Episode 3 is Live Now!
Click the cover above to start reading episode 3: Blooms of Light. This week’s chapter is from Wills’ perspective. Don’t forget to vote on the poll at the end of the episode with your suggestion for what should happen next. Now, let’s talk about the story and my thoughts when I jumped right into writing from his perspective.
When Did We Meet Wills for the First Time?
In The Disappearance of Susannah Dane, Wills is introduced as a young Sheriff’s deputy who ends up going out of his way for both Paige and Owen. There are a few iconic moments that we see from Wills, such as when he gets into a fight with Gunnar on the beach or when he is the bearer of bad news when they discover something new about Susannah. Wills is only 20 years old in The Disappearance of Susannah Dane, so he’s kind of new to the whole “solving a murder” thing.
Who is Chase in relation to Wills?
Wills is the older brother of the “hottest guy at Ecola Bay High”, Chase, and seems to be constantly pulling his little brother out of trouble. In this episode, we learn that something happened during the time skip between The Absence of Aurelia Perez and the current story. Chase has been arrested, there’s mention of “the girls didn’t deserve that…” and other ominous statements. We know from Chase’s history in TDSD that he has a history of drugging girls (even his ex-girlfriend, Sierra.) Whatever Chase did that landed him in this situation, it couldn’t have been good.
Why Does Paige Go With Him?
I think that when Wills pulls up to the front of Ainsworth Manor and sees Paige, a little drunk, and standing out on the street, he wants to help her. Maybe in a pitying way, maybe something else. And Paige is looking for any excuse to not have to go back inside Ainsworth Manor. She has been struggling with dreading coming back home, because of everything that went on, and also missing it terribly. It is kind of a big jump to move from a tiny coastal beach town to the heart of Portland! I think that WIlls just seemed like a safe, non-judgmental place to be while she slept off the alcohol.
Don’t forget to vote at the end of the story on whether you think that Paige and Wills belong as “just friends” or something more…
Did COVID-19 Happen In This Timeline?
I started writing The Disappearance of Susannah Dane in 2021, and COVID-19 was a big part of my life. My husband owned a small business which was unfortunately affected by COVID and that was very hard. And I was pregnant with my third son and that was very stressful because there was a lot of chatter about whether or not my husband would even be allowed to be in the delivery room with me. I also had a lot of complications during that pregnancy and delivery and it was scary to have a baby during such an uncertain time. The Disappearance of Susannah Dane was written as an outlet for me and I really did not want to include COVID in the story. While that might bother some people, I think that fiction can sometimes be a nice break from reality and I still cringe when I watch shows or read books that involve COVID because it brings a lot of stressful memories to the surface. When I wrote this story, I wanted to just get my vaccine and stick my head in the sand, so that’s kind of what I did. So, I won’t be bringing COVID into the story in these later books either.
Why Didn’t You Continue Publishing Episodes in The Disappearance of Susannah Dane?
So, one thing that many people do on Kindle Vella is just continue the story with new episodes in the same story link. Since Kindle Vella is a new program, my understanding early on was that I couldn’t break up parts of the story and publish say episodes 1-31 as a book and then episodes 32-48 as another book. That is no longer the case. On today’s Kindle Vella, I could continue publishing new episodes in the same story link and maybe in the future, I would choose to do that instead.
I think it is harder to carry readers from The Disappearance of Susannah Dane over to new story links because Amazon doesn’t alert them that new episodes are being released from “Eliza Stopps,” so I think I missed some readers in the transition. However, I think it would be kind of confusing for all of my books to continue to be published under The Disappearance of Susannah Dane since that case is solved at the end of that book.
If I had a story that fit that format though, where I could publish very short 500-600 word episodes (and publish a thousand of them…) then I would be open to trying it.
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