I grew to love the idea of a stalker’s family suing the victim. In today’s justice system, intruders sue their victims if they hurt themselves in the victim‘s house. Rapists can sue their victims if they commit a vindictive crime against them. There are a myriad of possibilities. While it seems like a very effective and just system, it isn’t always. A stalker’s family can sue the victim for crimes against the stalker. After the book was published, I made a startling discovery that this very event had happened. A stalker did sue the victim.

If there was a suspected death, the stalker’s family could sue. If the District Attorney wouldn’t agree to criminal charges, the family could sue in a Civil Court. If there was enough money involved, an entire crusade could become available. In the novel, the stalker’s family sues Karen for three million dollars in a first-degree murder suit.

Dying, happens in a reverse order. That was intentional and I felt it brought a new consideration on the subject. The stalker, Raymond, is out of the picture within the first few chapters. The reader follows the heroine through the ordeal of recuperating after the worst brutalities and suddenly facing the wrath of a vengeful family. The revenge is acted out both legally and personally.

In the beginning of the stalking, Karen, the heroine, is much too confident with Raymond. She’s happily married, a mother of three boys and she refuses to turn him in to the police. She pities him and allows her sympathies to cloud her judgment. Although her husband urges her to involve the authorities, she doesn‘t. She believed Raymond’s timid front.

The novel escalates when Karen is home again, after her abduction. Raymond’s family brings in national attention through the major news networks and creates a new story that people are eager to believe. The sensational story is, “Karen lured Raymond to the cabin in order to kill him. He wanted to discontinue their affair and she killed him when he ended the relationship.”

These are concepts I created, because I know people who are capable of this. Sadly enough, I’m acquainted with people who create the most convincing fantasies and spreading them as though they were true on a daily basis. Creating a love affair from stalking would be second nature to them.

I added much drama and bitter sorrow. To a victim who suffered as Karen did, animosity and depression is expected. While Karen’s physical wounds heal through the novel, her emotional scars are constantly re-opened. People discuss something so terrible and so personal as though it were casual gossip or talk about the weather. They openly debate her intentions and credibility and few will look at the hospital records and eye-witness accounts. This is much like real life because there are many who would choose fiction over fact, if it made gossip better.

In the book, I wanted a good ending. Not necessarily a happy one, as we know them, but a pleasant one. She has physically healed. She is working on her mental recuperation and is speaking in shelters and safe houses about how victims can prepare themselves. She’s a successful nonfiction author and respected advocate for stalking victims.

I was thrilled to have the book finished. The majority of the work laid within the editing. Just when I believed Dying was completed, my editor showed me an entirely different story. I spent months editing, but it was worth it.

Now that the period is over and my book is published, it was all worthwhile. I grew discouraged, angry, hopeless and felt my work would never be finished. But, it eventually ended. Since the book has been a successful E-book, I’m currently waiting on a paper publisher. They have the entire manuscript before their reading committee. No matter what the outcome of that, I’m proud to have authored the novel. I think all writers feel the same sense of accomplishment when the real work of editing and revising is completed.

My only regret is that I couldn’t include more nonfiction about stalking. There is so much more out there than what is assumed.