Happy Thursday my bookish friends. Today I am welcoming, Victoria Wlosok author of How to Find a Missing which I reviewed earlier this week AND it’s officially out in the UK today!
Under the Cover is where I interview some of favourite authors and authors I’ve recently read and discovered. I’m trying to refresh my blog and I love interviewing authors and getting an insight into their storytelling, hence Under the Cover was born.
Happy Publication Day yesterday Victoria! So as a way to celebrate I have an amazing interview with Victoria talking behind the scenes of her debut saphhic YA novel that you all have to read this Autumn.
Interview with Victoria Wlosok
Can you pick a quote to summarise your debut book How to Find a Missing Girl?
There are so many intertwining plot threads in the book, but I think this one-sentence pitch summarizes them perfectly: “Seventeen-year-old amateur sleuth Iris and her sapphic detective agency investigate the disappearance of Iris’s cheerleader ex-girlfriend, who also happens to be the creator of a notorious true-crime podcast about Iris’s missing older sister.”
(And an actual quote from the book that would summarize it reads as follows, from Iris’s aunt: “You’re not a detective, Iris,” she finally says, her voice soft. “And one of these days, you’re going to get yourself into real trouble.”)
It’s a classic question, but one I love to ask debut authors: what started your love for writing?
I strongly believe that I’m a writer today because I was a reader first. I fell in love with literature (which is the closest thing we have to magic in the real world) from an early age, and that love propelled me into creating my own stories from an early age. (I’ve actually wanted to be an author ever since I was five years old, so I’m finally living out my childhood dream in the most surreal and exciting way!)
What influenced your love of mysteries? Do you have any favourites whether it’s books or TV shows? Favourite detectives?
I have a whole slew of favorite fictional detectives, many of whom are actually referenced within How to Find a Missing Girl. I grew up with Nancy Drew, the Hardy Boys, and the Mystery Incorporated gang, so all those characters are close to my heart; old-school detectives like Columbo, Hercule Poirot, and Sherlock Holmes are some of my favorites; and I’m 100% obsessed with modern investigators like Benoit Blanc, Jake Peralta, and Veronica Mars.
I love having evidence and snippets in mystery books, like the true crime podcast. Did you research or listen to any?
I’m surprisingly not the largest fan of true crime. I love fictional true-crime podcasts, but I think there’s a complex morality to sensationalizing real cases for content, which is actually a theme I explore in the book. In order to capture the right vibe of the podcast in HTFAMG, though, I did listen to a lot of true crime—especially amateur podcasts!
I love the representation and inclusivity of your sapphic YA detective agency. How important was it to you to write a diverse and inclusive YA mystery novel?
While I love thrillers and the detectives who lead them, it’s not hard to see that my aforementioned list of childhood idols is overwhelmingly white, male, and cisheteronormative. Even though there have been positive strides in recent years in terms of diversifying the genre (and I greatly admire authors such as Hanna Alkaf, Jumata Emill, and Angeline Boulley for doing that work in the YA thriller space), I wanted to see a YA thriller with a pansexual seventeen-year-old girl at its helm, with queer friends that reflected my own. Because of that, it was extremely important to me that How to Find a Missing Girl was diverse and inclusive, and I hope it resonates with readers on that front.
I loved the cast of characters, and how different they are and all have their own uniqueness. I love Sammy—who was your favourite character to write?
I’m glad you loved Sammy because I got the most enjoyment from writing her scenes! She’s such a fun, bubbly, and silly person while simultaneously being a vital component of the agency, and I loved exploring the dichotomy between her easy-going personality and her concrete list of soft and hard skills. (Her outfit game is always on-point, too, and I absolutely loved pulling her on-page looks together!)
I’m always curious about how authors write mystery novels. How do you plan? Do you know whodunnit and work backwards or does it change whilst you’re writing?
I actually wrote the majority of HTFAMG as I went along, especially in the early drafts of the novel, and I had to later go back and rewrite large swaths of the book in order for everything to come together reasonably in the end. It’s like Neil Gaiman says: “Write down everything that happens in the story, and then in your second draft make it look like you knew what you were doing all along.” So in a way, I worked backwards eventually—but I had to work all over the place first!
What book tropes are featured in HTFAMG?
HTFAMG features a friends-to-rivals-to-lovers romantic subplot. It’s also chock-full of classic thriller/mystery tropes such as an incompetent police force, blackmail, lightbulb moments, red herrings, creepy notes, the use of alibis, and a true-crime podcast!
What’s your experience been like as a writer so far? I see you are in university, how did you write a novel in between your studying? What would a typical day in the life of an author look like?
I don’t think I’m a typical author, and I think my experience as a writer hasn’t been standard either. Balancing my life as a full-time student with writing full-length books is definitely a challenge, and I’m still working to figure out a schedule that works for me. As I was working on HTFAMG, I managed to take advantage of holidays, breaks, and weekends to hit my deadlines, and I also learned how to ask for extensions when I needed them. (Now that I’m writing a second novel entirely on deadline, though, I’m having more trouble defining a balance—but it’s also more important to me that I come out with a product I can be proud of rather than one I churn out quickly, so that’s something I am coming to terms with throughout my experience as well!)
What were your highlights and challenges to writing your debut novel?
Like I feel most writers do, I have a love-hate relationship with writing. It’s my greatest passion, it brings me so much joy, and I’m happiest when I’m working on a project; at the same time, however, bad writing days can bring down my mood like literally nothing else. Throughout the process of working on HTFAMG, I experienced both epic highs and lows (thank you, Riverdale); overall, though, the hardest challenge was fitting in edits around my school schedule, and the biggest highlight was getting to hold copies in my hands for the first time when I was sent ARCs.
Finally, if you could recommend 3 books to read, what would they be?
Right now, the 3 books I would recommend to everyone are Their Vicious Games by Joelle Wellington, Camp Damascus by Chuck Tingle, and Clown in a Cornfield by Adam Cesare. They’re all so campy, fun, and have Incredible Vibes™, and I absolutely need more people to scream about them with!
Great interview!