To create her striking and evocative Body Finder series, author Kimberly Derting draws from crime dramas as well as real-life friends in the Fire/Police departments as resources. With her newest installment Dead Silence, Derting delves deeper into the world of Violet and her unlikely team, as well as some considerable new threats and dangers…

YOUNG ADULT: What made you decide to start writing?
Kimberly Derting: I knew I wanted to be a writer in the 7^th grade, when I took a journalism class. Of course wanting to write didn’t mean I’d be good at it. I wrote my first book when I was in my early twenties, got an agent, and thankfully it never got published. It was awful, but I learned a lot about finishing a manuscript, revising, and submitting to agents. All of the things that would help me later in life.

YA: Tell us a little bit about your latest work. What is different about Dead Silence, and what does it bring to the Body Finder series?
KD: One challenge when writing a series is keeping each story fresh without completely abandoning the format that your readers have come to love. I never wanted my books to be “formulaic,” but at the same time, I want readers to feel like they’re hanging out with an old friend when reading the next book in the series. It’s like walking a tightrope, trying to find that balance that will keep readers coming back for more.
In DEAD SILENCE, my main character, Violet, is learning to open up to the other members of her new team and really lean on them for the first time. She finally feels a sense of belonging. But, of course, I couldn’t let her get too comfortable. Without giving away too much, I can say that she’ll be revisited by an old nemesis who becomes an unlikely ally.

YA: Take us through a typical writing day for you.
KD: I’m not sure any day is particularly “typical” for me. I usually start checking my email very early in the morning, and after that, I generally get sidetracked by Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest—anything that seems like a shiny distraction. I try to rein it in within the hour and get started with whatever project I’m working on at the moment. Before I had an office with a lock, I would write in the kitchen, so chaos doesn’t really bother me. All I really need is my laptop, some comfy sweatpants, copious amounts of tea, and candy (preferably Skittles).
While I’m drafting, I don’t usually make many notes. Mostly I just plow through to make sure I have the plot (and all the major plot points) down. It’s usually during the second draft that I have to make some sort of timeline and start making elaborate notes about the characters so I don’t mix up the details. Because I’m fairly visual, I keep a giant whiteboard in my office to keep track of everything. And, of course, I count on my editors to catch any glaring errors I might have made along the way.

YA: Can you describe the path to getting this work published? What were the challenges? What was easy about it? KD: I’ve queried with other books, but for THE BODY FINDER, I pitched the concept to agents and editors at a conference, which is where I met my agent, Laura Rennert. We went out on submission within weeks, and had multiple offers within the month.I think the challenge for me was knowing when to walk away from a project. I had that first book I’d written, which I thought was brilliant, yet it really wasn’t. When I finally gave up on it and moved on, my career was able to move forward. YA: What were your specific influences for this book? Films, literature, other stories? KD: Most of the research I do for the BODY FINDER series, I’ve been doing since I was in my teens—reading psychological thrillers and true crime books, watching documentaries on serial killers, along with every kind of crime drama out there (CSI, Bones, Medium, Criminal Minds, Law & Order). I’m also fortunate to have some very close friends who work in the Fire/Police departments who have been great resources that I’m constantly leaning on.

YA: If you hadn’t become an author, what path would your career have perhaps taken?
KD: That’s a tough question because I was one of those people who always knew I wanted to write. I tried other things along the way—I was a biology major in college, I worked for an airline for years, I was a real estate agent, and even a stay-at-home mom, but I could never give up the dream of writing full time. If you know what you want to do, you shouldn’t stray from that path.

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