psychological thrillers
• On being an Australian thriller writer
• The challenge of giving her characters a hard time
• Western Australia – one of the world’s best kept secrets
• The writers she admires most
• What she’d do differently second time around

Where to find Anna Willet: 

Website: https://www.annawillett.info/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Anna-Willett-1732961043643247/

Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com.au/AnnaWauthor/

What follows is a “near as” transcript of our conversation, not word for word but pretty close to it, with links to important mentions.

Jenny: Hello, Anna and welcome to the show. It’s great to have you with us.

Anna: Thank you Jenny. It’s a pleasure to be here.

Jenny: I always start with a predictable question, but I do know it’s one that readers like to have the answer to. Was there a ‘Once Upon a Time’ moment that catapulted you into writing fiction.  And if so, what was the catalyst?

A life long dream realised

Anna: I don’t think there was any one catalyst, but I’m always wanted to write. Even as a child, I would write short stories. But then marriage and studying and having children and working eclipsed all of those ideas for many years. And so it wasn’t until my daughters were older and I had time to actually consider what is it that I want to do, that I decided to take writing seriously and I started writing short stories.

 And then about six years ago I started writing my first novel.

Jenny: Fantastic, so now you’ve got to nine suspense thrillers that have described as real nail biters – the sort of thing that they advise “be sure to leave the lights on” and I can vouch for that . What attracted you to that particular niche of genre  – the psychological thriller?

Anna: That genre has always appealed to me.  I don’t really know what that says about my personality, but I do enjoy being able to examine the character’s emotional state. I feel it’s a meaty genre for me because I’ve always been interested in what motivates people in terms of their behavior.

The ‘fun’ in being crazy scared

So it’s fascinating for me to write psychological thrillers. They allow you to dig into unstable emotions in a character and I feel like when I’m doing a good job with that I can create a sense of fear and paranoia and claustrophobia in my reader and it sounds crazy, but for me, that’s kind of the fun of the psychological thriller.

Jenny: Yes, and I’m sure it is for the readers, the ones who like those sorts of stories. They really enjoy having themselves scared out of their socks don’t they?

Anna: Yes, yes, and as a reader, that’s what I enjoy when I’m reading these types of books. And so I want to write the sort of things that I know I would like to read.

Jenny: Yes. And maybe there’s a little bit of a psychological aspect of you also facing your own fears. I saw it suggested about one of the books –  The Woman Behind Her  – that the theme of it was facing your own fears. And I guess this question comes up quite often from readers, but where do you come up with those ideas? Is it like thinking of the most horrifying thing you could think of that would happen to you and writing about it.

The worst that can happen is here

Anna: Thinking about the most terrifying thing really allows you to get a reaction from the character. It peels back the layers.  It has worked for me, in that I’m able to understand why people feel things, and why I feel things, and what motivates that fear.

But for me as a writer with quite a vivid imagination, it hasn’t helped any of those fears, because in every situation my mind races ahead to what’s the worst possible thing that can happen in this situation.he very worst that’s coming

Yes, and so even for me in my personal life, if I’m boarding a plane or I see something, I’m always thinking a hundred miles ahead. What’s the worst thing that can happen? And I think  that’s what I take to my writing.  It reveals a lot about the character you’re writing about when you put them in the worst possible situation.

Jenny: And I guess there is also an underlying sense of being satisfied when they come through, even if they are hurt or harmed during the process. That somehow they survive and are theoretically stronger for it. Or at least that they have the resilience to see it through. There is an underlying positive thing isn’t there?

Characters that learn and grow

Anna: There is, and I always liked them to come away from it having grown, having learned something.  They might be scarred and changed in some ways, but it gets under the skin of the character and reveals who they really are. And even though sometimes it’s fun to have them do very silly things in dangerous situations, by the end of the story. I hope that the readers feel satisfied that the characters have come on a journey and they’ve learned something about themselves or they’ve grown or they’re stronger.

Jenny: Yes. And has your approach to writing this kind of story changed over time?

Anna:  It has, it certainly has had a huge change since I began. When I started writing novels. I had zero planning. I would just have the ideas that came to me and I would start. And so now I’m a partial plotter. So that’s a big change for me because I do do some plotting.

Cold Valley Nightmare

I write out some outlines for chapters, and have more of a character profile going on, but I certainly work a lot faster now. I write a lot faster, and I’m also I think now I’m a lot more confident about what I want to achieve.

Jenny: Yes. I thought the scenario that you established for the book called Cold Valley Nightmare was one that many women would identify with.  It’s the story of a woman’s four-year-old son who has been kidnapped and then her husband is suspected of being involved and I think she hired a private detective to try and prove his innocence.

A little bit like that TV show The Fugitive in a way, isn’t it?

Anna: It is a little bit like that. That was inspired by quite a well-known case here in Australia of a little boy that’s gone missing and hasn’t been found. It’s not that story, but it was inspired by this idea. I think I had the idea of “this is what I think could have happened.” And yes, that’s where that story came from.  But as a parent myself that is the most terrifying situation you could be in.

A getaway weekend goes wrong

Jenny: Totally. And in Unwelcome Guests, which I must say, I’m part way through at the moment – that’s described on your website as your best seller – it’s a weekend getaway in the country that goes terribly wrong.

We won’t have any more spoilers than that. But what sets this one apart do you think, in terms of popularity?

Anna: Well, it has been my most successful so far and that’s something I often say to my husband. This one always seems to be the most successful and the only thing I can think that sets it apart is that the story has a connection to my own life and my past.

Some parts of the story are inspired by what happened when I was 14 years old. A classmate of mine was abducted in broad daylight and the main character in the story has had a similar childhood experience. And so I drew on what happened to the girl  I knew and her close friends. And to me as her classmate, and her family, and the community.  I think there’s an authenticity to it. To what I write about and the impact that’s had on the people that are left behind.

The long shadow of childhood

Jenny:  That’s a terrifying scenario to face up to!

Anna: Yes, it was a terrifying scenario. I think maybe in some ways that drew me to this crime genre perhaps, because you know, it was one of those situations that you never think you’ll find yourself in?

Jenny: Yes, and without wanting to go into details, did you find a resolution in that particular case?  Did you find out in the end what had happened to her?

Anna: We did. Nine years later her body was discovered about a hundred meters from where she went missing under a concrete slab at the back of one of the shops.

Jenny:  How strange. ..

Anna: Yes. One of the shopkeepers was arrested and convicted of her murder.

Jenny: Amazing that could happen without anybody really witnessing it.

Hear no evil, see no evil . . .

Anna: On a Saturday afternoon. So my best friend and I  – my best friend lived around the corner from where it happened. We spent many years thinking “that could have been you, that could have been me,” because we were always together. 

We saw what it did to her family. Her father took his own life and her mother was on a lot of antidepressants and different things and ended up on dialysis and losing her life. So the entire family was decimated and I think it’s something that has always stayed with me – this sense of “what are the repercussions of these crimes?”

Jenny: Yes and that leads nicely on. I also observed that your work is really about gritty reality.  And in one of some of your book descriptions you specify that they’re non-supernatural and I get the feeling that perhaps you feel that resorting to supernatural  plot devices, is almost  an easy way out. You want to really face up to the gritty reality?

Presenting gritty reality

Anna: That’s it. Yes. For me as a reader and as a writer, the grittiness is important when writing about crime, because I don’t want to shy away from the starkness of violence and how it impacts on the victims and the perpetrator. So I don’t like to gloss over the reality of that side of it, the emotional side.

As a reader, I’m sort of drawn to that hard-hitting story. And so I suppose because I write the stories I like to read, that’s the way I write. It’s not glamorous. Violence is not glamorous. And I want that to be in my books.  I don’t put it in there to make them more frightening. I think it just adds to the realism.

Jenny: Yes. I don’t think  that you use gratuitous violence though?

Anna: No. I hope not. That’s not what I’m aiming for. But I’m not ruling out supernatural horror at some stage.

Small Town Nightmare

Jenny: It would  probably be a different series wouldn’t it?

Anna: Yes. Completely different

Jenny: It’s interesting mentioning that word “series” because I see two of them – Small Town Nightmare and Cold Valley Nightmare are described as being in a series. The Lucy Hush series. It did occur to me that with this type of book, where you put people through such a traumatic set of experiences, it might be quite hard to do a series because you’re then turning around and subjecting them to the same sort of horrible stuff all over again. Is it hard to write a series in this form of genre?

Anna: It is hard on the characters, but I think also that the experiences color their reactions and their relationships.  In the Lucy Hush series the recurring characters have been through so much and so that has to be evident in their thought processes in the next story, as different things unfold. So in some ways it’s hard because you keep putting them through this trauma, but in otherwise,  it becomes almost a pleasure to write because the characters evolve and grow and have so many more layers that I can draw on.

Feeling ‘almost mean.’ Almost.

And so when I’m writing something new, I can draw on what happened to them. I can explain this is why they feel the way they do and why they’ve changed and they can no longer handle it like they used to. It has helped in that way. I’m just wrapping up the third in the series at the moment so I feel like I know the characters really well.

I always feel almost mean putting them through some of the things that have happened to them at this stage. But only “almost.”

Jenny: That’s great. I notice that quite a few of them are available free on Kindle if people want to have a chance to taste some of your work. There’s quite a number of your books that are available for free on Kindle. Is that part of a long-term marketing strategy?

A publisher made in heaven

Anna: Well my publisher is The Bookfolks, which is a small press in the UK.  This is their marketing strategy. I believe they put some of them out free for a short time and then some they’ll put out at 99 cents and I think this is their strategy and it certainly seems to be working. I couldn’t be happier with everything they’ve done for me and how much effort they put into my novels and making them successful.

Jenny: That’s a wonderful endorsement to hear. So you went that route of finding a publisher then?  Have you got an agent as well.

Anna: I haven’t got an agent . I thought about it, but I don’t know if I need one. Perhaps not at the moment. I’m so happy with what The Bookfolks are doing for me, but I’m not ruling out getting an agent at some stage.

Jenny: And how many books do you write in say a year. Are you doing more than one a year?

Anna: I’m writing three a year, at the moment.

Jenny: Gosh that’s a lot.

Anna: It is a lot. I take probably about a two week break between books and and start the next one. I’m writing every day. So yes it is a lot, but I feel like I’m almost un-bottling after years of having all these ideas.

Supernatural horror on the way

Jenny: Yes. And do you think you’ll stick with the psychological thriller or have you got any thoughts about moving into slightly different genre?

Anna: I probably will stick with the psychological thrillers as I’ve said, I’m not really ruling out supernatural horror at some stage. Some of them are action thrillers, some of them mystery thrillers, some of them are more psychological thrillers. A lot of people call them horror thrillers

So within that one genre, there’s quite a lot of room to do different things.

Jenny: Turning to your wider career, away from the specific books. Tell us a bit about how you spnt your time before you did become a full-time writer and how has that life experience impacted on your writing?

The benefits of life experience

Anna: So before I became a full-time writer, of course, I’m a wife and a mother and I was a teacher and it has impacted on my writing in that. I think I’ve lived and I’ve experienced and I’ve lost and I’ve been through a lot of different things in my life.

Nothing as tragic as anyone in my books, but I don’t think I could have done what I do now when I was younger. I think it’s taken all this life experience to be able to bring as much emotion for the characters and and understand them the way I do. I don’t think I could have done that say, 20 years ago.

The secret of Anna’s success

Jenny: Yes.  Is there one thing you’ve done, perhaps more than any other that you would credit with your success as a writer

Anna: Yes, actually. I think I’ve been open to a lot of advice and help. Every step along the way I’ve had help from the people that I’ve dealt with,  editors and  different people. I’ve always been given a lot of advice and help and I’m very open and flexible to those sorts of things. I don’t feel rigid about “No, my way’s the best way and I’m not compromising what I do.”

I like to take on board what people are telling me and even with my publisher and editors –  if they give me some new great advice on what I can do to improve my writing, I’ll take it.  I think that’s why I’ve been successful.

Jenny: Yes. And do you do much rewriting?

Seeking to get better every time

Anna: I do a lot of editing. Sometimes I’m rewriting the same paragraph for two hours and then other times I’m flying along. Sometimes the publisher has me rewrite some things. I’ve even taken chapters out and put new chapters in and rewritten the ending. I don’t mind doing any of that if I feel like they’re telling me this is going to make the story better. I’ll do whatever they tell me to.

Jenny: Your stories are set in Australia, but the settings are quite neutral aren’t they? They don’t madly push Australia down your throat. Do you think that a lot of readers don’t even really understand that they are Australian?

Anna: I guess a lot of readers might not be so sure they’re Australian. I’ve had a lot of comments that people didn’t realize they were Australian until they mentioned something like a Kookburra  or something like that. So I’m not pushing it down people’s throats. I don’t want people to go away with that stereotypical image of Australians.

Western Australia – best kept secret

The way we speak , and the things we say.  I also think it’s a bit fascinating for some people in other parts of the world finding out about the beautiful places in Western Australia. Western Australia is not a very well-known place on the world stage and a lot of people think about when you say the bush they think the Outback?

And as we know that’s not the same thing and in Western Australia, you can drive two hours and you’re in thick forest or you can drive in the other direction and find beautiful long stretches of white beaches. So there’s so much scope in Western Australia. I love it. I love writing about it.

Jenny: That’s wonderful.  Have you lived there all your life?

Anna: I’ve lived in Western Australia since I was six. I came from the UK with my parents.

A typical working day

Jenny: Aha! So what does the typical working day look like for you?

Anna: So on a typical working day, I prefer to write in the afternoons or evenings. I’m not a morning person. So I’ll usually write in the afternoon then take a break and do some other things and then write again in the evening.  I try and write at least a thousand words every day. But some days are taken up with non-writing but writing related work if that makes sense.

Jenny: Yes, it does. Yes.

Anna: But yes, so I’m usually writing for about three hours a day two to three hours a day.

All in the cause of research

Jenny: Do you have to do research on weird subjects sometimes for your stories?

Anna: Yes, I do. Sometimes I think if you looked at my browser history, you’d probably be really worried. And also for the locations. My husband I will travel down south quite a lot and have a look at the places I’m writing about. Even though we might have been before, if there’s something a little bit new, we go down there and spend a few days and I take lots of photographs and have a walk around and soak in the area.

So I research the settings quite a lot. Just to make sure I get them right. And we stop at the odd Winery for lunch while I’m

Jenny: Also I guess there might be things like working out what poison would work best or macabre ways of killing people. Is that all part of it?

Weird questions for a local detective

Anna: It is! I’ve spent a lot of time looking at head injuries, looking at open fractures, at  how that would look, and  how that would be addressed by a doctor. What sort of emergency medical response, you’d have to certain injuries. Things like that. Yeah, there’s a lot of that sort of thing. You know about how would you store a body. Fortunately for me. I know a retired police detective very well. And so I asked him a lot of very weird questions, but he knows what they’re for.

Jenny: Oh that’s great. That’s very handy to have that online isn’t it?

Anna: So handy!

Anna as a reader – her preferences

Jenny:  Turning to  Anna as reader. I imagine that you probably as you’ve mentioned  you read the sorts of books that you like to write?

Tell us about some of your favorite binge reads.

Anna: Oh my favorite binge read recently has been Karin Slaughter. Oh, yes. The Grant County series. I love those. I think there are six in that series. So if readers are looking for something to binge read start with Blindsighted, that’s the first one and an absolutely wonderfully written thriller and then you can move on from there to the Will Trent series Karin Slaughter also writes.

I read all of those, I absolutely love them. And I also like Michael Connolly’s Harry Bosch series. Yes at the moment though. I’m reading Margaret Atwood. The Testaments.  (Booker Prize winner 2019))

Anna:   I recently read The Handmaid’s Tale for the first time. I was so fortunate that it came out in 1985. I finished reading it and Margaret Atwood released a sequel finally. It’s very dark and disturbing so it’s right up my alley.

Jenny: Yes, that’s great. I’m thinking about police procedurals. At the moment in New Zealand we’ve got the Scottish writer Val Mcdiarmid here. She’s doing three months at one of the New Zealand universities teaching creative writing. Have you come across her work?  They are police procedurals, but she’s a very fine thriller writer as well.

Anna: I know the name but haven’t read any of them.

Jenny:  I guess that’s all another very much specialist area, isn’t it?

Anna: It’s a specialist area and it’s quite difficult in Western Australia. I mean, I might be incorrect here, but there’s not a lot of information out there on police procedure in Western Australia.

As I say, I’m fortunate I can ask someone because when you’re writing about how the police investigate crimes, I feel like it has to be authentic. It has to be believable –  the way they investigate and what they do  – and so there’s not a lot of places even online where you can find those sorts of things out. You can find it out about America and the UK, Yes, but not Western Australia.

Jenny:  Western Australian police have got such a huge territory to cover, haven’t they?

Anna: That’s it. There’s so much area to cover and Perth is the most isolated city in the whole world. So it’s quite different here to how it is in other parts of the world.

And while our justice system is based on the British justice system, there are differences in the way the police would handle and approach cases. And I think for the reader it’s got to be authentic. It has to make sense.

Jenny:  We’re coming to the end of our time together. So circling around and looking back over your career. Did you say you’ve been writing for six years? You’ve accomplished a huge amount in six years. At this the stage, if you were doing it all again, is there anything that you would change?

Anna:  I don’t think I would change anything. I’ve done really in the last six years. Probably when I was in my 30s, I would have written more, but even then, you know, it may not have been published. but I would wish I had those things that I thought about, and wanted to write, I wish I had those to look back on and see what I would have produced when I was younger.

But in terms of where I’ve gone with my books and traditional publishing no, I don’t think I would change anything. I’m quite happy with how it’s all worked out. I feel very fortunate.

Jenny: That’s fantastic. So what is next for Anna the writer? What projects do you have in the works at the moment?

Anna: Well, as I say, I’m wrapping up the third in the Lucy Hush Series, so I’m right at the end of that. I’m hoping that will come out by the end of the year, if not early next year. I have an idea that’s been bouncing around in my head for another standalone thriller, and I’m very eager to start writing.

Jenny: And the Lucy Hush series – Will that be a trilogy or you thinking there might be still more to come?

Anna: I planned it as a trilogy and I think it will be a trilogy but these characters I keep feeling like they have more to say, that  here’s more to their story. So. I’m not ruling out writing a fourth one, but it would have to be good.  It would have to be worth doing and not just to drag the series out.

Jenny:  Yes that’s an interesting question. Do your characters sometimes surprise you in the sense that they just seem to want to refuse to do whatever it is you’re thinking that they should be doing next.

Anna: It happens all the time! I have one thing in mind and it’s almost like the characters in the story has a mind of its own and it goes in a different direction and I’m a little bit surprised by what I have them doing because that’s not at all how I saw it happening

Jenny:  How interesting. So how do you handle that?

Anna: It usually is for the better. So I’m usually like “Okay. this is good.

Jenny: It keeps it interesting for you too?

Anna: It does keep it interesting for me too. And the only thing, when there’s characters I’ve become so fond of, it becomes a little bit harder to do something really ruthless.

Jenny: Yes, I can imagine. They have that phrase about “killing your babies” don’t they?

Anna: That’s it. I keep thinking about that; “kill your babies.” And I’m like, “oh no.”

Jenny: How do you like to meet with or engage with your readers? How are they best able to reach out to you?

Anna: Well, a lot of my readers are in the UK and in America, so I do have people emailing me and messaging me through Facebook, which is lovely. I would love that when readers do that have a newsletter as well, which if people would like to join the newsletter they can find that on my website.

Jenny: Do you have a chance to visit libraries or book clubs or that kind of thing. Do you meet people in person?

Anna: I have done that. I have traveled down to Collie and places like that for Writer’s Festivals and done a panel and things like that, but. A lot of the writing gatherings that go on in my area seem to be a lot of romance writers and while they’re gorgeous and I know they would welcome me in, I know my writing is a little bit different from theirs and I so I feel like I might not be a good fit. Plus I’m a bit of a solitary person.

But I do love hearing from the readers and I have been getting a lot of messages from readers and emails and you know, I love hearing what they’ve got to say and even hearing about their lives and I’ll tell them about my dogs and it’s really nice to connect with people.

Jenny: That’s lovely. Thank you so much for taking part in this It’s been great to hear more about your work.

Anna: Oh, it’s been a pleasure. I’ve really enjoyed it. Thank you so much Jenny

If you enjoyed hearing about Anna’s work perhaps you would also enjoy

Thanks To Our Technical Support:

The Joys of Binge Reading podcast is put together with wonderful technical help from Dan Cotton at DC Audio Services. Dan is an experienced sound and video engineer who’s ready and available to help you with your next project… Seek him out at dcaudioservices@gmail.com or Phone + 64 – 21979539. He’s fast, takes pride in getting it right, and lovely to work with.

Our voice overs are done by Abe Raffills, and Abe’s another gem. He got 20 years of experience on both sides of the camera/microphone as a cameraman/director and also voice artist and television presenter. Abe’s vocal delivery is both light hearted and warm and he is super easy to work with no matter the job. You’ll find him at abe@pointandshoot.co.nz