All about his debut novel Don’t Swipe Right
Who is L.M. Chilton?
L.M. Chilton has been a journalist for 15 years, working for TV shows like This Morning, The One Show and Loose Women, as well as magazines and newspapers such as The Times, The Mirror, Metro, New!, Cosmopolitan and Glamour.
He works from home in London, thinking of twists for murder mysteries and practicing the banjo instead of writing (much to the annoyance of his neighbours).
Don’t Swipe Right is his debut novel.
What is Don’t Swipe Right about?
Finding true love can be murder.
Gwen Turner, 29, entrepreneur and part-time barista.
Likes: true-crime podcasts, cheese-based snacks (the more unnaturally orange the better) and constantly refreshing her dating apps.
Dislikes: two-day hangovers, people who refer to themselves as entrepreneurs… and discovering her latest match is actually a serial killer (probably should have put that top of the list).
They say romance is dead, but if Gwen can’t catch the mystery killer who’s targeting every man she’s ever dated, it’s about to get a whole lot deadlier.
Interview
What was your inspiration for Don’t Swipe Right?
When I was single, I became slightly addicted going on dates. I was on every app, constantly swiping and went on hundreds of dates. I met a lot of cool people, but I started to see how dating apps could make people seem disposable, as there was always another person just a swipe away if things didn’t immediately work out.
It occurred to me that this might be a good premise for a murder mystery– what if dates really were literally disposable? And what if someone was using a dating app to find their victims?
In Don’t Swipe Right, every man that Gwen Turner dates ends up dead, and she has to figure out who is killing them. Could it be the mysterious man she’s just swiped right on, who seems to know a lot about her love life…?
What drew you to writing?
My mum and dad read to me a lot, and I used to try and write books when I was a little kid. I still have some and they are very silly – mostly about a magic fox – but you can see how much I enjoyed making up stories. At school, writing was the only thing I was good at. I was terrible at Maths and Science (and PE for that matter!), but I always enjoyed English. I ended up studying journalism, writing for magazines and TV. And I think every journalist probably secretly (or not so secretly) wants to write a novel…
How did you choose which character to centre the story around?
I wanted to have a very proactive and compelling main character. Gwen is outwardly very sarcastic and confident, but her humour is just a self-defence mechanism. Under the surface, she’s quite damaged and scared of the world, but she doesn’t like to show it. She’s a really fun character to write, and most readers seem to either really love her or really hate her! But she’s self-aware enough to know when she’s being annoying, and when she can use her sense of humour to get her out of trouble…
What was your process for writing Don’t Swipe Right?
My process basically involves drinking six cups of coffee and then staring at a screen for hours! But Don’t Swipe Right has a unique structure, as it’s built around flashbacks to each of Gwen’s dates, each of which contains clues to the killer’s identity, so if I got stuck writing the main plot, I could have fun writing the bad date stories.
What is your approach to world and character building?
Don’t Swipe Right is set in Eastbourne, which is a sort of faded seaside town on the south coast of England. It’s the ‘off season’, in the middle of winter, so there are no tourists around and it’s quite bleak! But I thought that was a good setting for a murder mystery! The characters that Gwen dates are based on true stories of terrible dates that I went on, or my friends went on, so some of the toxic men really exist!
How would you describe Don’t Swipe Right in five words?
You will never guess whodunnit
Did you have a favourite moment in the book to write?
I really enjoyed writing the “car” chase in Gwen’s ice cream van. I always imagined this would be a funny scene, because ice cream vans are so slow, and the tinkly music is very unthreatening! But the scene is (hopefully) also quite exciting and ominous…there’s a tension there because the clock is ticking and pedestrians are flagging her down for ice-lollies as the killer gets away. I also enjoyed writing the spicy scene in the middle of the book when the ‘will-they-won’t-they’ relationship finally reaches breaking point…
What was your favourite book growing up?
As a kid, in-between reading The Beano and 2000AD comics, I loved the “Choose Your Own Adventure” books, because I could decide the outcome of the story. Then as a moody teenager, I read a lot of JD Salinger and Kurt Vonnegut.
Do you have a favourite genre to read?
I am a bit addicted to murder mysteries, because I enjoy trying to figure out ‘whodunnit’ before the end. I reckon I get it wrong 60% of the time, but I love being wrong-footed and double bluffed. But I also love a good rom-com!
Leave a Reply