By Stephanie Padilla, editor of New Mystery Reader, www.newmysteryreader.com:
Please welcome Lois Gilbert, New Mystery Reader's featured author for April. Now and again we're lucky enough to stumble across an amazing author we're unfamiliar with, one whose impact and originality far surpasses those we've come to recognize as household names, and as sometime these special authors can get lost in that crowd, we feel a certain duty to help get the word out. So join us in getting to know a little bit about this creative and inspiring author whose latest book is a great reminder of why we love to read.
Let's begin with a brief background of your previous novels, what they were about and when they were published.
“River of Summer” was published in 1999. It’s an age-crossed romance about a thirty-nine year old woman from Santa Fe who buys an RV and heads west to find meaning in her life after a painful divorce. She runs into a good-looking vagabond eleven years her junior, and in spite of the secrets they keep and the lies they tell, they eventually learn the hidden truths about each other and fall in love.
Shortly after I finished “River of Summer,” I wrote “Without Mercy,” published in 2000. It’s an intimate murder mystery that takes place during a blizzard, when a family is snowed in together in their farmhouse in upstate New York. The narrator of the story discovers a stranger’s dead body in the woods on the farm property, and as a result, old secrets come to life. She eventually realizes that every member of her family is a suspect in the murder.
It seems your first title fell into the general fiction category. Why did you begin to diverge into the mystery suspense genre with your second title and continue it with your third?
I think stories come to us first as an irritation, a “what-if?” sort of thought that won’t go away, and this thought grows into an obsession. You spend time rolling the thing back and forth in your own head, then huddle over your laptop worrying it to death, and if you persevere with it, that little irritating thought becomes so lacquered by your efforts that you finally achieve the pearl of a book. Why do some thoughts stick in our heads and others don’t? I don’t know. But if you’re obsessed with a story that won’t let you sleep at night, you probably have a book in there somewhere. The first irritating story I couldn’t get out of my head was a romance, but since then I’ve been possessed by the itch to write murder mysteries. It’s really as simple as that.
Is the approach different with suspense than general fiction? Do you write as you go, or do you know beforehand where you'll end up, or is it different in each case?
The approach is the same, and it’s always a good idea to know where you’re going before you begin. You start out thinking of somebody who wants something. A woman might yearn for a man, or she might want to know who killed her son. Either way, you have a character with an urgent desire. Then you have to let them suffer. No matter what genre you’re writing in, if your character’s not in trouble, then you’re in trouble.
When I began writing, I had no idea where I’d end up in the plot. I was playing fast and loose with structure, which was fun, but a lot more work to tie it all together in the end. Now if I’m writing a mystery, I begin by picturing the murder. I know who did it, and why. Then I write all the scenes the book needs to make the murder seem inevitable. Writing the murder scene first is the most efficient way for me to align the structure of the book, because I know where I’m going, I know who will be sacrificed along the way, I know who did it, and why.
Your background indicates you've been spending some time on the other side of publishing, such as lecturing and manuscript editing. How is it looking from the other end? What would you consider the most important advice you could give a struggling author?
Reviewing other writers’ work has been just as rewarding for me as writing. The talent out there amazes me, and humbles me too, especially when I know a writer is better than I am at stringing together eloquent sentences, or presenting research in a dramatic way, or creating lively, interesting characters. Other times I have to groan when I see writers making my mistakes. One problem I see over and over again is the wandering plot, when a writer combines several different goals at once. We want to write about everything that appeals to us, and glue it together somehow. But story telling demands logic. Readers know this logic, and if a writer cheats us out of any element of a story, we feel bored. If you’re a writer, you have to start with the basics for a successful character: yearning and obstacle. Each chapter should pique our interest about the characters by establishing and reinforcing their desires and illuminating their conflicts.
Now in your latest, "Returning to Taos," you explore grief and loss with such empathetic detail that it's difficult to believe this is mere fiction. This had to be a difficult subject of focus?
I’m not a mother, so I can only imagine what it would feel like to endure the death of your own child. I’ve known mothers who have suffered this loss, and my empathy for them helped me create the emotional tone of the book. But the book is fiction. It was a challenge to throw myself into Elena Waters’ world, to feel what she felt, to suffer what she suffered, and there were times I was scared to death to be in her shoes.
As one who loves, and is very familiar with, the area in which your book takes place I must give you extra kudos for grasping its diversity and unique beauty. Why did you choose this place in particular?
Taos was my introduction to New Mexico. I moved to Taos in 1978 and lived there for five years before moving to Santa Fe. The first winter I lived in Taos we had blizzards every weekend, and I thought I’d die of the cold. Now I’d give a lot to see a winter like that again. I’ve lived in New Mexico for twenty-eight years now. It was pure self-indulgence on my part to write about my favorite places around Taos – the gorge, the Rio Grande, the Truchas Peaks.
It's difficult to determine which you've made more real, characters, place, or plot, in your latest. Which was the most challenging of the three to bring to life?
Plot is always the most difficult for me. So many threads need to be intricately knotted and woven together, and the logic has to be impeccable. Sometimes you just want to push your characters along so you can reveal what you need to reveal, but you have to make sure everyone is moving naturally, logically, smoothly toward your goal.
The easiest and most enjoyable?
It’s all good. But I do love my characters. That little cameo role of Russell Black Crow, the Lakota man who ran the sweat lodge – I don’t know where he came from, or how I dreamed him up, but I love him. I wish he were real, so I could meet him.
Who was your favorite character and why?
Oh, no doubt about it. Elena. She’s so torn up inside, so filled with crazy grief, so desperate to find the answers she needs, and she’s so brave. Brave enough to talk to her dead son. Brave enough to put herself in danger. Brave enough to help herself when no one else will help her. And brave enough to fall in love again.
After your book is in print, what percentage would you say you could change if you could?
I noticed the proofreader made some changes to punctuation I would have left alone, if I’d been reading the galleys carefully enough to catch them. Otherwise, I like the book. There are passages that still give me goose bumps, no matter how often I read them.
I've spoken with other authors who feel a certain pressure to commit to a "series" in order to publish, is this something you've considered?
No, never. To write a book is such a long, tough commitment, I don’t think I could do it because of the pressure of the market. I don’t think I could commit myself to the work unless I felt passionate about every aspect of the future book.
Would you still write novels, knowing you'd never publish?
Unfortunately, I’m stuck with this brain, and it wants to write. It’s like having a dog you must walk. Whether you want to take it for a walk or not, you know it has to be done or it won’t leave you in peace.
And finally, please tell us if you have another book in the works, and if so, details!
My latest novel is an archaeological mystery set in the Gila wilderness, and I’ll be sure to let you know when it comes out.