1) What led you into a life of crime fiction writing?
I always wanted to be a writer, and read many genres. This made figuring out what I actually wanted to write tricky. I’ve always loved crime fiction, but I figured you had to know a lot about police investigations, forensics, and the law in order to write it well. For a lot of years, I pursued other projects, including essays and memoir, which led to my first two books.
In my early thirties, I ended up with chronic fatigue syndrome (ME/CFS) and ended up mostly bedbound. Through those years, when I was well enough, I listened to hundreds of hours of true crime podcasts. After a few years of that, it felt like I knew enough about police investigations, forensics, and the law to try writing a thriller. It was an experiment, and it led to a full-time writing career.
2) You conjure some incredibly dark scenes. Which scene among all your works was the most challenging to write?
In the opening of my debut thriller, Dark Mode, the main character is out for an early run when she discovers the body of a woman who’s clearly been murdered, and happens to look a lot like her. Reagan knows the right thing to do is to call the cops – and she wants to. But more than that, she wants nothing to do with the police, and especially doesn’t want to share her name or address with them. Ultimately, she chooses to flee.
This isn’t a particularly dark scene, but it was incredibly difficult to write because this is our first introduction to Reagan. In early drafts, my writers’ group said, ‘Why is she so terrible? We don’t want to read about someone so callous and selfish.’ I had to go through a lot of drafts to calibrate the opening, so it creates reader curiosity rather than judgement.
Now readers tell me they love Reagan and want to protect her. The essential action is the same – she finds the body, prevaricates, then flees. But now the opening hooks readers. My workshop will cover some of the techniques used to do this. And they might surprise you.
3) What does the research process look like for you when planning your next book? I am imagining mass crime-fic consumption and hardcore murder docos.
I’m fascinated by how society addresses crime, as well as its root at the individual and societal level. And I’m especially interested in how our devices make us vulnerable to crime, which is why my books have been called ‘tech noir’.
Research is an ongoing process for me. I still listen to true crime constantly, and make notes of ideas to come back to. My next thriller combines two separate ideas (drawn from real-life events), neither of which were strong enough on their own. Together, they make the story unpredictable and give it deeper resonance.
4) Can you tell us about discovering the seed of your latest thriller, Like, Follow, Die?
This novel started with a 300-word pitch to a publisher (one of the privileges of being a few books in). Their response? ‘We love it! Except the main bit. Take that out.’
If I took the main bit out, all that was left was a book about a cop.
We got on a call to discuss, and they suggested directions the story could go, based on my original idea. As usual, I drew on a real-life crime my brain had become obsessed with. I can’t tell you what it is (#spoilers), but it’s in the book’s author note. Once I combined that with what the publisher wanted, the story unfurled organically – which isn’t usually the case with my novels!
5) What are some of the things to consider when constructing twisty plotlines?
Twists are tricky, but so rewarding when you make them work. They’re a key part of crime thrillers, but can benefit stories across many genres. Some of my biggest twists were my starting places for novels, allowing me to construct the story around them. Others have come to me organically during drafting. A key point to note is that narrative drive doesn’t rely on twists, but on far more technical aspects of writing, starting from the very first scene – and that’s what our workshop focuses on.
6) What are you working on next? Can we expect another thriller from you?
Absolutely! My next thriller also features cybercrime, but this one is set in the outback (it makes sense, I promise). For research, I completed outback survival training and spent time in Mungo and Mutawintji National Parks. I can’t say much more, other than that my personal slogan for the book is ‘500 per cent more twists!’
Thank you Ashley, for this peek behind the scenes at your writerly life and how you got here.
Ashley will be in Adelaide on Saturday 27 June to teach her most popular workshop for Writers SA. Learn more by watching Ashley’s video below, and via the registration page here.
