As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.
On The Table Read Magazine, “the best book magazine in the UK“, author of the Even Love And Murder series, A.E.S. O’Neill, shares his creative writing process.
Written by A.E.S. O’Neill
Why do so many of us need to tell stories? It always amazes me how intrinsic that need is to our humanity. For me, the result is two romance/thriller/mystery novels about love, murder, trauma, healing, and in the end, redemption. Two volumes of my three-part “Even Love and Murder” series — “Even A Pandemic Can’t Stop Love and Murder” and “Even Climate Change Can’t Stop Love and Murder” — are out in the world and have gotten great professional reviews.
Even Love And Murder
“Even A Pandemic…” volume 1, was based on a true story. Over lunch in Manhattan, my father told me a story about a robbery at a mob bank. My father, a low-level mob money launderer, knew all the sordid details. Why? Because he was part of it. That story became the basis of the first novel “Even a Pandemic Can’t Stop Love and Murder”. All the same actions of the crime and the cat-and-mouse hunt for the purloined item and the perpetrators are true, but because it involved the FBI and mob, some closets need to stay shut and locked. New characters, Ginger, and Alby tell the story, with charm and grit.
Why merge topical and mystery elements in the titles? Recently someone mentioned they would never read a pandemic novel – but I had to clarify that in this tale, the pandemic is much like “Murder on the Orient Express”: the train didn’t kill anyone, it acted as the Dark Castle metaphor setting the table for the murders. In volume 2 when Ginger and Alby are secretly relocated to Arizona, climate change IS a murderer, worse in some ways than the white supremacists and insurrectionists they meet. In 2026, climate violence has no agenda but a deadly indifference to human life.
Even though I use the pandemic and then climate change and soon, biowarfare, to give Ginger and Alby’s love story/thriller a broader societal context, the reality is, as a couple they just draw trouble to themselves. They are a lot of fun to hang out with.
Creative Process
Now, as to the creative process…for me, it’s like walking past a window and you see a party going on. If I am really tuned in, the window is wide open, and I can hear the character’s conversations and thoughts. It can be very fluky and turn off and on fast. Like a Bay of Fundi, the story comes in then retreats.
Personally, I find listening and writing easiest at the end of the day. The night is when I write– the darkness feeds me. I force myself to stop around midnight or later. I write at night because I feel this is the time when the walls between the worlds of the imagination and wherever else we go are the thinnest – I believe there is a spiritual component to the imagination. Or maybe vice versa.
When I am deep into writing a story, I only read non-fiction or poetry. Always in need of feeding and inspiration, but just not from someone else’s novel.
Archetypes
Archetypes appeal to my psyche. One that is foundational to everything I write is the conflict of dualities: love and murder, trauma and healing, death and life, and good and evil. The focus stays on “and” not the usual “versus”. Good and evil will always coexist. We might believe we can squash it. We might believe we can beat it in some mortal combat or some incredible scientific breakthrough, but that is human hubris. The reality is the human condition is not about vanquishing, it is a pendulum that goes back-and-forth.
Coming soon is volume three, “Even Biowarfare Can’t Stop Love and Murder”, which takes place on the world’s greatest ocean liner. It is a murder mystery, with a greater focus on this couple who may not be detectives, but have survived enough shitstorms to know how to navigate and manage to solve a murder that jeopardizes their own lives.
Realized Dreams
At age 14, I was told that I would write novels, poems, and short stories. Now I am. Two novels are published with several more in different stages of planning. The dream was realized. But getting here…Well, let’s just say that’s its own archetypical story.
Every day, we each write our own novel.
Find more from A.E.S. O’Neill now:
Here is a link to the book/author page: Even a Pandemic Can’t Stop Love and Murder | A.E.S. O’Neill
Bio: Even a Pandemic Can’t Stop Love and Murder | A.E.S. O’Neill
Twitter: aesoneill
We strive to keep The Table Read free for both our readers and our contributors. If you have enjoyed our work, please consider donating to help keep The Table Read going!
Amazon and the Amazon logo are trademarks of Amazon.com, Inc, or its affiliates.