Stephen King On Serial Killers & His Latest Book

Where Did It Come From?

Call me morbid, by all means, but the world of serial killers has always fascinated me. It must run in my family because my daughter is in her last year of university studying criminal psychology. A good friend is also a psychologist, and his wife is a renowned sport psychologist, and they have all been a good source of research. 

When I write a story about one, I like to ‘get inside’ the killers head and show the reader how and why they became that way; let’s face it, it doesn’t just happen that a ‘normal’ person wakes up one day and decides to kill people. While I don’t like to glamorize it, I do like to show their human side, and get the reader to invest in the character.

The killer in this book, PPP says in one of his memoir entries: “who knows where random flashes of inspiration comes from?” The line sums up the essence of where this book originated. I was driving along one day, not thinking anything specific, certainly not what was my next book going to be about, because I was writing like crazy Thirty-Three Days. Suddenly into my head popped a random thought: ‘I was five years old when I first saw someone bleed out.’

I’ve never seen anyone ‘bleed out’ at any age, let alone at five years old. Furthermore, ‘bleed out’ is not an expression I’d ever use so my mind started racing…..who saw it, why did they see it, and why would they say it? Coincidently, I’d been thinking about writing a long story about four people whose lives become entwined: a cop who has had an affair who is paired with a glamorous, female criminal psychologist hunting a horrific serial murderer, and the effect of their desire for each other on their respective partners. I even knew the era it would be set in, because I had wanted to remind readers of something that happened years ago, which most have forgotten. There was a serious belief that life as we knew it, would come to an end, and there was even some panic among people as the year 2000 approached and brought with it the Y2K bug.  

So, these three things permeated in my brain and I knew to tell the story I envisaged for these four characters, one book would not be enough, but three would be just about perfect.  And so, the plan of a trilogy was born and I called it Three Deadly Glimpses. The idea was that in addition to my central theme I provide the reader with glimpses into the psyche of three people who become serial killers.

My writing habit is to write each morning (and a lot of nights). I get up at 5.30 every morning and write like crazy before I have to leave for my day job (I’m a manager for a Kia car dealership) My process is to write chronologically. While I have a firm direction in mind, I NEVER think about the ending before I get there, and what I find is: I want to write to find out what happens next. 

For me, writing is all about bringing to life characters, getting the reader to invest in them, and even care for them. And, if I achieve that, then I can put those ordinary characters into extraordinary situations. Glimpse, at its core is about desire. The effect that sexual desire can have on the marriages of the protagonists, it’s also about Pat’s desire to use her abilities on the front line of a major police investigation to catch a murderer. Also, of course it’s about the skewed desire that a serial killer has, to murder his victims.

The Deadly Glimpses Trilogy.

Book 1: Glimpse, Memoir of a Serial Killer.

Blurb: 

In 1999 Australia, Sergeant Rick McCoy investigates the murder of a woman found packed inside a suitcase. 

The Killer abducts another victim and threatens to dismember her slowly. His life is further complicated by a marriage in tatters. Frustrated at every turn, he is paired with glamorous Criminal Psychologist and profiler, Patricia Holmes. 

While trying to rebuild his marriage, he finds himself in a desperate race against time to free the victim and fight his desire for his new partner.

Glimpse, Memoir of a Serial Killer is available at Amazon: http://a.co/d/1uPIKNt

Stephen B King
Australian Author
www.stephen-b-king.com
email: stephenk8@me.com
Twitter: @StephenBKing1
Facebook: @stephenbkingauthor

Forever Night
Domin8
The Vigilante Taxi
Burial Ground
Repo
Published by The Wild Rose Press:
Thirty-Three Days

Coming soon: The Deadly Glimpses Trilogy:
Glimpse, Memoir of a Serial Killer
Glimpse, The Beautiful Deaths
Glimpse, The Tender Killer