The Big Idea: David Niall Wilson

There’s a theme David Niall Wilson explores in When You Leave I Disappear, and it’s one familiar to artists of all sorts, not to mention others in any number of walks of life. But that theme is just a starting point for what comes next.

DAVID NIALL WILSON:

The initial inspiration for When You Leave I Disappear was a simple question and answer.

ME: Is there a theme you’d like to see explored?

ALAN LASTUFKA: Imposter syndrome.

I was committed to the idea and started writing immediately. I found my protagonist. I found her struggle, her motivation. Then things started to get weird, and I realized that, while Imposter Syndrome is a big thing in this story, it’s one of several, and while everything started out very simple, the characters had other ideas.

First, there are stories within the story. They were meant to be separate things, plot elements that would move things along for my protagonist and give me a good shot at a satisfying conclusion. What they became was a series of doorways that not only turned my initial plot inside out but led me to several big ideas I hadn’t considered. Some of them never really clarified for me until I was done writing.

There are a lot of types of horror. Gross, subtle, traditional, stories with a slow burn and others that grab you by the throat, but possibly the most intimate and memorable terrors are those that feel too real. Stories that have you looking over your shoulder and wondering about your neighbors. I mean, why does he need a two-story shed in his backyard with a driveway curling up toward the street, and what are all the lights and noises there late at night? Don’t’ think about that for too long. That doesn’t happen in the story, exactly, but close enough. I did not see this coming in the story until it happened.

I’ve been working slowly for a very long time on a book titled Writing What Hurts. Sometimes I forget what I meant, and what I’ve been trying to say, and it comes back and bites me. What is more frightening than the idea that something you believe to be absolutely correct is wrong? What if those around you are not who you thought? What if the safe home you trust isn’t safe at all?  What if your stories are more important to you than you understood, and that relationship goes both ways?