Today’s guest post is by S.B. Redstone, author of A Sinister Obsession.

Three things I learned while writing A Sinister Obsession

1.

When you’re writing a novel or a short story, facts sometimes matter. All you need is one reviewer to find an error and disaster hits.

Since an author is writing fiction, one can create an imaginary town or an imaginary street. With science fiction, paranormal, or horror anything can be made plausible, even if improbable. However, if you are writing a mystery thriller, and you’re seeking realism, then facts matter. Research is essential to do. When I was creating detectives in police departments, accuracy mattered.

Long ago, when I began writing, I had to go to the library and do research. And there were few resources. The encyclopedia, books, newspapers archives, or atlases were all I had. But, with the advent of the Internet, I can do research in the comfort of my home and I have millions of references to use.

A Sinister Obsession takes place in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and Maryland and I needed to learn about their respective police departments. Instead of assuming these police departments were similar to my state of New York, I went to their websites. There I learned everything about them: their locations, their structure, and their divisions. In New York, the police are called officers or cops, and in Maryland, state police are troopers who work out of barracks and not police stations.   

2.

While creating A Sinister Obsession, I expanded my knowledge base of true obsession. Not that I’m unfamiliar with obsessions, I was a school psychologist and clinical social worker in private practice for many years and some of my patients and students suffered from obsessions or obsessive behavior, which I treated. However, for my novel, without giving away any of the mystery, I examined obsessions from every angle, from every extreme, and from every perspective.

No main character is without obsession. How they dealt with their obsession allowed them to achieve happiness or cause terrible misery to others. Interestingly, I became obsessed with writing and completing this work.

Despite all my career responsibilities, my family, my home, golf, and every other annoying distraction, I used all my free time to get this work completed. No day went by that I wasn’t at my computer to write or if I couldn’t write, I would create the next chapter. My obsession to write hasn’t diminished with my other novels.

3.

I believe I learned a great deal more about love “in me!” As much as obsession is the heart of the story, so is love.

All my characters love to one degree or another. Since I created characters, I was surprised to see how important love was to them. It wasn’t that important when I first dreamed up the plot and its characters. However, it turned out to be. For sure, I am not a writer or a person without feeling. I have a loving family and I love just about everything I do, especially golf. But, I surprised myself as to how intensely the characters loved. It came from me. It is me. My unconscious obviously hid stronger emotions than I knew I had.

Since I wrote A Sinister Obsession, I’ve become more obsessed with love than writing violence. Although I might write a sequel, which I have been asked to do, I wrote a powerful love story that is seeking a publisher and am writing a senior love story. Who knew?

Read an excerpt and learn more about A Sinister Obsession here.

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