Threads Author Polly Iyer

Think about the worst moment in your life. A moment that changed irrevocably everything you’ve ever known. Would you take that moment back?

What if that moment offers you a different life, allows you to do things you would never do otherwise? Meet people you would never know? 

Think again.

 

That one moment transforms the lives of a dozen people, each keeping a secret they can never expose. A single thread ties them together. Inextricably and forever. Cut it, and someone dies. 

Now, would you take that moment back?          
                                                                             Polly Iyer (Threads, description)

Polly Iyer writes romantic suspense. After being a finalist in RWA contests, Polly chose Indie authorship, which has suited her well. One of her first manuscripts, Threads, eluded her revision efforts until this year when she perfected the script and released it. I’m glad she did. Its structure fascinated me, and I knew while reading it that I had to interview Polly again. Please welcome Polly Iyer back to WWK.                                                                            E. B. Davis

When did you write Threads, and how many manuscripts had you written before attempting to revise Threads?

Threads was the first book I wrote, and I had no idea what I was doing. That was the year 2000. At

least once a year I’d pull up the book on my computer and work on it, but I was never quite satisfied for reasons I couldn’t explain. It’s a complicated plot that spans a seven-year time frame, and it shifts back and forth. In between, I wrote ten other books. Five are published under my name, three under a pen name, and two are still unpublished.

I loved your unusual plot structure. Although the reader doesn’t understand, the beginning is actually the past. Then, the script continues in the future taking the reader to a time that is not quite to the present, showing what transpired in between and setting up the present with a past that impinges on the future until it catches up—a true suspense structure—like a tidal wave. How did you devise this structure?

Wow, it sounds complicated. Actually, the book originally started in the present and went back in time, with many other structural changes along the way. At one time I had divided it into Books, highlighting different characters and plot sections. I’d seen that done many times by famous authors, but the longer I kept it that way, the less I liked it. When I finally started at the beginning of my heroine’s journey, it seemed right, though I realized switching time frames might be confusing. A main character doesn’t come in until much later in the book, which I also worried about. At one time I had a prologue that introduced him immediately, but that didn’t work either. You can see why this book took thirteen years to publish. I kept working to get the story right because I loved my characters, especially the hero. That goes to my personal conclusion that I write men better than women. The blurb for this book was hard to write without giving something away, which is why it’s so ambiguous.

One of your themes is overcoming adversity. In some of your novels, you up the ante by adding physical handicaps to your main characters’ traits, such as Abigael Gallant in Insight. Is life a battlefield?

For many, yes. One reviewer said I make heroes out of damaged people. I like that description. Perfect people are boring to me, not that I know any. I think sometimes disabled people are portrayed as victims. I had a friend who was a quadriplegic, paralyzed from the shoulders down, and he was one of the most positive people I’ve ever known. The forty-nine years he spent in a wheelchair was devoted to helping others like him. He died last year at sixty-six. I will miss his optimism. He was a real hero. I think most people have things in their past or present—whether physical or psychological—that form the people they become. I love to explore that in my books. Characterization is just as important as plot to me. You can’t have one without the other.

Taking down the bad guy attracts readers to your work, and your villains are despicable. Do you write them from your nightmares? Will you create a female villain?

Hmm, interesting idea. A female villain. I’ll have to give that more thought. It’s been done recently: Chelsea Cain and Alexandra Sokoloff for two. Notice they’re both women authors. Female villains have been around for decades in comic books.

The villain in Threads is very different from the one in Mind Games. In Threads, the villain is evil through and through, without remorse; In Mind Games, I hope I wrote the villain as a sympathetic character. At least I felt sorry for him. I sometimes have greed as the villain, as in InSight, Goddess of the Moon, and Murder Déjà Vu. In Hooked, one semi-villain is driven by sexual obsession, and that makes him take the wrong path. I made him rather a buffoon, but his weakness drives the book, and it costs him in the end. I don’t want my readers to expect repetitive storylines and/or characters in my books.  

Although I’ve deemed your work as romantic suspense, some of your books fit into psychological drama, much like the film Rear Window. Did you study the work of Alfred Hitchcock?

Who hasn’t? His work is the classic “put the ordinary hero/heroine in extraordinary/dangerous situations” scenario. This doesn’t work as well when there are cops and detectives, because a reader expects danger. In InSight, my cop is at a disadvantage because he loses his hearing during a job-related explosion, and he’s fighting to stay relevant on the force in some capacity. No one wants him there, even the other cops. His disability is a liability he refuses to recognize, so he is always in danger. When Hitchcock made his films, the technique was fresher than it is today, but it still works if done right.

You normally write one-off books, but last year you introduced psychic Diana Racine in Mind Games,

a popular book, and continued her character in Goddess of the Moon. Has the series bug bitten you? Will you continue writing Diana Racine novels?

I wouldn’t call it a bite. More like a nibble and a sequence in my writing career. I’m working on the third book now and am having trouble with it. One problem I see with some series is that the main character/s don’t grow. I don’t want that to be the case with Diana. In the first two books, she makes the same mistakes. I’m trying to have her mature in the third book and not make her a perpetual victim, which would be formulaic, in my opinion. That means I have to find other ways to make the book exciting without diminishing her part in the story. Not so easy.

I doubt there’ll be more series. Although I know they sell better, they kind of pigeonhole a writer, especially if they’re successful. I don’t have a big enough fan base for that to happen, so I’m clear either way. The “fans” I hear from read all my books, not just the series, though there are those too. I’m a stand-alone writer by nature. One of my writing heroes is Sidney Sheldon. I loved his stand-alone novels.

What prompted you to form Parkwood Press with Ellis Vidler, under which you both publish your novels? Will you publish other authors?

Parkwood Press is not a licensed publisher. It’s something two friends, critique partners, and supporters devised to highlight their books. I’ve clearly stated on my website that the name is an umbrella name, nothing more. So no, no other writers need apply. I don’t see why they would want to. 

In how many reading formats do you publish your work?

Interesting question. Though all my books except Threads are in paper—it will be soon—I don’t do signings or appearances but concentrate on ebooks. I’m beginning to move my books out of Amazon exclusivity to embrace other reading formats by distributing my books through an epublisher. I’m still putting them up on Amazon myself, just not in KDP Select. This will make my books available to not only mobi, but to epub, PDF, and other formats, but also to distribution outlets here and around the world. This is a long-term strategy. I don’t expect to see much happening for a while with this change, but I feel a writer has to take chances, and that’s what I’m doing. 

I’m envious of Ellis and your artistic talent. How do you capture the essence of your books pictorially? Content? Tone?

Mostly, it’s seeing a photograph that inspires us to make the cover. It might be a mood photo, such as Goddess of the Moon, Murder Déjà Vu, and Hooked, or one that depicts something in the book—my other three.

Most writers start with short stories, but you recently wrote your first short story. Tell our readers about your experience. Will you use that art form to promote your work using characters from your novels and offering them to the public?

I wrote the short story for an anthology to see if I could. I’m delighted the story was accepted. I learned a lot, mainly that I’m a long story writer. I like the minutia I can insert in a long story, like the character development 350 pages allows me. I try to write a tight story. I don’t know if I always succeed, but I try. Short story writing is getting in and getting out. I won’t say I’ll never write another one, but it’s not a comfortable fit for me. If I get a great idea, I might give it another shot, but it would have to be a doozy.

What’s next for Polly Iyer?

I’ll finish the third Diana Racine book, I hope, then edit a couple of other books that are already finished. One is titled Cross Currents, and it has something to do with the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum heist. I’ve always been afraid they would find the stolen paintings, and that would kill the book. In reality, I’d be happy to dump the book if they did find the paintings. The empty frames at the museum are a sad sight. The other is a book titled Achilles’ Heel. That will take a lot of rewriting because I borrowed a part for another book. There’s still enough story left, because I always have more than one storyline. Achilles’ Heel had three. Then there are a couple of books half-finished that I like but got distracted from finishing. There will always be a book on the 

horizon.

Thanks, Elaine, for having me once again. I’m delighted to be here to answer your probing questions. I hope I didn’t go on too long.