An unsettling childhood experience inspired the South Australian author’s latest suspense novel, which explores found family, neurodivergence and the lasting impact of trauma.
What do suspense novels have in common with classical music? Very little, you might think, but Diane Hester would beg to differ. The New York-born professional violinist had just left the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra when she tried her hand at writing a novel, and discovered a whole new creative outlet.
Based in Port Lincoln in South Australia, Diane is now the author of eight novels. Her latest, The Fortress of Us, is a suspense thriller that’s based on a haunting experience she had as a child. The story centres on eight-year-old
Kelsey, who makes friends with a shy young girl and rescues her from danger, secretly stowing her away in her treehouse. Kelsey’s sensitive nature makes her the perfect ‘big sister’, but she’ll soon have to protect her new charge from the man who wants to silence them both…
I was lucky to work with Diane on the copyedit of this gripping novel. I loved the way the plot unfolds over a short, two-week timeline, weaving in complex backstories as an unlikely family of strangers comes together, while sensitively portraying a neurodivergent character in Kelsey.
I asked Diane to share her writing process, how music influences her creative approach, and the real-life story behind The Fortress of Us.
Diane, tell us a bit about who you are and how you got into writing.
Thank you, Penny, for inviting me to be on your blog.
I never had any aspirations to be a writer when I was young. My parents were both gifted amateur musicians so I naturally gravitated to music. I studied violin, went on to become an orchestral player and eventually got a job in the Adelaide Symphony which was how I came to Australia from New York.
It wasn’t until my husband and I moved to Port Lincoln and had our first child that playing in the ASO became too difficult and I had to quit. Around the same time, I happened to read a novel with a very simple plot and decided to have a go at writing one just for fun.
It took me a year to write that first novel and it still sits in my bottom drawer. It’s terrible and I’ve never shown it to anyone but the one thing the experience showed me was that I loved writing. It struck me as being more creative than playing violin in an orchestra. Instead of interpreting what others had written I was now doing the ‘composing’ myself. I’ve been doing it ever since.
What’s your latest book, The Fortress of Us, about?
I wrote six novels in six different genres (romance, fantasy, paranormal, romantic comedy, suspense) before deciding suspense was the one I wanted to stick with. It took me writing another four to notice a recurring theme in many of my stories.
The Fortress of Us adheres to this ‘found family suspense’ niche I seem to gravitate to. It’s the story of four desperate strangers, each recovering from personal trauma, who come together to save the life of child in danger and end up a family. Several of my previous novels – Run To Me, Hit and Run, and Target In Sight – all contain this found-family element.
I know you have a really interesting personal story that inspired this book. Can you share where the idea came from? What made you want to write about this story now?
When I was eight years old my parents and I went to visit relatives in Ridgewood, Queens. Sitting on my uncle’s front steps I noticed a little girl wandering alone along the sidewalk. I called her over and we ended up playing happily for hours even though she never spoke a single word. I was puzzled and confused by the state she was in with her tattered clothes, filthy face and matted hair.
When my parents said it was time to leave, the little girl tried to get in our car to come home with us. As young as I was, I wondered what could be so awful about her life that she would prefer to drive off with a group of total strangers. My uncle gently held her back, but when our car pulled away, the girl wrenched herself free and ran down that busy New York street with cars whizzing by all around her trying to catch us.
Writers are lucky … We get to reshape our lives in fiction, become the heroes of our own stories, and find closure where none exists.
The image of that tiny figure, arms outstretched in her bid to reach me, stayed with me my entire life. At the time, my father, in an effort to console me, said I would surely see her again. I never did. Though I walked my uncle’s neighbourhood numerous times I never again found a trace of that lost little waif.
In my later years, with children and grandchildren of my own, I found the memory of that day coming back to me more and more and the unsolved issue of never knowing what became of that girl began to truly haunt me.
Authors draw on personal experience all the time in creating their work, but The Fortress of Us is the first time I ever plucked an actual event from my life and used it to generate a story. In Chapters 3 and 4 I’ve rendered that childhood experience as faithfully as I can recall it. What follows is the story of ‘Molly’ and me as I would’ve wished it to end up back then.
Thinking about that experience now makes me wonder if perhaps it’s the reason I gravitate to the found-family theme in my writing.
One of your characters, Kelsey, is neurodivergent and you’ve portrayed this so sensitively on the page. Can you share your connection to this character?
Because the character Kelsey is essentially me at that age, I gave her the neurodivergent traits I struggled with as a child – ADHD, dyslexia, lack of inhibition, hypersensitivity. In the story I attempt to describe these sensations and behaviours as accurately as I experienced them. I even went so far as to suggest that such traits might, in certain situations, actually prove to be assets.
As with my memories of the mute little girl, writing about these childhood issues helped me understand them better. It may also help readers facing similar issues, either in themselves or others. Writers are lucky in this regard. We get to reshape our lives in fiction, become the heroes of our own stories, and find closure where none exists.
What does your writing process look like? Do you have a writing routine?
I’ve always been a morning person. I do my best thinking after my brain’s been ‘reset’ by a night’s sleep. I tend to wake naturally around 5 am so I make myself a coffee, go straight to my work room and write until around 8 or so.
As for my actual writing process, I tend to write my novels in layers. I start with what I find easiest to write (dialogue) and work my way up to what I find hardest (description). Many of the chapters of my first draft are nothing but people talking. Often, I don’t even know where they are or what they’re doing, I just hear their voices and write down what they say to each other. You can learn so much about people from the way they speak and this deepens the characters in my mind. Possibly this is a carry-over from music. I’ve been trained to listen so that’s what comes easiest for me.
With my second draft I begin adding what the characters are doing and thinking as they speak. This is a really interesting phase as it can completely change the feel of a scene. For example if a character is saying one thing and thinking something completely different.
In my final drafts I finesse the description and voice. My goal in writing early drafts is simply to get the story on the page. I regard most of the sentences I write in this stage as mere place holders. In my final drafts I’ll take these often cliched statements and find more original ways of saying them.
I really enjoyed the clever plotting and the way this thriller unfolds over a tight timeline. I’d be interested to know if you’re a plotter or pantser (or something in between)?
I’m a dyed-in-the-wool plotter. I spend months creating a detailed outline of my story that’s often 30-plus pages long. I tried pantsing, I truly did. It sounds so wonderfully free and creative but the times I did it I either wrote myself into a corner or lost my way entirely.
Having said that however, I never follow my outlines exactly. Something always happens in writing the story that changes my original take on it. I just need a roadmap to keep going forwards otherwise I stall and lose momentum.
This is actually a topic that fascinates me, why writers are so divided on the issue. I sometimes think plotters and pantsers do the same two things but in reverse order –plotters structure the story first, then write it. Pantsers write, then structure afterwards.
When someone tells me they don’t like novels ‘written to formula’ I think of all the composers who wrote waltzes and that you would never confuse a Mozart waltz with one by Bartok or Brahms. They’re written to the exact same ‘formula’ but the voices are totally unique.
I wonder about the creative cross-over in writing for you too – does your background as a professional musician help you write in any way? Is it part of your thinking process?
I have found so many correlations between music and writing. Perhaps the biggest is the understanding that, no matter how bad I am at something to start with, if I practise, I’ll get better. Just like with the violin.
The upside with music of course is that it’s so much easier to see your progress – last week I couldn’t play this passage and this week I can. But knowing that thoughtful practice will improve my writing, even if I can’t see the results straight away, helps me keep a long-term view of my progress.
Music has a rhythm of highs and lows, tension and release. Sustained passages with no variation in tempo (pacing) and/or dynamics (emotional intensity) are boring, just as they are in writing.
Music comes in various forms – minuets, gigues, sarabands, waltzes, hornpipes, rondos – each with specific stylistic requirements. When someone tells me they don’t like novels ‘written to formula’ I think of all the composers who wrote waltzes and that you would never confuse a Mozart waltz with one by Bartok or Brahms. They’re written to the exact same ‘formula’ but the voices are totally unique.
What are you working on at the moment?
Another found-family suspense (surprise!), working title: The Ravine. This is another first for me as it’s the first time a setting was my inspiration for writing a novel.
The Sturt Recreational Reserve is a rugged nine-kilometre trail cutting through the suburbs of Adelaide, ending up in the Adelaide Hills. There are very few ways to access the trail and once you’re in there it’s a different world. The deeper you go into the ravine, the fewer houses you see along the rim until wilderness takes over and you’d swear you were in the heart of outback.
On the occasions I walked this ravine, scenes kept popping into my head of a homeless teen who finds refuge in a secret cave. In my story she stumbles on a band of kidnappers and rescues the little girl they abducted. But because she’s known to police as a thief everyone thinks she took the girl and is holding her for ransom.
Where can we buy your books and follow your author journey?
The print edition of The Fortress of Us is currently available on Amazon.
The ebook edition comes out on 21 June and will also be available from Amazon as well as KOBO.
Readers can follow me on Facebook. I also love receiving their emails through the Contact page on my website, dianehester.com.
Thanks so much for joining us on the blog, Diane!