with Tatiana Boncompagni
We are delighted to welcome mystery author Tatiana Boncompagni to Omnimystery News today.
Tatiana's new novel is Social Death (Tudor City Press; March 2014 trade paperback and ebook formats), a thriller about the murder of a beautiful socialite and the scandalous secret she dies trying to reveal. Money and fame can conceal all manner of deceit, but only for so long.
We recently had the opportunity to catch up with the author and talk about the book with her.
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Omnimystery News: Social Death is subtitled "A Clyde Shaw Mystery" suggesting it is the first of a new series. After writing two stand-alone novels, why choose to create a recurring character?
Photo provided courtesy of
Tatiana Boncompagni
Tatiana Boncompagni: I didn't start writing Social Death with the intention of it becoming the first book in a series. It was only once my main character — Clyde Shaw, a Teflon-tough TV crime news producer — started revealing herself on the page that I knew I wanted to write a series built around her. Clyde is by far the most compelling and likeable character I've ever written, and I'm confident she'll be the reason readers keep coming back for more. As far as character development goes, Clyde has a significant arc in book one. She figures out a lot about her very privileged yet very troubled past and has to deal with major shifts in her personal and professional life. In book two we'll see her deal yet again with more revelations and personal struggles.
OMN: Tell us more about your writing process.
TB: I start first by writing. I like to get a few chapters down before I hunker down and do the hard work of creating outlines and biographies. That's all back room stuff that helps me in the long run, but in the beginning, I just want to have fun. So I write and try not to think too far ahead until I hit a point, usually twenty to thirty pages in, when I realize I've got too much in my head and not enough on paper.
At that point I stop and spend a few weeks working on the characters and a synopsis. For Social Death, I wrote biographies for the five main characters — Clyde, Georgia Jacobs, (Clyde's mentor and boss at the FirstNews network), Alex Amori (the devilishly handsome TV correspondent Clyde is forced to work with), Panda (the pudgy New York City detective Clyde relies on for inside scoops), and Olivia Kravis (the murder victim).
Then I created a rough outline.
Then I started writing again. To be honest, a lot of the outline got thrown out. Some characters, too. But that's okay. I like to think of the synopsis as a "suggested" road map. Point A and B are there, but there are a million ways to travel the distance between, and you sometimes can't figure out which way is best — or whether a detour is worth taking — until your cursor is right there, blinking at you.
After I finish the first draft of a book, I'm still far from finished. Whoever said writing was revision, had it right. I'm about 50 percent done once my first draft is in the can.
OMN: Where do you usually write?
TB: I write in my dining room on a really big Mac. I like to see two pages at once while I write. Not sure why, but I seem to write better that way. I also need lots of light, so my desk is near a big window and there's a small porcelain lamp on my desk that I turn on when I work at night. On the wall behind my monitor is a set of six Audubon prints, and on my desk is a small painting my seven year-old daughter made for me. Other than the lamp and the painting, my desk space is totally clear. I can't work if things are cluttered. I'm a little OCD like that.
OMN: Social Death is set in New York City and in the television news industry. How true are you to this setting in the book?
TB: It was important to me to get the details of the story right in regards to setting. That wasn't too hard; I walk — in real life — the same Upper East Side streets Clyde does in my fiction and I know plenty of TV journalists. (I also spent a time interning for Greta Van Susteren when she worked at CNN in Washington, D.C.) I'm also a journalist by training (for newspapers and magazines), and in that line of work, accuracy is everything. Even in my fiction, I want to give my readers as true a sense as possible of what it is like to live in Manhattan and work in TV news.
OMN: How do you see Clyde in your mind's eye?
TB: Clyde's physical appearance is pretty distinctive. She's tall and has red hair, big breasts and more than a little meat on her bones. She's the kind of woman you'd notice walking into the room and because she's big and tough, people tend to treat her roughly. That's one of the reasons readers tend to connect to her. She gets a lot of stuff thrown at her, but she never complains. Christina Hendricks — Joan on Mad Men — would probably do a great job playing Clyde. She has a wonderful presence on screen that is sexy and strong, yet also a little vulnerable. That's Clyde in a nutshell.
OMN: What kinds of books do you enjoy reading? Have any particular authors influenced how and what you write today?
TB: I was a competitive swimmer and runner when I was young. My parents would drive my sister and me to meets on weekends. We were in the car — one of those old "grocery getter" Buick station wagons with the wood paneling on the side — for hours on end, driving all over the Southeast of the U.S. from our home in Nashville, Tennessee. My sister and I would lie down on sleeping bags in the back, eat Combos or Dairy Queen onion rings (a real treat) and read. I loved Agatha Christies. Later, in high school and college I read Edith Wharton, Henry James and F. Scott Fitzgerald. I'd say my work is influenced by all of those authors.
In terms of current influences, I think great things are happening on television. I love House of Cards (Netflix), Mad Men (AMC) and Ray Donovan (Showtime). All those shows star complex, troubled, compelling characters and are exceedingly well written. They inspire me, for sure.
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Tatiana Boncompagni lives in New York City with her husband and three children. Her writing has appeared in dozens of publications, including The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Town & Country, Vogue, and Marie Claire. You can learn more about the author and her work at Boncompagni.net or find her on Facebook and Twitter.
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Social Death
Tatiana Boncompagni
A Clyde Shaw Mystery
She'd kill for the truth …
When veteran news producer Clyde Shaw is called to the scene of a grisly murder on the Upper East Side, she thinks it's just another high-profile crime, the kind she's built her high-powered career on — except the murder victim is Olivia Kravis, the daughter of Clyde's billionaire boss and Clyde's best friend since childhood.
As a high-stakes network ratings war begins, Clyde's own privileged yet troubled past comes back to haunt her, and she's forced to choose between finding her best friend's killer and losing everything — her job, her reputation, even her life. Long-guarded secrets. Millions at stake. And only Clyde holds the key to unlocking the truth.
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