With books deemed “visceral, haunting, and fully immersive” (New York Times Bestseller Andra Watkins), Meghan O’Flynn has made her mark on the thriller genre. Meghan is a clinical therapist who draws her character inspiration from her knowledge of the human psyche. She is the bestselling author of gritty crime novels and serial killer thrillers, all of which take readers on the dark, gripping, and unputdownable journey for which Meghan is notorious. Learn more at https://meghanoflynn.com! While you’re there, join Meghan’s reader group, and get exclusive bonuses just for signing up.
In Meghan’s latest book, THE DEAD DON’T DREAM, a psychologist must decide whether her sleepwalking patient is a victim or a brutal serial killer in this unpredictable psychological thriller.
A night to remember… if you make it out alive.
Psychologist Maggie Connolly didn’t just stumble into trouble—she was born into it. Her humanitarian but slightly shady parents had no problem breaking the law when it served the greater good. Helping domestic violence victims escape their abusers by vanishing them over state lines might not be exactly aboveboard, but Maggie knows right and wrong don’t always fall within the confines of the law.
So she doesn’t immediately panic when her newest client presents with a suspicious set of symptoms. Tristan Simms claims to be a sleepwalker who has no idea what he does in the nighttime hours, though the wounds on his hands and grime beneath his fingernails indicate he’s doing anything but resting. He also believes that the police are stalking him and asserts that he made his money peddling the secrets of others. He might be a delusional whack job—it’s a clinical term.
But her assessment shifts when a series of bodies are discovered. Stranger, the timeline for the murders matches that of her patient’s sleepwalking episodes.
With the body count rising, and threats mounting from all sides, Maggie is running out of choices—and time. It seems that Maggie’s next on the kill list. And only one thing connects the victims: her patient, with his head full of secrets, his fingernails dark with blood.
Intense, addictive, and full of complex and darkly hilarious characters you’ll never get enough of, Mind Games is a fast-paced psychological crime series for fans of Bones, Dark Places, and The Blacklist.
Intense, addictive, and full of complex and darkly hilarious characters you’ll never get enough of, Mind Games is a fast-paced psychological crime series for fans of Bones, Dark Places, and The Blacklist.
I recently had the chance to chat with Meghan and she agreed to answer some questions. I’m excited to share her knowledge and perspective with y’all!
JD: Where do you get your ideas (and how do you sleep at night???)?
It’s mighty presumptuous to assume that I sleep. And ideas come from literally everywhere. The Jilted came from a song. The Flood came to me during a hurricane. Sometimes a character pops into my head while I’m doing chores or something mundane. Sometimes I have a random dream and wake up knowing that I have to write it down. Many stories show up in the form of metaphor and reflect my real-life emotions. And sometimes I write a story because I’m deeply frustrated about something and need to let it out. I think most people should be careful irritating thriller authors, because we have no problem brutally murdering you on paper.
JD: Are you a pantser (outlines are for suckers!) or a plotter (get me some highlighters and a spreadsheet!)? If you outline, is there a method you’d recommend?
A little bit of both, though I definitely think that pants are for suckers under most circumstances. I tend to have a general idea of the plot points, but I’m often surprised by who the killer is. (If I’m not surprised enough, I’ll rewrite the story to reflect an even more shocking twist, because that’s how I roll.)
JD: How do you craft those amazing twists and turns? Do you plot them ahead of time or get surprised as you write? Do you start with the killer and a crime and work your way backwards?
It depends on the story. I’ve done both. Sometimes I start with the killer—I have an entire series featuring the daughter of a serial killer, so that one began with the murderous backstory. Sometimes, I start with the protagonist, the person looking to solve a crime. Sometimes, the killer and the protagonist are the same person. Surprise! My main goal in any circumstance is to give the reader a thrilling ride that will stick with them after they’ve finished the book.
JD: How do you write such believable, compelling characters?
As a clinical therapist, I draw a lot of inspiration from my professional knowledge. I’ve worked with psychopaths, with killers, with all manner of humans. When I start a book, I have a backstory in mind for my main character as well as a general disposition and emotional state, which means I can predict reliably what someone with that history might do—this almost allows the character to write themselves. If I need a character to lean into certain behaviors, I create the backstory to reflect that. Being true to life makes it easier for me to create multi-dimensional characters and bring the rest of the story to life around their experience.
JD: Although we want to know alllll your secrets, what is one way you infuse conflict into your pages?
When in doubt, I ask myself, “What is the most twisted thing that could happen to this character right now?” And then I usually write that thing. My poor characters. This is why I have a group of readers with T-shirts about a character that I killed off. Nice guys sometimes finish last in my books. No one is safe. And just knowing that is itself sometimes a catalyst for edge-of-your-seat reading.
JD: What is your process for editing?
Bleed a rough draft onto the page for a few weeks, note the emotional motivations of the characters and their backstories, set the book aside, then come back and infuse additional style into the craft. The editing phase takes some time because I always like to give myself a long break (sometimes a month) before I try to do that.
JD: Are there certain themes that you tend to come back to as you write?
Most of the overall themes are those inherent to the human condition (shrink, remember?). Grief and loss tend to pop up more often than most, along with the thrill of the chase, the drive to do better—to be better—and the fear of failing in that endeavor. I also tend to humanize the “bad guys” and write a lot of anti-heroes. No one is perfect, and anyone is capable of terrible things under the right circumstances.
JD: You’re a fast writer. Do you have a secret sauce recipe? Is there a mental attitude that helps you keep going (i.e., how do you deal with doubt)?
There are a lot of ingredients to the secret sauce, but I think the main one is cocaine. Kidding, kidding, it’s half anxiety about finishing the book for my readers in a reasonable amount of time and half the cathartic emotional release that I let seep into my characters. I’ve always said that writing is like bleeding onto a page, and I believe that now more than ever.
What is the most unusual place you’ve gotten one of your writing ideas?
Honestly, I often hear the voice of a character in my head well before I have any idea what they’re going to do. For my last series, Poppy started talking to me while I was doing the dishes, and she didn’t shut up until I’d written a chapter of her ominously watching the light in her father’s shed blink on. My next standalone is going to have the same origin story—I already have the first chapter written because she needed me to hear her voice before I could do anything else.
But I think my favorite has to be from a short story called “Four Hours.” This extravaganza of twists came from a prompt that was jokingly thrown out as something that no sane person could write a reasonable story for. The prompt? “Cactus Squeegee.” I’m quite proud of the way it turned out (sane or not), but the best part is obviously the lifelong bragging rights. (Take that, suckers.)
What advice would you give to pre-published writers?
WRITE. That’s it. Get your laptop, grab a pen, and let it out. Worry about the cleanup later. Editing is a thing to consider once you’ve seen the bones of your story.
What kinds of books do you read outside your genre?
I write thriller, mystery, suspense, and horror, so that covers a wide range of books, but I’ll also read non-fiction. If it’s deeply emotional with well-crafted characters, I’ll read it, though I do tend to enjoy the darker, grittier side of things.
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*The full version of this interview first went out in my newsletter, but it was so good I wanted to share it with y’all here….most of it! Be sure to subscribe to my newsletter for giveaways and bonus interview questions along with fun extras like Book Bakes (my recipes inspired by good reads), book recommends, bookish news, and more!