With a whirlwind first chapter, Sara J. Henry’s debut novel, Learning to Swim, tempts and draws the reader in – with the promise of an authentic psychological thriller. Henry offers this teaser on her website:
While standing on the deck of the Lake Champlain ferry bound for Vermont, Troy Chance sees a small boy tossed over the side of a ferry going the opposite direction. Without thinking, she jumps to his rescue, setting off a chain of events that see her embroiled in a kidnapping plot with tendrils in the Adirondacks and Vermont as well as Ottawa and Montreal.
Henry shares with us what elements she believes make a good story, how extensive her research for her debut was and offers insight into how she develops her plots and characters. She’s also inviting readers to escape inside that gripping first chapter, a free read that is sure to ensnare and captivate.
PC: As a child, what did you want to do when you grew up?
SH: A cowboy. When that waned, to be a writer. I wrote my first short story (very short) at around age 5, about a dog at my uncle’s Kentucky junk yard that bit through the face of my father’s wrist watch. And began a very bad novel in pencil in a composition book in the seventh grade. Fortunately, it remains unfinished.
PC: You have an extensive background in writing – how did becoming a novelist compare with being a journalist?
SH: I was never a hardcore journalist – I wrote sports and features – and have been a nonfiction writer and editor (mostly health and fitness) for longer than I did that. I’d say that being an editor helped because I knew the concentrated work involved in editing, and I understood the copyediting and proofreading production process. In a sense writing is writing – but as a novelist I had to learn that I could undo things and revise in a way you simply can’t when you’re dealing with facts and actual events.
PC: What do you think makes a good story (what elements do you look for when reading, in writing?)
SH: It’s not story so much as character – I have to like the characters and feel invested in them. I need to not be bored. I need to not be able to easily put the book down. I’ll point to three writers whom I love, all very different: Daniel Woodrell, author of WINTER’S BONE and a batch of other phenomenal novels, who created what’s called Ozark noir; Reed Farrel Coleman, who writes haunting crime novels about a flawed detective named Moe Prager; and A.S. King, who writes youth adult novels that grab you up and transport you and break your heart, all at the same time.
PC: Will you share the inspiration behind LEARNING TO SWIM?
SH: I was driving along Lake Champlain (the big lake that separates New York and Vermont) on a misty, overcast day and imagined a woman standing on a ferry seeing a child fall overboard from the opposite ferry, and, in a split second, making the decision to dive after the child. Then I had to write an entire book around that one scene.
PC: How extensive was the research that you undertook in writing this novel?
SH: Here’s the thing: I retain things. Just about anything I’ve read about or done, I retain at least a fragment of. So I have strong memories of being on the deck of that Lake Champlain ferry, of strolling through Burlington, Vermont, of biting into a bagel at Great Canadian Bagel. I work on computers and bicycles and love to figure things out. So the rest is just concentrated Googling, to check out details. That said, I did read several books on child kidnapping and recovered children, and verified some information with the RCMP and the Ottawa Police Service, and called to check the location of the pay phone in Port Kent. And made sure that Stewart’s still carries the flavor of ice cream I mentioned.
PC: Are your characters real to you?
SH: Absolutely.
PC: How much of Troy is in Sara, or Sara in Troy?
SH: Ah, I’ll never tell. I will say that we both worked as a sports editor on a small newspaper, lived in a big house on Main Street in Lake Placid, and had a wonderful dog named Tiger, who was half golden retriever and half German shepherd.
PC: What/who do you see as the influences on your writing?
SH: Some of my primary influences were John D. MacDonald, author of the Travis McGee series I loved, and Mary Stewart, who popularized romantic suspense with books such as Nine Coaches Waiting, This Rough Magic, and The Ivy Tree. And I’m sure there’s some influence from Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre and the tightly paced suspense novels of Charlotte Armstrong. I also read Alastair MacLean, Nigel Shute, Helen MacInnes, Josephine Tey, Ngaio Marsh, Ruth Rendell, PD James, and more. Some of the writers I read today include Daniel Woodrell, Denise Mina, Francis Fyfield, A.S. King, Reed Farrel Coleman, Don Winslow, Tana French, Laura Lippman, Jodi Compton, Lisa Unger, Michael Robotham.
PC: Is there anything you find particularly challenging in your writing?
SH: I wrote the first version of this novel very fast – when I was a member of the now-defunct Nashville Writers Group – because if I’d paused I would have convinced myself I couldn’t do it. So the middle of the book was a bit of a muddle, and required repeated rewriting and revision. Never again will I reverse engineer a plot into a book!
PC: How do you develop your plots and characters? Do you use any set formula (are you a plotter or a pantser)?
SH: For both novels, this one and its sequel, I envisioned the opening and closing scenes. I now do a one-page outline for a novel, and as I go jot down more notes for each of the three acts of the book. But for me it’s essential to let the characters develop as they want to and in essence make their own decisions – they tell me what they should be doing and what should be happening.
PC: You have said you could that when it comes to genre, you “like to think of it as a book that will speak to a lot of people.” Will you go further into what readers can look for from LEARNING TO SWIM?
SH: I’m going to quote from an Amazon review that says, “Tucked within this thriller are meditations on the nature of family, how bonding happens, the dangers of allowing ourselves to be vulnerable.” I’ve had 13-year-olds and 81-year-olds tell me they love this book. One reviewer called it a “literary mystery: part smart, well-written fiction/ part mystery novel.” What I’d love, of course, is for readers to see themselves in the book, somewhere, somehow, and take away the feeling that anything may be possible if you try.
PC: Would you share any advice for aspiring writers?
SH: Read, write, rewrite. Find a writing group or someone to exchange chapters with. Read your work aloud. Keep polishing and revising. And then do it all again.
PC: Any upcoming appearances that you would like to share with us?
SH: Sure – March 10 I’ll be at the Barnes & Noble in Cool Springs, Brentwood, Tennessee – and March 25 at Malaprop’s in Asheville, North Carolina. Plus some others in other states – they’re all listed at my website, www.sarajhenry.com.
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