Alexandra Sokoloff - Putting a Fantastic, Multidimensional Movie Into the Reader’s Head

Alexandra Sokoloff - Putting a Fantastic, Multidimensional Movie Into the Reader’s Head
Alexandra Sokoloff

Alexandra Sokoloff is the Thriller Award-winning, Bram Stoker and Anthony Award-nominated author of twelve bestselling supernatural and crime thrillers. The New York Times has called her "a daughter of Mary Shelley" and her books "Some of the most original and freshly unnerving work in the genre." As our Author of the Day, Sokoloff tells us all about her latest thriller, Huntress Moon.

Please give us a short introduction to what Huntress Moon is about.

The Huntress series follows haunted FBI agent Matthew Roarke and his team on a manhunt for what appears to be a female serial killer. They discover she’s killed probably hundreds of men across the US for over a dozen years.

What inspired you to write this book and include a female serial killer?

I’d been wanting to do a book about a female serial killer for years. I worked as a screenwriter before I started writing novels, and had worked on several film projects about serial killers, so I’ve read everything the FBI has ever put out on serial murder/sexual homicide, and done tons of interviews with criminal profilers. I became obsessed with the fact that there really aren’tfemale serial killers. Women kill, and sometimes they kill numbers of people, but arguably there has never been a woman who has committed what profilers call sexual homicide. I’d never seen a book or film handle that before and that’s the issue I wanted to dig into.

Because let’s face it – women have a lot more reason to kill than men do. Now more than ever.

Readers say that your book is very detailed and manages to pull them right into the story. How do you go about creating your scenes?

I think that an author’s job is to put a fantastic, multidimensional movie into the reader’s head. And our primary sense is visual, so of course what the story looks like has to be a constant consideration. So I use all the cinematic tricks I learned as a screenwriter, and also the emotional tricks I learned as an actor and director when I was working in theater. But I also go to almost all the locations I write about. There’s no substitute for feeling and smelling a place. Also, the series is a way to showcase the staggering natural beauty of my home state, California, and other places in the Southwest and Pacific Northwest that I love.

Besides writing, what other secret skills do you have?

Turns out I’m a pretty good writing teacher! I started out blogging about how to use screenwriting techniques to write better novels, which turned into workshops, which turned into three books, the Screenwriting Tricks for Authorsseries. I’m doing a Nanowrimo Prep series right now on my blog: http://www.screenwritingtricks.com

How do you come up with such brilliant ideas for conflict? I mean, the way the plot goes is just never what you expected it to be, you never know what might happen next!

I knew I could use that story hook of a female serial killer to write about crimes and injustices in the law and our whole social system that have always made me blisteringly angry. Before I sold my first screenplay, I worked in the Los Angeles County prison system, teaching juveniles, mostly teenage gang kids (boys) and very young girls who had been arrested for prostitution. Yes, they arrested the girls instead of the men who were trafficking and abusing them. The whole experience taught me a lot about the vicious circle that the so-called justice system is, and the fury I feel about that injustice and the criminal procedure I learned during that period of my life have been simmering in the back of my head for a very long time. A lot of the plot lines come from what I saw in the prison system, and from my research into real-life killers and predators. Every criminal and crime in the book is based on a real-life case.

But also there’s a real ongoing emotional conflict of the book for the reader – no one wants my killer to be caught, including the FBI agent who’s supposed to bring her in.

Did you plan from the start to make this into a series? How do the other books in the series tie in with this one?

From the moment I knew the actual story line I knew it was a series. There’s just too much evil out there that needs fighting to be able to cover it in one book. And the series is really more like a cable TV series than a book series – the books are continuous action, with each book following from the next in chronological time, one month apart.

What are you working on right now?

I’m just finishing the last book in the Huntress series, and writing the TV adaptation of the series, which has been sold for television.

Where can our readers discover more of your work or interact with you?

I love talking with readers. Here’s a direct link to my Amazon author page – all five books in the Huntress series are on sale right now for $1.99 so it’s a good time to shop.

https://www.amazon.com/Alexandra-Sokoloff/e/B001IXTUR2/

And here are my website and social media links:

Website: http://alexandrasokoloff.com

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Alexandra-Sokoloff-61942917067/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/AlexSokoloff

Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/552457.Alexandra_Sokoloff

Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/axsokoloff/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/alexandrasokoloff/I’d been wanting to do a book about a female serial killer for years. I worked as a screenwriter before I started writing novels, and had worked on several film projects about serial killers, so I’ve read everything the FBI has ever put out on serial murder/sexual homicide, and done tons of interviews with criminal profilers. I became obsessed with the fact that there really aren’tfemale serial killers. Women kill, and sometimes they kill numbers of people, but arguably there has never been a woman who has committed what profilers call sexual homicide. I’d never seen a book or film handle that before and that’s the issue I wanted to dig into.

Because let’s face it – women have a lot more reason to kill than men do. Now more than ever.

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