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Hi Vanessa
A Whispered Darkness sounds very dark and creepy. How do you get your readers to experience the darkness themselves and make them feel it?
Hello! Thank you for having me today! This is a hard one. I must confess up front that I am the biggest wimp ever. But I love making other people scared. I love Halloween and spend more time than I care to remember decorating and reading up on how to haunt a house. I used to spend every October working on detailed plans for a Halloween party, which usually wasn’t as intense as I’d planned. (allowances aren’t that big, after all!) My book is not a “shock and gore” type horror novel. I don’t use the “gross out factor” to make readers scared. I hope that when my readers are reading they are mildly creeped out (or more). And maybe they put it down and think, “eh, that’s not so bad.” But later, when they’re in bed, and its dark and quiet and they realize that the closet door isn’t quite closed, they start to think about something they read and suddenly it’s a lot harder to sleep.
I guess I’m hoping that I can inspire a reader’s imagination to make my work even creepier than it is. That’s what I’m aiming for, at least.
How would you describe Claire? Is she like anyone you know?
Claire is an introvert at heart, who is slowly realizing that she has to come to terms with herself as she is, including her mistakes and her past. She wasn’t a bad person in the past, before The Incident, but she was cocky and a little full of herself, and when the book starts, she’s on the other end of the spectrum. She’s a little broken and she’s learning how to fix herself.
Claire, as I think all characters are, has some aspects of myself in her. I think that no matter what you do as an author, there’s a little bit of you in every character, whether you realize it or not. Claire’s relationship with her brother is a bit like mine with my little brother. We’re very close (which is unusual, I know.) We weren’t always that way, but it’s nice to read a story where siblings aren’t at each other’s throats or indifferent. Otherwise, there isn’t any one person that I would say I based her on. (All my friends are breathing sighs of relief)
Did you do any research before or while writing Whispered Darkness?
I did a little bit of research into ghosts and the paranormal, but as that is a fascination of mine in general, not too much. I will admit to watching a lot of “ghost TV” while I was writing this as a form of motivation/mood setting.
Hardest scene or part of the book to write?
Oh, this one is easy. The end. It’s always the end. As it stands now, it was a great deal shorter before I did a rewrite. I knew what I wanted, but it wasn’t translating like I’d hoped. Now, I think, it’s much better and much closer to what I intended and what I see in my head. I’d say more, but I don’t want to give away any spoilers!
How long did Whispered Darkness take to write?
It was probably about a year in the making, with some breaks here and there. It went through some critiques and some betas after the first few drafts, so maybe a little over a year.
Thank you again for having me! I hope that you enjoy the book!
Buy A Whispered Darkness
Amazon USA
Find Vanessa
Thanks for having me!
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