GUEST POST: EXPLORING THE STORY THAT CAME BEFORE THE STORY BY LYNN SLAUGHTER
Saturday 2 August 2025
I’ve long been fascinated by real-life mysteries of missing persons, people who suddenly disappeared from their loved ones’ lives. So many questions, and often, so few answers. Were they victims of foul play? Kidnapped? Running from something? Running toward something that they found more appealing than their current lives? So many possibilities, and for loved ones left behind, so much grief and uncertainty.
Given my interest in missing persons’ cases, I guess it’s not surprising that I decided to explore what happens to someone left behind. Thus was born the premise for my latest novel, MISSING MOM, in which Noelle, a seventeen-year-old, is distraught over her mother’s sudden disappearance. Despite the circumstantial evidence, she doesn’t believe that her mother would ever have committed suicide and is determined to unravel the mystery of what happened to her mom.
As writers, we often talk about the importance of digging into the backstories of our characters to understand their choices and reactions. Why, for example, is Noelle so sure her mother did not commit suicide? The answer lies in her unusually close relationship to her mother who is such a great listener and so supportive that even Noelle’s friends flock to her mom for advice and counsel. On the day she went missing, Noelle’s mother had made plans to go out with her daughters to the mall for school shopping and pizza. The idea of her mom deciding, “Never mind shopping and pizza. Now I’m going to kill myself” makes absolutely no sense to Noelle.
So, what did happen to her mother? The mystery turns out to be related to the saga of a young woman nearly twenty years earlier who managed to escape from an abusive marriage. I found this young woman’s story riveting and decided to thread it throughout the novel.
After I’d written MISSING MOM, I discovered that what I had done is called a “time slip novel,” in which interconnected stories from different time periods appear. Although time slip novels are not uncommon, this marked the first time I’d ever attempted one, and I found it exciting to try something that was new for me as a writer.
All in all, I loved exploring the story that came before the story I set out to tell. Sometimes our curiosity takes us into new and unexpected places, which makes writing and reading especially pleasurable.
BIO:
Lynn Slaughter is addicted to the arts, chocolate, and her husband’s cooking. After a long career as a professional dancer and dance educator, she returned to school to earn her MFA in Writing Popular Fiction from Seton Hill University. Her six published novels have received numerous accolades, including a Silver Falchion Award, an Agatha nomination, an Imadjinn Award, and a Moonbeam Silver Medal. Midwest Book Review called her most recent work, Missing Mom, a “remarkable book” that “invites readers to immerse themselves in a narrative that beautifully captures the essence of struggle and triumph.”
Lynn’s website: https://lynnslaughter.com
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