Author Spotlight: Meet Debut Thriller Writer, Heidi Field

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Today, I’m so pleased to introduce you to thriller writer, Heidi Field! Her debut novel, The Other Boy, released from Tule Publishing yesterday and it is a page-turner!

Heidi Field was raised in the beautiful countryside of the South of England with her parents and her two sisters. In her twenties she was a freelance Sports Massage Therapist. She achieved a Degree in Zoology at the age of thirty and then went on to raise two boys and became the stepmother of three more young children. She still lives near her family home with her partner, their Great Dane and the children that have yet to fly the nest. In her early forties, Heidi completed a Masters in Creative Writing at Winchester University. She entered the course hoping she would become a children’s fantasy writer and left with a burning desire to write contemporary mysteries and thrillers. Heidi wanted to put relatable people in extraordinary situations, challenge them, push them to their limits and watch them fight for their sanity. The Other Boy is her first novel.

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N: Welcome to the blog, Heidi. I’m so delighted to have you with us today. So, opening question, what comes first—characters or plot?

A: Hey Nan. Thank you very much for having me. What comes first for me? Plot.

I have an idea of a scene, I write it, and the rest flows from there. Without doubt, the characters drive the story from that point onwards, and even when I’m facing huge cuts and changes in the editing process, it is always the characters that decide where the story goes.

The plot idea begins with an overarching concept, for The Other Boy I wanted to write a book about the parents of a serial killer’s accomplice. I wanted to discover what their journey would be after finding out the worst thing a person could know about their child.

I have five children, two sons by different fathers and three stepchildren. We are an awesome blended family, and the kids, now mostly adults, support and champion each other in all their individual endeavors, but getting them there has not always been easy. My writing journey is, in part, driven by my personal experiences. The idea of parents being pushed beyond any imagined limits felt like an exhilarating scenario to explore.

The first scene I ever wrote for The Other Boy was the one where Blair thinks she has seen Jamie in the high street and runs out in front of a car.

Writing The Other Boy was a long process with a LOT of learning on route, swathes of text removed and reorganized, and characters lost. It was terrifying and thrilling. My favourite part of writing a book is, undoubtedly, the editing. Once the first draft is written, anything is possible, and there are so many wonderful surprises still to discover.

I was not a planner for The Other Boy or for the novel I wrote afterwards, which will be the first in my next series. When I began writing book two in this series, The Other Mother, I used the Save The Cat planning outline to keep me on track. It has made the whole writing process more efficient and faster, with more time for that wonderful editing stage.

N: Your bio says you went for a degree in Creative Writing with the intention of writing children’s fantasy. You took quite a different exit ramp with your first novel being a thriller. How did that happen?

A: I can’t lie, I LOVED Harry Potter, I have always adored dragons, and I have dreamed, since childhood, of having magic powers. I am still just as invested in those things in my daydreams as an adult and I still hope that a baby dragon will arrive on my doorstep and be my BFF.

After having my first child, suffering from post-natal depression and in a failing marriage, I turned to writing. My son didn’t sleep well at night, giving me hours in the day when I needed something to focus on other than the initial the shock of motherhood. After watching Brokeback Mountain twice at the cinema, crying my eyes out, a wholly cathartic experience on both occasions, I decided to try to write a screenplay, an epic fantasy adventure full of dragons.

A very kind friend-of-a-friend read my screenplay and told me I would be better off trying to write a book. Ha!

I should just mention that I have treasured being a stay-at-home-mum, for me, it is the best job in the world. Writing is the icing on the cake.

Over a decade after that first screenplay attempt, a fantasy adventure novel, a time-slip romance and several children’s stories later, I figured I needed guidance. I also needed more than the housewife and mothering role now that our children were growing up and going away.

The degree at Winchester University was BRILLIANT. It was a breath of fresh air, meeting other people that loved to write as much as I did. It’s a lonely pastime, tucked away in an office for hours with only your imagination for company. I almost took the Writing for Children Masters course, but at the last minute I opted for the Creative and Critical Writing Masters.

The course required us to read across all genres and write first chapters in each. It became clear to me that fantasy was not my calling, my chapters were dark, people died, protagonists were morally questionable and often unreliable. Even my comedy and romance chapters took a turn for the macabre.

I was a thriller writer, and my imagination gave me no choice in the matter.

Trying to discuss plot ideas or character twists can make for some interesting discussions around the dinner table.

N: Your debut novel, The Other Boy released yesterday, June 25. Tell us how that story came about.

A: I watched a documentary about the serial killer John Wayne Gacy. I love a serial killer movie, I was glued to the television set watching Dexter, and I have always enjoyed seeing an innocent victim get away from the bad guy.

Raising four boys, I began to wonder what it might be like to discover that one of my son’s had somehow been involved with a serial killer, and what the parents of a killer’s accomplice might go through. Interestingly, A Killer’s Accomplice was an early title for the book, but The Other Boy fits the twists and turns more appropriately.

I didn’t want to write from the POV of a victim or their family, or the detectives or even the killer, there was another story, in the shadows, that I wanted to tell.

N: What is the most surprising thing you discovered about yourself while writing The Other Boy?

A: That I can spend hours and hours working at something that has no reward, no outcome, other than my own satisfaction. Of course, I hoped that my books would one day find a publisher, but the joy of writing The Other Boy was the journey of discovery, my ability to bin hours of work to make the book better, crisper, more interesting, to write a character and then erase them and not look back. It feels like being on a huge, super-fast, rollercoaster, and I do love a rollercoaster, the horror of having to lose those precious words and then the delight in finding something so much better beyond the cuts.

I learned that not everything I do is worthwhile or any good, but if I keep trying, I can keep improving. Not once have I wanted to give up or stop writing, and much of my day away from my desk is spent thinking about scenes, conversations between characters, plot twists and the next novels I want to pen.

It is all consuming, and a wonderful way to spend my time.

It helps that I love to exercise, running, ultra-walking, and long weight sessions in the gym, all presenting me with more time to think about my stories and my characters.

N: I got to read an ARC of your book and found it enthralling and un-put-downable. I’d love for you to speak to writing thrillers. How do you create the twists and turns like the ones that happen in The Other Boy?

A: The Other Boy has been an organic, free-writing process and the twists and turns wrote themselves. There was no planning, the scenes just came along as I wrote. When I got feedback about things that didn’t work, I removed large sections and then went back to the characters for the answers.

Having said that, I became a member of Jericho Writer’s, and I watched a LOT of their masterclasses. I needed to give myself permission to go places that felt uncomfortable, and have characters do things that go against my own moral or emotional compass.

Sometimes, I just needed something to happen that was a surprise, something unexpected, something to steer the story in another direction and once I had told myself that, the answer presented itself to me. It’s a bit like a puzzle in my head with a missing piece and my mind churns over the dilemma until it fills the gap.

Often, the twists are just a matter of writing down what an unhinged, stressed, out-of-control, insecure or terrified character would do. Those big emotions drive the big choices, right or wrong, good or bad, and panic and fear are wonderful motivators for the worst kinds of behaviors.

N: What is the most difficult part about writing for you?

A: Not getting side-tracked with research.

I’m picking topics and stories that I find fascinating, and I can get lost for hours in the research.

There’s not a lot I can’t tell you about serial killer accomplices from the last fifty years, who they are, what they did, what their lives were like growing up, their sentences, prison experiences and what has become of them.

In the end, you can’t rationalize an irrational act, and any attempts to understand the motivations of a killer are futile. For every awful childhood I read about, there was a good one that countered the upbringing argument. The unique ingredients that came together to drive the choices of all of the teenagers I read about are just that, unique. You cannot comprehensively unpick the steps that led to their crimes or recreate them.

What that means for my writing is that I have a plethora of information to draw on, a vast array of options for backstory, a myriad of directions to take the characters.

Thrillers are thrilling because you don’t know what is coming next and it is almost impossible to predict how the villain will react.

N: In your life, you’ve been a massage therapist, raised a family, received a degree in Zoology, and completed a Masters in Creative Writing. How do those experiences influence your writing.

A: Stories are about people.

The more people you meet and talk to, the more you learn. No one can have experienced everything in a book, but it is amazing how a brief conversation can give a peek into another career, lifestyle, hobby or relationship. GOLDEN NUGGETS that can be the springboard for wonderful stories, rounded characters and exciting adventures.

I am told OFTEN that I talk too much. I do. The more I talk, the more I get back. If I engage with people, they engage with me; if I share, they share. This is less effective around family who know all there is to know about me and how I think, then I can become a bore.

Also, I spend so long alone, when I finally get to talk to a real living human, I can’t seem to find my off switch!

N: Writing can be an emotional, stressful pursuit. Any tips for aspiring writers?

A: Relish that.

Everything worth doing is going to stir up emotions, otherwise why do it? Stress is a great thing, it focuses the mind, gets your heart pumping, makes you hit those deadlines (even the ones you give yourself).

I cry when I read books, so why not when I write them. I feel scared, I laugh, jump and get angry as a reader, so I expect do the same when I am writing. It is the readers emotions we are trying to tap into, after all.

Like every choice of career or pursuit, you need to enjoy it, but the fun can be in the completion of that first draft or an awesome plot twist that hits all the right notes, or a character quirk that makes your protagonist extra adorable.

Love the little things, and the whole will come together.

N: What did you want to be when you grew up?

A: An actress and a vet. I did go to drama college after taking my A-levels, and I achieved that zoology degree when I was thirty.

Those are material things, though, what I really wanted was to be happy. I had a difficult time in secondary school, the butt of many jokes, and subtle bullying, which made me miserable. What saved me was the studying, which I did diligently, an escape from the everyday stuff, the social stuff, the stuff I didn’t do so well at.

Perhaps, I was always going to end up as a writer.

N: Favorite book when you were a kid?

A: Anne of Green Gables by Lucy Maud Montgomery. The hair, the boy, Marilla and Matthew. I still love the story as much as I did. It will always have a special place in my heart.

N: And here is my signature question that everyone loves: If you could choose three people, living or dead, to invite to a dinner party, who would they be and why?

A: Mel Robins – because I think she is awesome. Chris Hemsworth – because who doesn’t want to have dinner with their biggest Hollywood crush? Prince William – I’d like to hear his take on the royal family, because there’s at least two sides to every story.

GIVEAWAY! Heidi is giving away a gift card and an e-book copy of The Other Boy to one lucky reader. Just tell her in the comments below, What is the best plot twist you’ve read?

The Other Boy

When the worst comes calling…

Scott and Blair Bagby are a happy, successful English couple living in the suburbs with their teenage son and Great Dane. Life seems good, until one beautiful spring morning when a detective inspector knocks on their door asking if their son is home, unleashing an unspeakable horror that blows apart the life they thought they had.

Police have discovered bodies buried deep in the Peasedale forest and the inspector suspects one is Jamie, the final victim of a brutal and prolific serial killer. But Jamie’s death is unlike all the others, starting with his emergency phone call that leads to a macabre burial ground near a dilapidated hunting shack and creates shocking suspicions.

With bone deep grief threatening to destroy their marriage and their sanity, Scott and Blair set out to investigate Jamie’s death, a journey that not only upends their perceptions of who they are, but torturously reveals they may not have known Jamie at all…

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