An Urban Legend: A Guest Post by Julie Clark

With a mesmerizing mystery and meaningful themes, this is a twisted tale full of secrets that are a thrill to uncover. Read on for an exclusive essay from author Julie Clark on writing The Ghostwriter.

Ask any thriller writer and they’ll probably be able to give you recommendations for several true crime documentaries, limited series, or podcasts within seconds. It’s what we do for fun, and it’s also what we talk about amongst ourselves when we get together. Because we are always thinking about human nature, about what makes people do bad things or make bad decisions. We are fascinated by both the killers and the killed, as well as the people who surround them. We have group chats about them, we argue about perpetrators, and we often talk about how we would write that story if we were to fictionalize it.

Which is how The Ghostwriter came into being. It grew from an urban legend in my hometown about two kids who were murdered in their home. I remember talking about it with my friends on the school yard, asking my mom about it (she refused to give any helpful information at all…but suddenly I had a babysitter after school). As an adult, I’ve never forgotten those kids, or their sibling who was supposed to be home with them that day…but was not.

And like any thriller writer, my mind started turning over what life must have been like for that sibling. To have woken up that day as one of three children, only to go to sleep that night as an only child. Who might they have become as an adult? As far as I can tell, the real-life sibling grew up to become a functioning member of society and is living a peaceful life. The perpetrator was caught, sent to jail, and it was a case of being in the wrong place at the wrong time—a tragedy that is still reverberating through my childhood community to this day.

But in The Ghostwriter, that remaining sibling is Vincent Taylor. A man who’s grown up to become a world-famous horror author and the only suspect of the murder of his brother and sister in 1975. Vincent had plenty of reasons why he might have wanted his siblings dead, but he’s refused to speak of it for the last fifty years. 

Until now.

I’m fascinated by family dynamics, by complex characters who are often pushed to do unimaginable things, believing those are their only options. I created the Taylor siblings—Danny, Vincent and Poppy—from my imagination, but their story is loosely based on one I heard long ago, fabricated by children on the school yard and whispered about at late-night slumber parties. None of what we came up with actually happened, and the story I’ve written now is one of complete fiction. But all three of them—both real and imagined — are alive in my imagination and my hope is that you’ll grow to love the Taylor siblings in The Ghostwriter as much as I do, and that you’ll root for all of them, regardless of what they may—or may not —have done in 1975.

And if you’re wanting to test my theory about thriller writers and true crime recommendations, I challenge you to message one of them and ask. I promise they’ll likely give you several.