Can you tell us a little about your book?
All Your Twisted Secretsis about six teens who were all invited to a scholarship dinner, only to discover it’s a trap. Someone has locked them into a room with a bomb, a syringe filled with poison, and a note saying they have an hour to pick someone to kill … or else everyone dies.
Amber Prescott is determined to get her classmates and herself out of the room alive, but that might be easier said than done. No one knows how they’re all connected or who would want them dead. As they retrace the events over the past year that might have triggered their captor’s ultimatum, it becomes clear that everyone is hiding something. And with the clock ticking down, confusion turns into fear, and fear morphs into panic as they race to answer the biggest question: Who will they choose to die?
Amber Prescott is determined to get her classmates and herself out of the room alive, but that might be easier said than done. No one knows how they’re all connected or who would want them dead. As they retrace the events over the past year that might have triggered their captor’s ultimatum, it becomes clear that everyone is hiding something. And with the clock ticking down, confusion turns into fear, and fear morphs into panic as they race to answer the biggest question: Who will they choose to die?
Will there be a sequel to your book or is it a standalone novel?
As of right now there are no plans for a sequel.
What’s your writing process like?
My writing process ends up being a bit different for each novel, so I’ll talk specifically about All Your Twisted Secrets.
What made this book unique for me in terms of process were the dual timelines. In the story, the characters have an hour to choose who to kill, and one hour is a pretty limited time to get to know each character. I thought integrating flashbacks into the locked-room narrative would kill the tension, so instead I alternated real-time chapters with flashback chapters—all from Amber’s POV over the past year. These flashback chapters get to the heart of the story: the characters’ relationships and how they deal with many of the pressures teens face today, from bullying to college admissions to losing a loved one—all while dropping clues about whodunit and who the victim will be.
So when I drafted the novel, I started with the real-time chapters (as the teens question their predicament, try to escape, and start panicking). But I still hadn’t figured out the ending—I needed those flashback chapters to flesh out the characters first. So I backtracked and determined where the real-time chapter cliffhangers should be, and then wrote flashback chapters to correspond with each cliffhanger, dropping clues, twists, and reveals that would feed into the next real-time chapter. I didn’t write the ending until I was a couple of drafts in.
And the real magic happened during revisions, especially since this book is pretty complex! Just like you wouldn’t solve a jigsaw puzzle by pulling pieces from the box and setting them down in order—from left to right, one at a time—I didn’t revise that way, either. Instead it was like I scattered all the pieces on the table and start working on the edges of the puzzle (the outline, or the framework of the novel, which I put together with notecards after the first draft was done). Then I tackled one section at a time (one plot thread, or one character arc, or one red herring), building and building until it all finally fit together. It was incredibly overwhelming to try to conceptualize this novel at once, but when I broke it down like this and took one element at a time, it was easier to manage.
Can you tell us a little about your book?
All Your Twisted Secretsis about six teens who were all invited to a scholarship dinner, only to discover it’s a trap. Someone has locked them into a room with a bomb, a syringe filled with poison, and a note saying they have an hour to pick someone to kill … or else everyone dies.
Amber Prescott is determined to get her classmates and herself out of the room alive, but that might be easier said than done. No one knows how they’re all connected or who would want them dead. As they retrace the events over the past year that might have triggered their captor’s ultimatum, it becomes clear that everyone is hiding something. And with the clock ticking down, confusion turns into fear, and fear morphs into panic as they race to answer the biggest question: Who will they choose to die?
Amber Prescott is determined to get her classmates and herself out of the room alive, but that might be easier said than done. No one knows how they’re all connected or who would want them dead. As they retrace the events over the past year that might have triggered their captor’s ultimatum, it becomes clear that everyone is hiding something. And with the clock ticking down, confusion turns into fear, and fear morphs into panic as they race to answer the biggest question: Who will they choose to die?
Will there be a sequel to your book or is it a standalone novel?
As of right now there are no plans for a sequel.
What’s your writing process like?
My writing process ends up being a bit different for each novel, so I’ll talk specifically about All Your Twisted Secrets.
What made this book unique for me in terms of process were the dual timelines. In the story, the characters have an hour to choose who to kill, and one hour is a pretty limited time to get to know each character. I thought integrating flashbacks into the locked-room narrative would kill the tension, so instead I alternated real-time chapters with flashback chapters—all from Amber’s POV over the past year. These flashback chapters get to the heart of the story: the characters’ relationships and how they deal with many of the pressures teens face today, from bullying to college admissions to losing a loved one—all while dropping clues about whodunit and who the victim will be.
So when I drafted the novel, I started with the real-time chapters (as the teens question their predicament, try to escape, and start panicking). But I still hadn’t figured out the ending—I needed those flashback chapters to flesh out the characters first. So I backtracked and determined where the real-time chapter cliffhangers should be, and then wrote flashback chapters to correspond with each cliffhanger, dropping clues, twists, and reveals that would feed into the next real-time chapter. I didn’t write the ending until I was a couple of drafts in.
And the real magic happened during revisions, especially since this book is pretty complex! Just like you wouldn’t solve a jigsaw puzzle by pulling pieces from the box and setting them down in order—from left to right, one at a time—I didn’t revise that way, either. Instead it was like I scattered all the pieces on the table and start working on the edges of the puzzle (the outline, or the framework of the novel, which I put together with notecards after the first draft was done). Then I tackled one section at a time (one plot thread, or one character arc, or one red herring), building and building until it all finally fit together. It was incredibly overwhelming to try to conceptualize this novel at once, but when I broke it down like this and took one element at a time, it was easier to manage.
Diana Urban is an author of dark, twisty thrillers. When she’s not torturing fictional characters, she works in digital marketing for startups. She lives with her husband and cat in Boston and enjoys reading, video games, fawning over cute animals, and looking at the beach from a safe distance. Visit her online at dianaurban.com.
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