Marta Stephens is a native of Argentina who has made Indiana her home since the age of four. This mild-manner lady turned to crime with the publication of the first in her Sam Harper Crime Mystery series, Silenced Cry (2007) which went on to receive honorable mention at the 2008 New York Book Festival and top ten in the 2007 Preditors & Editors Reader Poll. The second book in the Harper series, The Devil Can Wait, will be released by BeWrite Books (UK) on November 3, 2008.
Stephens holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in Journalism/Public Relations from Ball State University (IN) where she is employed in human resources. She is a member of Sisters in Crime International, Sisters in Crime Speed City Indiana Chapter, and the Midwest Writer's Workshop.
Stephens believes learning is a life-long adventure. Aside from her writing, she is trained in graphic and web design. She co-designed the award-winning book cover of her debut novel, Silenced Cry with friend Scott Parkison (IN), created the book trailer, and designed/administers her Web site, her personal blog, and the authors’ blog, Murder by 4.
Marta will be on virtual book tour in December 2008 to promote her latest crime mystery novel, The Devil Can Wait. We interviewed her to find out more about her wonderful new book.
Q: Thank you for this interview, Marta. Can we begin by having you tell us why you chose crime mystery to write?
A: I’m very pleased to be here. Actually, I’ve loved mystery/suspense since I was little. The first book I remember sinking my teeth into was a set of short ghost stories I read in third grade and I’ve loved mysteries ever since. Although I write crime and my novels have been described as police procedural that leans toward noir, I grew up loving the cozies of Agatha Christie and the suspense of Alfred Hitchcock. I love following the clues and finding the guilty so when I decided to write fiction, genre was never in question.
Q: Did you outline before you wrote your book or did you just go with the flow?
A: Rather than outline the book, I write a synopsis, but prior to that, I consider the crime, who committed it and why and then work backwards. It’s critical for me to understand the criminal’s motive and the best way I’ve found to do this is to write brief back stories on each new character who will have a significant roll in the plot. Every character has a story to tell and often it’s these stories that develop into the subplots that twist, turn, and complicate Sam Harper’s cases. Once I have some of these preliminary steps organized, I begin to write. It’s only after the first draft is completed that I take a closer look at the sequence of the chapters to make sure my timelines remain accurate.
Q: Who was your favorite character in The Devil Can Wait and why?
A: It goes without saying that Sam Harper is always my favorite. After all, he is the protagonist, the best developed and complicated character in the series. I thoroughly enjoy getting inside his head to find out what he’s thinking. I especially like to challenge him by creating a variety of complex situations to sift through and then when things can’t get any worse, they do.
Q: Who was your least favorite character?
A: I have to admit I love all of my character, but I do have a few who were more difficult to develop. Travis Stoebe is and example from The Devil Can Wait. He’s a former college physics professor who suffers from paranoid schizophrenia and has been off his medication and hallucinates throughout most of the book. My challenge was to not only dig into his past in order to understand why he had allowed his health to deteriorate, but to also comprehend his state of mind.
