Author Interview: Lancy McCall

 I recently got to talk with Lancy McCall, author of Left Turn, about her book and her writing process. Here’s our interview!

 

Lancy McCall

Left Turn follows Alex Tanner, a corporate rising star who meets and falls for Scottish actor Finley McAlister, a celebrity looking to escape the spotlight. What inspired your story? 

I used to travel to and from England on business. When they adapted the Outlander books for TV, I thought, “What would happen if I got on the plane home from London and Sam Heughan sat next to me? What would he say? What would I say?” From there, it just bloomed into this story of a professional woman bumping into a celebrity who changes her life.

 

Alex and Fin live in very different worlds but find common ground. What inspired their characters' interactions and backstories?

Alex’s world came easily to me as we share a common background. I worked for years in her industry and experienced the same things she’s been through.

For Finley, I’ve always enjoyed listening to celebrity interviews where they talk about their craft. Their dedication to acting shaped how I thought Fin would view his world. And I’ve always sympathized with those chased by the paparazzi and the disruption to their lives this must cause.

 

Do you carefully plot out every scene in your books or see where the characters take you? What’s your writing process?

My characters often come to me first. Often, a scene will pop into my head and I wonder about it. What’s going on here? How did they get here? Where did they come from? What’s going to happen next? From there, I flesh out a story about what’s happening to these people and how they will react.

I am an outliner, but it’s a loose outline subject to change. It’s more like a GPS route… I know my destination, and a few stops we’re making along the way, but while I’m driving, I may take an unexpected detour. Then I need to “recalculate the route” and figure out how to get back on track to that final destination.

 

What kind of research do you do and how long do you spend researching before beginning a book?

As a project manager, I live in this strange world where you must be comfortable moving from the high-level overview down into the details. As a writer, I find it’s the same. You need to keep your eye on the bigger arc and where the story’s going, while also giving enough details to bring that world or those characters to life. When I start a story, there are obvious details I know I’m going to need to research to round out my characters. For example, for Left Turn, I knew ahead of time, I would need to know how movie stars are paid. But once I started writing, I realized I also needed to research how celebrities stay under the radar while traveling. Much of my research occurs while I’m writing, because I want the story to be believable, and if I don’t understand how something happens, how will my readers?

 

What were some themes that were important for you to explore in this book?

It’s always amazed me how people perceive the world so differently. I think it’s important to understand that each individual defines success as unique to them, and what you see on the outside doesn’t always reflect how people feel on the inside. Along those same lines, how people measure their success changes as their priorities in life change.

 

Another important concept I wanted to convey is the bias that women encounter in the corporate world. Sometimes it’s in your face and hard to miss, but usually, it’s so subtle, you don’t realize it’s happening until you have distance from it.

And the last theme I wanted to explore was the effect of all the attention we give to celebrities and how destructive it can be. 

 

Is this the first book in the series? If so, when is the next book coming out and what can your fans expect in the next story?

Left Turn is the first book in the Women of Caprock series. This series features interconnected stand-alone novels, each centering on strong women, their careers, and the relationships in their lives.

 

The next book in the series, Code Block, features Claire Broussard, an application developer who’s trying to find her place in a new company and finding her progress consistently blocked by the grumpy operations manager, Noah Raines.

 

Left Turn just became a Literary Titan’s Book Award Winner! Find out more about Lancy McCall and Left Turn at Lancy’s website.