Writing Thriller Characters with Author Lisa Unger

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EPISODE INFO:
Do you want to write characters with as much depth as a New York Times and international bestselling author? 

Today, we’re going to hear how Lisa Unger writes the kinds of characters that feel so incredibly real. 

This episode contains advice and a mindset around character development that I’ve never heard before. 

It might change how you think about writing your characters.

BIO:
LISA UNGER is a New York Times and internationally bestselling author of twenty novels, including Confessions on the 7:45and Secluded Cabin Sleeps Six. An award-winning and acclaimed writer with millions of readers worldwide, Lisa is widely regarded as a master of suspense. Her books are published in thirty-three languages and have been voted "Best of the Year" or top picks by the Today show, Good Morning America, Entertainment Weekly, Amazon, IndieBound and many others. In 2019, her novel Under My Skin and her short story "The Sleep Tight Motel" were both nominated for the prestigious Edgar Award. Her nonfiction work has appeared in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, NPR and Travel + Leisure. Lisa lives on the west coast of Florida with her family.

Tweet me @DavidRGwyn

Transcript

T000 - Lisa Unger

Lisa Unger: [00:00:00] As a reader and as a writer, you know, that's my main focus. Like all plot flows from character for me.

Like there's no plot and then the characters get fit in to the plot. Like that's just not the way it works. Like I hear a character voice and that character. This chapter reveals him or herself to me on the page as I write. 

David Gwyn: Do you want to write characters with as much depth as a New York Times and international bestselling author? Today, we're going to hear how Lisa Unger writes the kinds of characters that feel so incredibly real. This episode contains advice and a mindset around character development that I've never heard before, and it might just change how you think about writing your characters.

I'm David Gwyn, an agented writer navigating the world of traditional publishing. During this first season of the Thriller 101 podcast, we're going to focus on building the skills necessary to write the kind of thrillers that land you in agent and readers. I'm talking to agents, authors, and other industry professionals about the [00:01:00] best way to write a novel.

If you want the expert secrets, this is where you're going to find them. Last week on the podcast, I talked to literary agent Sandy Lu about what she looks for in a submission. 

Sandy Lu: some authors are just so plot driven, they forget about the human element, you can just substitute characters, you know, but why would we care about these particular characters? That has to be clear. Because everything, you know, all genre of fiction is a trope, right? I mean, so why should we care about one book versus the other?

It was a similar plot. 

David Gwyn: Then we talked about one of the submissions to the Thriller 101 podcast, and she shared why she was requesting the full manuscript.

If you want to check out that episode, it's linked in the description. And if you want to submit your pitch and the first 500 words or so for agents to review, then there's a link for that in the description as well. Today's guest is Lisa Unger.

She's a New York Times and internationally best selling author of 20 novels, including Confessions on the 745 and Secluded Cabin Sleep 6. An [00:02:00] award winning and acclaimed writer with millions of readers worldwide, Lisa is widely regarded as a master of suspense. Her books are published in 33 languages and have been voted Best of the Year or Top Picks by The Today Show, Good Morning America, Entertainment Weekly, Amazon, Indiebound, and many others. In 2019, her novel Under My Skin and her short story The Sleeptight Motel We're both nominated for the prestigious Edgar Award.

Her nonfiction work has appeared in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, NPR, and Travel and Leisure. Lisa lives on the west coast of Florida with her family lisa has so much to share. So let's get straight to the interview. 

Lisa, thanks so much for being on the podcast. 

Lisa Unger: Oh my gosh, thanks for having me.

David Gwyn: Yeah, I'm really excited to chat with you. Your novel, The New Couple in 5B will be out by the time people hear this, so how does it feel? 

Lisa Unger: Awesome. I mean, I swear, it's like, it literally is the only thing I ever wanted to do with my life. Like, I've been writing since I was a kid, and I never thought I would do anything else.

[00:03:00] So, I'm still just really grateful that I get to do it. You know, so whenever that box comes with like, the first copy of the published book, I still to this day feel like a kid on Christmas morning, like, a little bit in disbelief that I'm able to do it. 

David Gwyn: That's actually what I was wondering about.

I mean, this is 20 plus times you've had a novel come 

Lisa Unger: out? Yeah. Is it still 

David Gwyn: as exciting? 

Lisa Unger: It is, of course. Yeah, because it's crazy because, you know, I I'm in a different headspace when I write, you know what I mean? Like I never really think about that the book is going to publish when I'm writing, even though I have a contract and I know it's going to publish.

I never really think about that. So I'm always like, just a little bit gobsmacked, you know when it comes like, Oh my God. You know, I did it because most writers know that before you get published there's not a lot of pats on the back, right? Like there's not a ton of people that say, oh, yeah, you [00:04:00] could do this, right?

Like Definitely not. There's a lot of people who say like the opposite. And so, you know, I'm always like a little bit amazed at like Oh, wow. I'm really doing it. Twenty, twenty, twenty one years in, I'm like, whoa. So, yeah, I still, I still feel pretty excited. 

David Gwyn: That's awesome. That's, that's really cool. So, before we get any further, why don't you tell us a little bit about the new couple in 5B?

 The New Couple in 5B is about a young couple, Rosie and Chad. Rosie is a true crime writer and Chad is an actor. And they inherit a dream apartment In an iconic New York City building, and you know, their luck has been all bad leading up to this.

Lisa Unger: So they can hardly believe that they've, you know, received this gift. And so, but as soon as they move in, you know, things start to get a little weird. They have some [00:05:00] weird neighbors and it starts to become clear, which, you know, Rosie kind of already knew because the Winder Mirror, which is the building, is the subject of her upcoming true crime book.

And she starts to understand that the building has an extremely dark history and she has to find out the secrets of the Winder Mirror before she too falls under. 

David Gwyn: Yeah, so much fun to read as always Can't recommend enough. I Really really enjoyed it. And this book is getting some really great early praise.

I mean Kirkus called it propulsive It's on most anticipated lists at book page. Goodreads. She reads deadly pleasures Mummy pages, it's on Gen 20s list of can't miss books in 2024. However By far your coolest praise, and I'm wondering if you know where I'm going with this, is Sarah Michelle Gellar, who is an avid reader and loves your stuff.

What does that feel like? 

Lisa Unger: Oh my god, that is like such a, [00:06:00] that is such a total mind blow, which is, it's such a funny story too because She discovered my books independently of me and she was a, you know, cause she's an avid reader and so she happened to write a little piece about something that she was reading.

This is for a magazine a long time ago. And so I went on Instagram and I followed her and I wrote to her and said, Oh my gosh, thank you so much. And of course she wasn't following me. So. You know, my, my note probably went in with, you know, other people writing to Sarah Michelle Gellar, but eventually she did find my note and she wrote me back and I was like, just, completely beyond fangirling.

And I said, you know, I'd love to send you. A copy of my next book. And so every year I send her a copy, I sign a copy for her and I send it to her and she's, you know, and she's very kind and supportive and, you know, [00:07:00] and she's like, it's Buffy. I know. 

David Gwyn: It's so cool. 

Lisa Unger: Like every child of the 80s, 90s, whatever, like, you know, she, and she's just amazingly Absolutely.

 Talented and wonderful and sweet and it's just a very cool thing. 

David Gwyn: Yeah, that's so cool. Nothing against Kirkus, but, but 

Lisa Unger: No, I mean, Kirkus is yay. 

David Gwyn: Right, exactly, but it's Buffy. 

Lisa Unger: Love you, Kirkus. 

David Gwyn: In a little bit on the new couple in 5B.

How did you come up with this story? 

Lisa Unger: Well, you know, it's interesting. There's always like, for me, there's usually like a germ or, you know, like something that leads me to like a swath of research, right? Like I get obsessed about things and just start to like learn, try to learn everything I can about that thing.

And then usually there's a voice. Or voices that might come in, and those are the voices that I follow through the manuscript. In this case, [00:08:00] it was a couple of things that were like not as immediate as, as they, as they usually are. So the Windermere, the building, is An amalgamation of like my memory and my imagination from my aunt's apartment where she lived during my childhood, and she lived in an apartment on Park Avenue.

And it was like, as a kid, it was like, to me, it was like the ultimate New York City apartment. It was like in this beautiful small building on Emory Hill, you know, the awning, it had the doorman, the elevator man. Like a sunwashed parquet floor, like New York City icon, right?

Like this is beautiful place. And I loved going there, except that, my aunt was a very glamorous woman. She worked in fashion and, you know, she was complicated. She was a complicated person. And so our visits, they were often very complicated. So there was another, there was another layer to this beautiful [00:09:00] place where I would just be like, wow, you know, and yet there was also other stuff going on.

So that's always for me is very interesting in the juxtaposition of light and dark when something is beautiful. You know or wonderful. Of course there's always a shadow. So, and that's what I'm interested in is the liminal space between those two things. So that was part of it that kind of kicked around in my head for a really long time.

And then I recently, a few years ago, re read Rosemary's Baby by Ira Levin. Oh, wow. Yeah, and, I don't know if you, if you've read, or if you've read recently that, or his other books, like The Stepford Wives , but they're all Yeah. Yeah. Brilliant. And to this day, they are, they, they're brilliant.

They completely stand up. And so there are some pieces of that, that really inspired me. And that sort of started to come up when I started to write about this building. And so it was a little bit of a combination of those things. [00:10:00] And then there's like a third piece for this one, which was, I don't know If you recall, of course, you know, Sarah Weinman, she's the New York Times book review editor and amazing best selling true crime writer, and she wrote an article for The Cut a few years ago about not about the Central Park Five, but about the the, the man who got away because the wrong people were arrested and the women that he went on to Rape and murder and their stories, which is so, so seldom told, you know, the story is always about the killer.

It's like everybody knows Ted Bundy's name. Can anybody name one person that he murdered? It's a, something that we need to look at. So it was that piece that kind of was the seed for Rosie being a true crime writer. And I have like the first book that she wrote, not the one that she's writing now, but the first book.

Sort of loosely was [00:11:00] inspired by what Sarah wrote. So there were all these different like weird little pieces that kind of clicked and gelled together when I started writing The New Couple on 5B. 

David Gwyn: Yeah, yeah, it's funny. I talked to, obviously I talked to a lot of writers, and it's, it always seems like it's that.

It's never like a thing. It's always some smashing together of two things or three things, and it's what takes off. 

Lisa Unger: Yes, absolutely, yeah. so people who write like I do, people who have been writing since childhood, people who, you never stop writing, I mean, I'm never not writing, it's never like, oh, I took a year off between books.

No, that's never happened. You know, I'm always, so it's like, there's always like something going on. And then you're an amalgamator anyway, like as an author, you know, you're just taking in all kinds of information all the time. It has to have some place to go.

And if you're like the kind of writer that I am, then you can't not be writing because then you just, I don't know, you just go crazy. Maybe like, there's a lot of, there's like almost like an [00:12:00] exorcism. It's like a daily exorcism. It's gotta find a way onto, it's gotta find its way somewhere, hopefully it's onto the page, right?

All this stuff. 

David Gwyn: That's really cool. How much can you tell us about what you're working on now? What are you, what's your next project? 

Lisa Unger: Well, I can't tell you anything. I'm definitely not ready to talk about it, but it's it's done. It's done. Oh, wow.

It is. I'm just about to do the copyediting thing. I just have a personal rule that I never talk about it until right before it's supposed to publish. Oh, that's cool. The truth is that I don't really 100 percent know what it's about yet. I won't know until I, another year. When I've had time to think about, oh, right, that's it.

That's what it was. That's what. Some space. Yeah. I need a little space from it. So, but I will say that it will be psychological suspense and the bad things will happen for sure. And I, and it's also based on something that. It's, it's based on a real place and something that [00:13:00] happened to me when I was traveling.

David Gwyn: Oh, wow. Oh, I love the, I love the clues. Well, Sarah, Michelle Geller and I are both waiting, which is something I thought I would never say. I never had an opportunity to say that before. Now I know. 

Lisa Unger: That's cool. You and Sarah Michelle Geller, you're like that. 

David Gwyn: We have something in common finally, . 

Yeah. 

David Gwyn: So you've written, like you said, this is, this was your 21st, so the one that's coming out next is the one you kind of are on copy edits now will be your 22nd.

Yeah. And it seems like you've kind of hit your stride at one book per year. You're under contract, moving things along. What does that process look like for you? What does that feel like? I mean, are you working on one project at a time or do you have a couple things going all at once? 

Lisa Unger: Yeah, there's always like one point during the year which is like a tiny bit psychotic and this is it, actually.

This is, this is, this is one of the I looked at your tour dates, by the way. That's right. 

I know. 

It's so crazy. Every time I look at the tour dates, I'm like, you know, I do have a physical body that I have 

to drag. You 

David Gwyn: have to [00:14:00] get from one place to another. 

That's 

Lisa Unger: right. It's not, it's not, we're not teleporting.

So I'm not sure how that's all gonna work. But I assume, you know, I assume we'll get where we need to go. Yeah. But I, so this is the moment where I'm doing the copy edits on the 2025 book. I'm promoting. I'm writing the 2024 book, and I'm writing the 2026 book. So that's this moment. And it's, it's always completely nuts.

It's always like, I'm always like, why am I so tired? My husband's like, I don't know. Can't come up with 

David Gwyn: a single reason, right? 

Lisa Unger: Why am I collapsing into a pile of myself at the end of the day? I'm just I don't get it, but yeah, it is definitely, that's this, that's this moment right now when the book is about to come out and I'm, you know, I've got, so I'm in three different head spaces.

And this year I also published a novella and a short story. [00:15:00] I published a short story in January. And then the novella in October, that's crazy. Yeah, it is. It's a little nuts. 

David Gwyn: Okay, let's pause there for a second. I think it's so interesting to hear how chaotic and intense it is for writers. I mean, just think about juggling three separate books in your head at one time.

And I think it's true what we talked about, coming up with the idea for a novel is really about merging or combining a few ideas. So look for places where you can bring two or three things together. Sometimes those moments make for the best stories. In the next part of the interview, Lisa and I are gonna talk about how she develops her characters Pay Close attention because she shares some really useful advice.

And at the core of it is this mindset around character development that I just really haven't heard before. But before we get to that, be sure to check out the Thriller 1 0 1 newsletter. It has exclusive information, advice, and updates you can only get by being a subscriber.

I talk about goal setting, systems, productivity, and I share the best resources and advice for thriller writers from all around the internet. If you want to [00:16:00] level up your writing skills, be sure to subscribe. There's a link in the description where you can do that. Let's head back to the interview. 

So a lot of writers listen to this podcast.

And so I'd really love to just ask you a little bit about the characters in your novel. Kind of like generally, but also, you know, with. With the focus on, on Rosie and Chad because they're no exception, your characters are really like, they're deep, they're flawed, they're really interesting, which I think is another way of saying, they like, feel like real people.

And so, how do you go about developing your characters? That's something that kind of happens. Naturally, or is it something that you, you really put a lot of focus on early? 

Lisa Unger: Yeah, it's interesting. As a reader and as a writer, you know, that's my main focus. Like all plot flows from character for me.

Like there's no plot and then the characters get fit in to the plot. Like that's just not the way it works. Like I hear a character voice and that character. This chapter reveals him or herself to me on the page as I write. A long time ago I stopped thinking about characters as people I create [00:17:00] and started thinking of them as people that I meet.

And it feels really like that for me, I mean I know that's not the truth of it, you know, I'm the author, every character here is It's a, you know, mosaic of my experiences, my observations, my things I overhear, things I understand about psychology, you know, my imagination, all of it, right? Like, so every character is that.

Every character is in that way, a piece of me, but they don't feel like that to me. I feel like I'm meeting them on the page and that they revealing themselves to me much in the way that anybody would reveal themselves in a relationship. . You meet somebody, you see them, there is an energy exchange. Maybe they tell you a few things about themselves.

 As you get to know them better you may Like Discover that those things they told you about themselves early on weren't true, or maybe you, they reveal themselves through action in a way that their words could never reveal to [00:18:00] you. So that's true of people and it's true character,

So, and that's the way I experienced it. Like, I really do feel it and they are there. My characters are, you know, they're, they're real, they're real to me. They're very real. They're flawed. They're, you know, there's some, some good, some bad, some more bad than others addicted, you know, addled, deranged, murderous, etc.

David Gwyn: All the, all the, all the shades of of people. Yeah, that's good. 

Lisa Unger: And I have a lot of empathy for them, like even the worst even the worst among them. And that is, You know why I think they, they are alive because they reveal themselves to me because I don't, I don't judge them, which sounds crazy, but I do believe that.

David Gwyn: Well, I think that empathy comes across in the way that you write them. In a way that like, no one's all bad in life and no one's all good in life. Like that's, I think that there are, like we said, there are shades and [00:19:00] finding the reasons behind why they are the way that they are is something that. I think it makes your characters feel so real.

But, tell me if I'm getting this right, are you, are you just kind of, do you do any plotting before, or do you kind of just dive in with character and write where it goes? 

Lisa Unger: Yeah, no, I don't do any plotting. In fact, 

David Gwyn: I'm just surprised, like, one book a year, going in without a plan, like, flying blind is so It's frightening to me.

Yeah, 

Lisa Unger: it doesn't really feel like that. But like, it's, it's interesting because like, this is my theory about it. Because like, there's always like that big question, like plotter versus pantser, which I hate that word because it's like, oh, you accidentally wrote a novel, like by the seat of your pants. It's like, oh, I didn't, you know, educate myself and read every book since the time I was a little kid and go to college and write, in a lot of ways, I feel like Because I'm the kind of writer that I am, and because I have been such an avid reader all my life, in a lot of ways I've just kind of internalized the form of the [00:20:00] novel.

So it's just kind of the way my brain works, right? There's a story to be told, and it's there. I just have to find it. And so I don't think it's that different, right? Like, I don't think that like people who sit down to write the outline and they do a sketch of what the book is going to be and they do it and I don't know how long it takes somebody to write an outline.

A week? A month? Who knows? Right? Like, that's not part of my process. I, I'm doing the same thing. Yeah. I'm just doing it over the course of a year and it's, and then all the different pieces that maybe they're going to go back and try to fill in later.

For me, there is no structure without the details. So if I were to create an outline for myself, I would be literally the most miserable person. Ever. Like I wouldn't even know what to do. I'd be like, what? Don't tell me what to do. How dare you? Like 

David Gwyn: Me from the past. 

What [00:21:00] is 

Lisa Unger: this? What is this? This stupid idea of this doesn't even make any sense.

Like, I don't understand how you can know what's going to happen until you know who is populating your What would they do? Like, so, you know, I, I think that they're, you know, like, I'm sure that this is a much better way to do it, you know, outline, but I don't have access to that, right. And what I have found is that like people who write the way I do, we understand each other and we understand how it works and we have respect for people who do it the other way.

However, the same is not always true in reverse.

People don't seem to have. Back for the way, like, I prefer to think of it as like a garden or there's a seed that gets planted, it grows, you give it some light and some water and you prune some things and you know, a flower blooms, like, that's how I see the writing of a novel.

But you know, like I've had people just be like, you know, on stage be like just kind of a little tiny bit like disparaging, like I don't understand. How can you write a book if you don't [00:22:00] know how it's gonna end? If you don't understand, then I can't tell you. 

But 

David Gwyn: also, like, they're reading it, like, you could just be like, hold up any one of your 20 books and be like, this is 

Lisa Unger: how.

We got there. 

David Gwyn: You see, I'm, I'm, I'm such a plotter, like, I can't do, and it changes, obviously, my plot, like, changes, but like, I If I sit down and I just start writing, I end up in the weirdest places, so like I need something. But I'm so jealous of people who, and I think, I think you said it, like you, yeah, I think you said it, like you've internalized story in a way that like, Yeah.

That I just, it doesn't, it doesn't compute for me. Like I, I feel like I'm juggling too much if I don't have like some type of plan going in. I think, I think that's so cool. And 

Lisa Unger: I think that you don't get to choose. Right? You don't choose that, right? And there's no right or wrong way to write a novel.

That's the other important thing. Like, your way is right for you, my way is right for me, and that's just what it is.

David Gwyn: I could talk to you forever. This is so much fun. I, I am thoroughly enjoying this conversation, and I think a lot of [00:23:00] aspiring writers, if you're listening to this right now, The way that Lisa develops her characters, develops her plot, you gotta go grab this book. The New Couple in 5B, which is out today.

It's out right now. Go get it immediately if you're listening to this. My last question for you is just where can people find you? Where can people look you up? 

Lisa Unger: Oh my goodness. I am so easy to find. It's ridiculous. Ha ha ha ha ha. It's almost pathological how easy it is. 

David Gwyn: Ha 

ha ha ha ha. 

Lisa Unger: So my, my website is lisaunger. com I think I'm my most authentic self on Instagram, and Facebook, of course, and then, I don't know, what do we call it now? Twitter X? People are struggling 

David Gwyn: with it every time. 

Lisa Unger: I don't know. My newsletter goes out on Substack.

And I mean, like, there's just like every piece of information that you need. 

David Gwyn: It's easy. It's easy to find. And for people who are listening, I will link to that stuff. So you've got quick access to Lisa. So yeah, I mean, 

Lisa Unger: and I do respond, you know, usually to, you know, [00:24:00] to my detriment in real 

time. 

Lisa Unger: So if you feel the need to connect.

Please. Oh, and if you sign up for my newsletter, this is like my one salesy thing. If you sign up for my newsletter, you get a free short story. 

David Gwyn: I'm I'm a newsletter subscriber, so I highly recommend it. People hop on. And you get, you get get some great stuff. So Lisa, this was so much fun. I really appreciate you taking the time to chat.

Lisa Unger: That's so great. Thank you so much, David. It was really fun. 

David Gwyn: Okay, so that's it. Did you catch some of that advice about character development? Just that mindset shift of imagining your characters as someone real who you meet can make a huge difference in helping them reveal themselves not as you want them to be, but as they really are.

That kind of shift will translate into more realistic characters and a stronger connection with your readers. Between that and all the other great advice, I hope you got as much out of this interview as I did. Next time on the podcast, I'll be talking to Ash Clifton about his debut novel, Twice the Trouble.

Be sure to subscribe to the podcast and check [00:25:00] that out next week.