David Bell: On Being Invested in Your Characters’ Struggles
USA Today bestselling author David Bell discusses how his time teaching at the college level led him to the idea for his new suspense novel, The Finalists.
David Bell is a USA Today bestselling, award-winning author whose work has been translated into multiple languages. He’s currently a professor of English at Western Kentucky University in Bowling Green, Kentucky. Find him on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram.
In this post, David discusses how his time teaching at the college level led him to the idea for his new suspense novel, The Finalists, the process of becoming more invested in his characters’ struggles throughout the writing process, and more!
Name: David Bell
Literary agent: David Hale Smith, Inkwell Management
Book title: The Finalists
Publisher: Berkley/Penguin
Release date: July 5, 2022
Genre/category: Suspense
Previous titles: Kill All Your Darlings, The Request, Layover, Somebody’s Daughter
Elevator pitch for the book: Six students at a private college agree to be locked in a house in order to compete for a lucrative scholarship given by a wealthy donor. When one of the students dies shortly after the competition begins, the other students realize they’re trapped with a killer.
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What prompted you to write this book?
I’ve taught at the college level for a number of years, and I’ve seen up close the financial pressures on the students as well as the administrators, the faculty, and the institutions themselves. Resources are limited, and everybody is competing for them. I also know—from my own time as a student—how difficult it is to pay for college and what it’s like to carry the burden of student debt. Would all of those pressures be enough to make someone kill?
How long did it take to go from idea to publication? And did the idea change during the process?
The whole process from the original spark of the idea to the completion of the book probably takes nine-12 months. The idea didn’t change a great deal—but I did constantly change my mind about who the killer was. And I worked very hard to give all the characters a good backstory and a motivation to kill. And to live.
Were there any surprises or learning moments in the publishing process for this title?
I’ve never written a locked-room mystery before, so that was the greatest challenge for me. When I came up with the idea and started writing the book, I simply had no idea if I could pull off the challenge of having characters stuck in a house with no way to get out and no way to communicate. I surprised myself every day by being able to keep it going.
Were there any surprises in the writing process for this book?
I already understood the financial pressures on students and faculty, but as I wrote the book and dug deeper into the characters, I found myself growing more emotionally attached to them and more invested in their struggles. I think that will be a treat for the reader as well.
What do you hope readers will get out of your book?
First and foremost, entertainment. I want the reader to turn the pages as fast as they can and not be able to put the book down. Beyond that, I hope the book gets the reader to think about these issues that are affecting those in higher education and the toll it takes on everyone.
If you could share one piece of advice with other writers, what would it be?
Read a lot. Write a lot. Enjoy the writing process on a daily basis. And write the book you would want to read, not the book you think other people would want to read.
Robert Lee Brewer is Senior Editor of Writer's Digest, which includes managing the content on WritersDigest.com and programming virtual conferences. He's the author of 40 Plot Twist Prompts for Writers: Writing Ideas for Bending Stories in New Directions, The Complete Guide of Poetic Forms: 100+ Poetic Form Definitions and Examples for Poets, Poem-a-Day: 365 Poetry Writing Prompts for a Year of Poeming, and more. Also, he's the editor of Writer's Market, Poet's Market, and Guide to Literary Agents. Follow him on Twitter @robertleebrewer.
