Daphne Benedis-Grab has thrilled audiences with her Secrets and Lies series, and she’s back with a fourth installment: I KNOW YOU STARTED IT. With a crackling mystery and captivating characters, the book is a firestorm of suspense and intrigue. Daphne was kind enough to join the blog to talk about her writing process, her inspirations, and the power of words.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
From the very first chapter, I felt like I was in such good hands when it came to the central mystery of the book. How important is that opening line or that chapter to you when you’re writing?
That is a really good question. I put a lot of thought into where we’re starting – what’s going to be that inciting incident that kicks things off. So we start at a place where there’s room to get to know the characters. But we’re in it. We are not wasting a second. We are not leading up to it. It’s there. It’s starting.
The reader is right there from that beginning point – you are part of it. I think particularly in a mystery or a thriller, you’re getting on a ride and it’s going fast.
How important is it for you as the writer to know the ending of the book as you’re starting that opening?
For me (and I know everybody writes differently) it’s essential.
I need to know where I’m going. I always write from an outline, and hammering out an outline is one of the hardest parts of writing for me – because I can come up with a lot of really fun inciting incidents and ideas, but does it have legs to sustain interest?
Is there going to be room for a twist or two in there? And is it going to stick the landing? Is it going to be something that I can see an ending all the way through that is going to be extremely satisfying for readers?
And if I can’t, if I don’t know what the ending is – I don’t know where I’m going with it.
So, everything needs to lead to that twist – and then to the final reveal.
This book is told through multiple perspectives, and you did an incredible job getting into the psyche of each of those characters. Did you always plan to tell this story that way?
Yes, so all of the Secrets and Lies books have three to four narrators, and I am inspired by the books that I have read with multiple characters. I used to do just one character narrating – either 1st or 3rd person. But when I read a couple of really well-narrated books with a number of different narrators, I understood this keeps the reader guessing – because none of us know what the full story is, right?
In any given situation, everyone is going to have a different perspective, and that’s going to be based on who we are and how we perceive things and how our brains work and our experiences in the world.
And so, to tell a story in a book really well, I feel like you need those multiple characters who are going to give this different perspective and this different take on the bigger situation.
The reader then has a fuller picture than they otherwise might if it’s just that one person.
Do you have an exercise or anything you do to get into that mindset more fully when you’re moving from character to character?
That’s a really fun question. So one thing is that when I make the outline, I’m very conscious of who’s narrating what. And sometimes I’ll come to something and I’ll be like – wait a minute – another person discovered this, and then I have to restructure things. But by the time I’m sitting down and writing, it’s organic who I’m going to be going to next.
And if it doesn’t feel right, then that’s not the problem. That’s telling me that this probably isn’t the character to narrate this.
Another thing is that when I write – because I have the outline – I’m never sitting down to write a book. I’m sitting down to write a scene. And when I know what that scene is and who that narrator is, it makes it a lot easier to dive in.
That said, if I’m sitting and I’ve come to a chapter break and I’m moving into the next one, I definitely need a break. I need to do a little reset, where I dive into the next character so it’s their voice.
I love how you break the book into the five stages of the fire, from kindling through incineration. Is that how you structure the outline too? Or does that come along later in the process?
100%, yes. And I love devices like that. I love a book written in letters or written with texts or there’s a little something at the top of the chapter that gives you some insights to something else. That’s one of my favorite things. And all of these books, I’ve tried to have something like that.
I looked up the stages of a fire, and I was like – oh, this is perfect. Many moons ago, I read Robert McKee’s books, and now each act has to get built in intensity – and that’s perfect for a fire, right?
Absolutely! Through all of the twists and the turns of the book (which there are many, and they’re wonderful and surprising!), there are important ideas that come through as well. Seeing people as they truly are, standing up for one another and oneself, and being aware of online bullying.
Did those themes start from the beginning, or did they find you as you’re writing the story?
That’s a really interesting question. They tend to find me as I’m writing.
But I’m very aware of the things that are important to me to lift up when I write. Part of that comes from parenting children and from being a school librarian. And the things that I see – [that] my students grapple with, and in the fears that they have and how scary it is to speak up – and how lonely you feel when you’re bullied and how that’s part of it.
A theme that I come to again and again in my writing, but also my life is that – evil grows in darkness, right? It’s hidden when it’s secret, when we hold it, and there isn’t the light of many people seeing it.
That’s when it grows.
How do we shine that light? How do we bring it into those same corners and lift things up?
Another thing that’s always really important to me is understanding that everybody has a story and that we might present in a certain way. And you don’t understand where someone’s coming from you.
You don’t know them. You can think that you do. You can judge on a few features.
But everybody has a story and everyone has a perspective. And we’re missing out in life if we’re not getting a little bit more of that.
There’s a line at the end of the book where Liam says, “Words can be dangerous.” How do you feel about that line as an author and a librarian and someone who’s concerned about young people?
Of course, the first place my brain goes to is social media, right? Where words live forever. Where you always have a digital footprint. Where the things that you can say without thought can cause such incredible damage to another person – to a situation where you can get pushed to do something that you just would never do if you stop to think.
I think words have power in that way, but words also have the most important and the most beautiful power because they can express us and they can express our stories.
And when you have language to name your feelings and name what you’re thinking and name who you are – that’s how you exist and own space in the world.
That’s so beautiful and important. Thank you!
Daphne Benedis-Grab is the award winning author of the Secrets and Lies Novels, companion middle grade books that include I Know Your Secret, I Know You’re Lying and I Will Find You, as well as the young adult book The Girl in the Wall. Her middle grade book The Angel Tree was made into a Hallmark Original movie. She earned her MFA from The New School and is the librarian at Warder Elementary School in Arvada, Colorado. She lives in Boulder, Colorado with her husband, two college student kiddos and cats Mishka and Blue.
More at daphnebg.com
Rekdal writes that, “When it comes to reading or writing poetry, we have to balance between the forensic and the creative, between staying within the bounds of definition and fact and moving into the realm of the interpretive” (35).
