BY: MIKE LERA
NOVEL: THREE GARDEN VILLAGE
ML: Writers are often told to “write what they know”. Would you say you have experience either working in high end residential buildings like Three Garden Village, or know others who do?
LR: A very true statement for all writers. I spent sixteen years in property management. Working day to day in any industry provides countless ideas for plots…especially how to kill someone. Three Garden Village was initially realized when I worked at a massive property such as the one in the novel. With thousands of residents, I would often think, at least one of them has got to be a serial killer. Then, meeting residents on a regular occurrence, that thought stuck with me.
ML: What was the inspiration for TGV’s main “pumpkin face” villain?
LR: My sinister slasher was based on a collection of villains, with Michael Myers being the biggest inspiration. Around halfway through, the novel begins a two-point perspective that takes the reader slowly into the mind of Jack Slash. By the end of the book, I hope readers begin to look at their neighbors with some dread, the same way Carpenter made suburbia a paranoid nightmare.
ML: What gave you the motivation to write a piece centered around a residential building such as Three Garden Village?
LR: We see many slashers taking place in the same settings. The woods, a school, an isolated vacation spot. I wanted to put the plot somewhere different, yet somewhere I was intimately familiar with. I really liked the setting of Poltergeist 2. Apartment communities are filled with rich settings and characters. You have hundreds or thousands of different personalities and emotional satire to play with. A perfect place for a slasher to pump up numbers and stay anonymous.
ML: How long did it take for you to write TGV?
LR: From inception to first draft manuscript took around eight months. I hired a fantastic editor in Lisa Lebel. Together, we spent around three months putting together the final product. Every writer has a different process. I write out massive outlines before I start one word on the work. That takes around a month.
ML: Of all the characters in TGV, who can you relate to the most?
LR: Definitely the final girl Zoe, but I can relate to most of the main characters. I have worked at and lived in apartment communities. There is such a weird dynamic between those that work there and those that live there. When I would train new employees, first thing I would tell them, “This is the only sales job where the customer does not go away.” In the novel, Zoe is torn to leave when things start to get bad but stays through overthinking. I have stuck things out in my personal life when I should have run away. If there is one theme I want the reader to grasp, it is when things start to bleed, patch it up and take off, do not stick around until you are laying in a puddle of blood.
ML: Do you have plans for a “series?”
LR: Not currently. Stephen King once said, “writing a sequel is the first sign of a failing author.” Of course, he went on to scribe, Doctor Sleep. I love loads of book sequels and series, with The Indian Lake trilogy and Clown in a Cornfield being recent favorites. All of my works have a bit of an open ending, so there is always room to go back. I do intend to write short story follow ups to my current catalogue and put it all in one book.
