Ask the Author: J.L. Williams
Answered Questions (3)
J.L. Williams
Write. If you think you have a story to tell, write. If you feel unfulfilled and believe you have something to say, write. Write every day. When you ride the train, take off those bulky earphones and look, listen, and see the world going on around you. When you’re sitting at the bar re-telling your week and talking about the madness or hilarity you’ve seen, consider writing it down. Don’t let the self-doubt or fear of how others might possibly respond stop you. Take a chance on yourself. And then write.
J.L. Williams
Honestly, there is nothing better than getting the words out and onto the page. Watching the story develop and change and grow is a thrill. Feeling like you have to write something down before the thought leaves your head becomes a part of your daily process. No song is just a song. No report on the news can be dismissed. Understanding some aspect of history is research that is never ending. Learning is everything. Before you know it, you’re a student back in school and humanity is your subject matter. For a writer, life is never boring because character development and plot and exposing the world for an audience is a calling that must evolve—and isn’t that what truly living is all about?
J.L. Williams
Legacies started as one thing and then, as books do, it took on a life of its own. From the beginning, there were several things I knew I wanted to do: write a mystery—a serial killer hunting people who had a life-long connection; to establish the setting of Chicago, especially the often neglected South Side, as a place rich in both violence and vibrancy; to create characters with backstories so layered they could sustain multiple novels; and to touch on the never-ending gang problem that has plagued Chicago for decades—showing that “street gangs,” while not seemingly as sexy as the mafia, are actually far more layered with cultural histories and complicated hierarchies. The religious angle came from several years of researching controversies swirling around the “Church,” issues that obviously negatively impact individuals, families, and their communities. With that information in hand, I wanted to develop a subplot that was interesting and complicated and not something readers would instantly link to gangs. Outside of the mystery angle, which was the book’s platform, I wanted to show just how layered and complicated the lives of the characters are—lives that we receive snippets about every day and, as we’ve become desensitized to them, dismiss as mere street crimes committed by people who all have the same story.
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