With Kaylie Seed
Photo by Simon Way
Stephanie, congratulations on your debut novel! What a daring and chilling story that you’ve told. I personally really enjoyed Darling Rose Gold and I’m so thrilled to be chatting with you about your book that has come out during a very trying time. If you wouldn’t mind, I have some questions to ask you about Darling Rose Gold as well as your writing process. Let’s begin!
Darling Rose Gold is a very unique thriller, where did you get your inspiration for this story?
Thank you! The mother in DRG, Patty Watts, has Munchausen syndrome by proxy (MSBP), which I learned about from my best friend, who is a school psychologist. The more research I did, the more fascinated I became. Perpetrators act out of a need for attention or love from authority figures within the medical community, a motivation I find both intriguing and heartbreaking. I wanted to get inside the head of one of these mothers, to try to understand whether they know they’re lying or if they believe they’re doing what’s best for their child.
The main theme in Darling Rose Gold is the complex mother-daughter relationship. Did you find this easy or challenging to write about and why?
I didn’t find it difficult to flesh out the mother-daughter complexity in the book. While my own relationship with my mom has always been supportive and drama-free, there are plenty of examples in the world of relationships that have gone awry. Plus, at the heart of Patty’s and Rose Gold’s struggles are near-universal parent/child experiences. As Rose Gold becomes an adult, she wants independence from her mother while still hoping for her approval. Meanwhile, Patty wants to be needed and appreciated. I think these are feelings most parents and children can relate to. The difference with this specific mother-daughter relationship is turning the dial to ten instead of leaving it at five!
Patty and Rose Gold both have distinct voices. Their characters can also be unlikeable for different reasons. How did you structure their voices and develop their characters? Who was the harder character to create?
Patty has done some truly heinous stuff, but in order to get inside her head I had to ignore or downplay the awful elements and focus on what mattered most to her: fitting the image of the perfect mother. In real life, people with MSBP can be very manipulative and charming—often how they fool so many people—so Patty had to be the same. I focused on the relatable parts of her character: her own horrible childhood that was not her fault, the constant anxiety of being a new parent, her ability to find light in the darkness. Also, as a reader I’m willing to follow a monster nearly anywhere if they make me laugh. I tried to imbue Patty with a little wit.
Rose Gold was the harder of the two to create because it was tricky getting her voice right. In some drafts, she was too tough in the opening chapters. In others, she was still too much of a pushover halfway through the book. It also took me a while to understand that I had to leave behind much of my own knowledge—pop culture, colloquialisms, social etiquette—because Rose Gold grew up in a captive, sheltered setting. I had to imagine what it would be like not to recognize any faces on the covers of magazines, to not pick up on a co-worker’s sarcasm or understand when a friend was avoiding you. The world would feel entirely alien because you never really belonged to it.
What was the most surprising thing that you learned while going through the process of creating and writing Darling Rose Gold?
I was surprised to discover that the perpetrators of MSBP are usually women, often mothers. When we think of violent crimes, we typically don’t think of women as committing them—or at least I didn’t. The mother/child bond is supposed to be sacred, but it’s not in these cases. I wanted to explore that puzzle.
With such a great debut novel, will there be another book coming from you soon?
Yes, I’m working on my second book now. It’s about a wellness center called Wisewood—located on an island off the coast of Maine—whose inhabitants are exhibiting cult-like behavior. The story is told from three points of view: the leader, a member, and the member’s sister, who wants to bring her home.
Now that you’re finished the process of publishing your first novel, what advice would you give to aspiring authors?
I have three pieces of advice for debut writers!
1) Set a measurable goal. It can be words/hours/scenes per day/week/month, but come up with something so you can watch yourself make progress. The idea of writing 90,000 words is daunting but less so if you break it down into bite-sized pieces. If you write 1,000 words a day, you’d have a first draft in 3 months! It doesn’t matter how fast or slow you do it—work as your schedule allows. The important thing is to chip away and keep to your schedule. I also find it really rewarding to keep a spreadsheet of chapter word counts so I can watch the total word count climb.
2) Get qualified constructive feedback. You read a lot about the importance of practice—getting and keeping your butt in the chair—which is true! But in order to get better at anything, you also need someone to tell you where you’ve gone wrong. A family member or friend isn’t going to cut it unless they’re an author or work in the publishing industry. This doesn’t mean you have to commit to a two-year course or pay an editor tons of money, but there are plenty of starter courses where you can dip your toe in the water and receive feedback from a qualified professional.
3) Treat the business side of writing as part of the job—because it is! Start writing first drafts of your query letter months before you’re ready to send your manuscript out. Same goes for the synopsis. Research agents and take the time to find a list of twenty or thirty that fits your book really well. Do all of this alongside writing your novel—or, if you can only take on one project at a time, don’t rush this part of the process. You will learn a ton along the way, and the final result you send out will be much more polished.
I’m trying my best to share what I’ve learned so far via the For Writers section of my website. (https://www.stephaniewrobel.com/for-writers)
What is your “must-read” book recommendation and what book has had the most impact and influence on your writing?
I’ve returned to Shirley Jackson’s We Have Always Lived in the Castle time and again. The book is creepy, whimsical, and thought-provoking—and one of the best studies on voice that has ever been written, in my humble opinion. Jackson frequently wrote about characters who had been ostracized by the local townspeople, and I wanted to throw the same obstacles at Patty when she got out of prison.
Thank you Stephanie for taking the time to speak with us. Stephanie Wrobel’s novel Darling Rose Gold was released on March 17, 2020 and is available for purchase.