S. 3, Ep. 16: A Chat with Mystery Author S.G. Wong

The Crime Cafe

Debbi Mack interviews mystery author S.G. Wong. The transcript is below, if you’d like to read it. Or download the PDF copy and read it later. Debbi: Hello everyone. This is the Crime Cafe. This is your podcasting source of great crime, suspense and thriller writing. I’m your host, Debbi Mack. Before I introduce my guest, I would just like to remind you to check out the Crime Cafe link on my website, debbimack.com where you can find buy links for the Crime Cafe Boxed Set and Short Story Anthology. It’s only $1.99 for the boxed set and $0.99 for the anthology and you can also subscribe to the podcast there. And now, it’s a great pleasure for me to introduce my next guest, a woman who writes in the hardboiled mystery genre, which I love and also has an awesome female protagonist, S. G. Wong. Hi, S.G., how are you doing today? S.G.: I’m doing well Debbi. How are you? Debbi: Fine, thanks! I had the pleasure of reading your first Lola Starke novel Die On Your Feet. I just thought it was so, such an interesting concept. S.G.: Thank you. Debbi: How about you tell us about Lola and her companion, so to speak, Aubrey [laughs]. S.G.: So, as you mentioned my series protagonist, her name is Lola Starke, and Lola lives in a city, I call Crescent City. I created a world for her and it’s based on 1930’s Los Angeles, but the premise is “what if the Chinese had colonized rather than Europeans” and then I also imagined ghosts being a regular part of life in Crescent City. So, Lola’s constant companion, Aubrey is invisible to Lola but she hears him. She hears him just fine. Oftentimes, she’s not happy about hearing what he has to say, but you know those are the best sorts of, you know partnerships. Dramatic partnerships are, you know, when they’re at odds. It’s really fun to write. So, Lola is a bit of a trust fund baby, but she’s actually also a private investigator. She chose that path because of her father who worked at one of the studios in town. So, since it’s based on, you know, not a very close reading of 1930’s era L.A., but sort of this Hollywood glamorized version that we all sort of have (those of us who don’t actually live there). So, there’s a movie studio, there’s a movie studio system and so Lola’s father used to work as a fixer for the studios and she’s kind of gotten into that sort of problem solving career. So, that’s who she is and her companion, Aubrey. Yeah, her ghost [laughs]. Debbi: That’s really something. The first book ends in a way that’s not really a cliffhanger, but really strongly suggests an interesting sequel. That’s all I’ll say about that. S.G.: I’ve actually…well so far, I mean now it’s 2018 isn’t it? There are three books out in this series so far, and I’m actually busily working on a prequel novella. It’s actually a re-working. I actually had finished it back in July of 2017 and then you know how it is, Debbi when you’ve done something and it’s okay, but something’s not quite sitting right with you, you know as the writer. And so I sat with that for months, and I finally decided in December I had to re-write the whole thing because it just was not quite working. So, I have no idea when that’s going to be out [laughs], but I’m working on it. And then, in terms of the continuing novel series, I have an idea to do three more books. Books Four, Five and Six I guess it would be. Sort of like a trilogy within the larger series because I have a really long story arc I want to explore. So, that’s what’s on deck I guess, as they say. Debbi: Wow, that’s fascinating. I realized that you had some books after the first one and I was curious about what kind of story arc Lola had without giving too much away over the course of those books. S.G.: Right. So far books One, Two and Three and thank you very much again for your lovely, kind words about book One, Die On Your Feet. So, the two books after that, the second one is called, In For A Pound and the third one is called,