My Weblog: The Femmes Fatales welcome Simon Wood!

posted by Dana

Award-winning writer Simon Wood returns to blog with the Femmes Fatales. His new thriller, The One That Got Away, dropped this week, and you should rush to check it out! As always, Simon brings his own experiences to his work, and today, he shares the process behind the new book. Simon, take it away!

I’m very topic driven when it comes to my books. I latch onto an issue, it becomes the basis of a conflict and a book is born from there. With The One That Got Away, survivor guilt was the driving force behind the story. It was a subject that had been in my head for awhile. I had the beginning of the story—two women are abducted and one of the women is given an unenviable decision—attempt a futile rescue or leave her friend in order to escape. My heroine in this case, Zoë Sutton, weighs up the odds and runs, but her life is forever tarnished by that selfish, yet logical decision.

That was the crux of the story, but I had to decide where to go from there. I knew little about the topic of survivor guilt, but at the time I was under the care of a neuropsychologist for a head injury and subsequent memory loss after crashing on my bike. I mentioned that I wanted to talk to someone about survivor guilt.

“Go to the VA.”

“But the book isn't about soldiers.”

“Doesn’t matter. If you want to learn about post traumatic stress disorder, then go to the VA.”

I was introduced to a psychologist who counseled veterans of various conflicts going all the way back to Vietnam. I outlined the basic premise of the book and opened with a question that outlined my basic ignorance and sat back and listened. The great beauty about in-person interviews is that I don’t have any idea where they’ll go, other than nowhere where I thought.

I thought I had an idea of what survivor guilt and PTSD were but it was a good example of an outsider’s perspective. Our long and lengthy discussions got into the meat of the subject. Some of the common afflictions affecting people include sobriety, impulse behavior, isolationism, arrogance, and contempt to name a few. I’ve attempted to incorporate these behaviors into Zoë’s character which also helped drive the plot.

As I tried to absorb this information, I couldn’t help but marvel at this condition where people feel shame for surviving. You fight for your life and win, but your mind discounts the win and obsesses on the loss. The survivor takes on the emotional weight and responsibility for those who didn’t make it and it’s just too big a burden for him/her to bear. The result is that the survivor drives themselves to destruction either directly by throwing themselves into similar conflicts or indirectly through substance abuse and depression. This has to be the most paradoxical illness on the books.

But it’s this paradoxical thinking is what drew me to write about the topic. Ten years ago I was undergoing first responder disaster training. One of the modules dealt with the psychological effects of rescuing the dead and dying; making life and death decisions for total strangers. Then they told us the suicide rate for first responders and it was quite scary. A friend of mine who is both an author and veteran recently posted a stat about returning veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan. Almost four times as many veterans have taken their lives since coming home than those who died in battle. There's not a lot I can say to that other than we’re strange and complex creatures who don’t always make sense.

I hope with The One That Got Away I’ve made an entertaining read but at the same time, I’ve shined a light on a subject that most of us aren't really cognizant of. If you read the book, I encourage you to let me know what you think.

Simon Wood is a California transplant from England. He's a former competitive racecar driver, a licensed pilot, an endurance cyclist and an occasional PI. He shares his world with his American wife, Julie. Their lives are dominated by a longhaired dachshund and four cats. He's the Anthony Award winning author of Working Stiffs, Accidents Waiting to Happen, Paying the Piper, Terminated, Asking For Trouble, We All Fall Down and the Aidy Westlake series. His latest thriller is The One That Got Away, due out March '15. He also writes horror under the pen name of Simon Janus. Curious people can learn more at http://www.simonwood.net.

Comments

Welcome, Simon. I'm a big fan of your work and look forward to reading your exploration of survivor guilt. The stats on returning veterans are sad and horrible.

Posted by: Elaine Viets | March 06, 2015 at 08:09 AM

Can't wait to crack my copy - I had no idea about the mechanism of survivor guilt either. I thought it would be - you know - guilt. As in feeling guilty. It sounds exhausting and scary.

Posted by: catriona | March 06, 2015 at 08:23 AM

Thanks ladies.

A friend of mine who's a vet posted a stat a few months ago saying that 3times as many vets have died by their own hand since returning home than died combat.

Posted by: Simon Wood | March 06, 2015 at 10:24 AM

Now I know what I'll be pre-ordering this weekend. We have soldiers in the family and returning home is not always as easy as we think and hope it might be. Sounds like a good story, can't wait to read.

Posted by: Sally Schmidt | March 06, 2015 at 11:27 AM

Hope you like it, Sally.

Posted by: Simon Wood | March 06, 2015 at 02:12 PM