The WD Interview: Riley Sager

[This interview originally appeared in the July/August 2025 issue of Writer's Digest magazine.]

New York Times bestselling thriller novelist Riley Sager writes from the intersection of what entertains him and what he knows readers have come to love and expect from a Riley Sager novel. It’s the perfect combination of an atmospheric setting, disturbing occurrences (e.g., unsolved murders, campers going missing, seemingly haunted houses), characters who are flawed yet redeemable, and of course, an ending you’ll never see coming.  

With his ninth book published in June, for the ninth year in a row, Sager knows exactly the kind of experience he wants to give his readers. “I always want my books to be something that you can read on a summer night and still get a little chill, but not be truly scared,” he says. “I love mood. I love atmosphere. I love spooky movies that might not be all that scary, but just a little bit of spookiness goes a long way.” 

Part of why that “little bit of spookiness” works in his novels is because Sager is always trying to do something slightly different from what he’s written before. He says, “I’ve been trying with my past few books to expand the boundaries a little bit of what a Riley Sager book could be. And so, we have: it’s set entirely on a train in the ‘50s [With a Vengeance]. Before that, it was a male narrator in suburbia [Middle of the Night], and before that, it’s Lizzie Borden—but not really—on a cliffside mansion in Maine [The Only One Left]. There is always this purposeful nudging because every writer wants to grow their readership while still retaining the readers that they had.”  

The one area where Sager is not playing around with what he knows works: misdirecting readers from what really happened. Anyone who’s read one of his books knows the endings never feel too clever for their own good or hastily constructedbecause Sager excels at subtly working in the necessary clues throughout the story. He says, “It looks so effortless, but it’s a lot of work to do that! I struggle with it every time. … because I always think when it comes to red herrings or putting in clues that I either don’t reveal enough, or I reveal too much, and it’s this big neon arrow pointing, ‘Clue, clue, hint, hint!’” When I express surprise that it’s not something that gets easier the more books you have under your belt, he tells me, “It’sactually become more difficult because I do have this reputation now of really sticking the landing with good twists and reveals. And to do that each and every year, it does become a challenge.” 

But these challenges are ones Sager relishes. Even though there are times when “every book is a struggle,” Sager still believes that “being a writer is fun and rewarding and an amazing job to have”—a theme that appeared from the beginning of our conversation. 

There were several inspirations and the biggest one was, there was a time in summer of 2023 when there were all these movies that had great train scenes. It was Bullet Train and Mission Impossible and the Indiana Jones movie, and they were just so fun. I got it in my brain as I was writing a different book, it would be very fun to write a book set entirely on a train. It’s very difficult, actually, it turns out. At the time, like, Oh, that could be super fun.  

Then, of course, it got me thinking about Murder on the Orient Express, and I was thinking about doing the reverse version of doing that. I think we can spoil Murder on the Orient Express for everyone, because really. So, I thought, instead of several people getting revenge on one person, it would be one person getting revenge on several people. Then that got me thinking about the notion of vengeance and what is more satisfying: to kill them or to make them suffer? Very odd, strange moral questions to be thinking about for a thriller. But it was fascinating to ask myself these questions. So, the book ended up becoming one woman’s quest for vengeance on a train, and she wants them to suffer for as long as possible. Then when someone else starts killing them, she has to save the lives of the people she hates the most. 

It was fascinating to me to explore this character and these urges that I think a lot of us don’t want to think about because we would never ever be put in that situation. But what if someone destroyed your family, and you did have a chance to kill them and get away with it? The moral complexity of it all was what really drew me to the ultimate writing of the book.  

It did. I learned a lot about trains, which, lucky for me, it’s pretty fascinating. There was a lot of research into train travel during that time period. And then ironically, I really didn’t use much of it, because the reality of train travel would not have served this book at all. The train that is in this book and the journey they are taking is very much dictated by plot necessity and not the reality of the time period.  

I think of it as: This is a movie train. I think of one of my favorite movies, which is White Christmas, and—I know that surprises a lot of people, but I love White Christmas—there’s a scene early on when they’re on a train from Florida to Vermont and the conductor says, “Sorry, there’s no more room on this train, but you can sit up in the club car all night.” Yet you never see a single person on that train other than the four main characters. And that’s what I wanted this train to feel like—a movie train.  

I find it more challenging. The reason most of my books are written in first person is because I can get into a groove that way where, it sounds strange and method-y, but I can hear the character’s voice in my head, and so it makes writing their words and thoughts and opinions down so much easier and faster than when I do third person. 

As the book goes along, it is easier to just hop back into their head space and write. But I’ve also found with writing With a Vengeance, is that the skipping around of third person narration, going from character to character, it’s a great builder of suspense. I loved coming up with these cliffhanger chapter endings where you suspect everyone at some point of doing very shady stuff. 

It was a sort of winnowing down of suspects because my original plan was to start with 10 people that Anna had to get revenge against. And very quickly I realized that is way too many people to keep track of. Then I brought it down to eight and tried that a little bit. And again, still too many people. So, once I settled on six, then there was this issue of how do I make them stand out a little bit so we can easily know who we’re talking about whenever we skip to them in their chapters?And really, the guideline for me was Clue. That’s why I specified what color they’re wearing and also made them different ages with different characteristics and different attitudes. It was just a way for me, and for the reader, to keep track of everyone as they move about this train either being killed or killing or otherwise looking suspicious. 

It was a lot of trial and error. The logistical part of it was something I was not prepared for in the least when I decided, Hey, a train book, it’s fun! It was fun, but it also was maddening because I did have to keep track of all of these people. Where they’re at, at which point in time, and possibly join this or join that. It did help to think of the train as a Clue board. So instead of rooms, we had these individual cars. And I kind of knew in my head, OK, in this passenger car right now, this person’s in room A, this person’s in room B, this person’s in room C. And I did have, much like Anna does in the book, a manifest of all their names and which rooms they’re staying in. […] 

Then, there were also difficulties: Before the action could really begin, I needed to establish the “rules of the train.” I thought of all these reasons why someone could get off the train and then had to keep that from happening. So, it’s an express train. The emergency brake doesn’t work the way they think it does. You can’t jump off the train because they’re moving too fast. I knew I needed to do all of that upfront before we could really get into the action. The first hundred pages, it was probably the most challenging first section of a book I’ve ever had to write just because of the logistics of it all and all the necessary information that needed to be conveyed. There was so much set-up that had to be done as quickly and efficiently and as clearly as possible, and it took many drafts to get that way. 

It all began with my editor of Final Girls, and she’s still my editor, all these books later. In Final Girls, I had the main character doing things that didn’t quite make sense. And she forced me—to the point where I got so frustrated—to have a really good reason why she did literally everything she did in that book. She’d always ask me, “Why is she doing this?” And my answer would be, “Because she’s messed up!” [Laughs]. And she would always say, “That is not good enough.” That instilled in me, I need to have sound logical reasoning behind why everyone does what they do in my books. It is something that I take very seriously in the writing of it.  

With With a Vengeance, I was interested in this concept of, like Anna, why did they do this? What they did was horrible, and then when you peel back the layers a little bit, you see that, well, for some of them, it was after the fact, and they were kind of cornered into it. Others were blackmailed. Some are just greedy, awful people. It became this exercise in which I had to look at each of these as individuals and be like, Why? How do they feel about themselves now? Sometimes I had it right there from the beginning, and other times it surprised me.  

I do too. That’s such a rewarding thing when it happens that you realize your brain has been leading you to this conclusion that you did not see coming at all. And then when you do, the light bulb goes off, you’re like, This is how it should have been the whole time. 

The first thing is always the plot. I think of the elevator pitch. Then, once I come up with one that I really want to spend the next year of my life working on, that’s when I start to figure out who is going to tell this story. Why are they the best person to be telling this story? Where does it take place? When does it take place? And then ultimately, what’s really happening in this situation? And that’s often the hardest part. The elevator pitch is easy; the figuring out what is really going on here is sometimes very difficult, and I don’t figure it out until I’m halfway done with the book. 

Sometimes I don’t. Sometimes I just shut down. Then I feel bad about myself. I feel like a fraud. I watch a lot of movies. I read a lot of books. I do a lot of jigsaw puzzles and listen to podcasts. Then eventually, something will pop into my head, the solution will come to me, and then I can continue. But when I’m in that moment of uncertainty, it’s the worst. It’s when I hate my job. I have a very good job, I understand this. I’m very lucky to tell stories for a living, but in those dark moments of uncertainty, sometimes I wish I had a nine-to-five office job, where I can just clock out and not have to think about this. Instead, it’s three in the morning, and I’m wide awake trying to figure out this plot problem that I’m having. 

I try to know from the very beginning, and I do have an end game always in mind because I really can’t start anything without knowing where it’s going to end up. But it usually changes halfway through, where I’ll either get a better idea or realize the one I have just doesn’t work. A lot of times it’s, I kind of did that one already, so I need to come up with something else. You never know. But I try to start with how it’s going to end and work my way there. Sometimes I surprise myself. 

It’s evolved. I used to outline prodigiously; everything was outlined start to finish. When I was writing Lock Every Door, I was following that outline to a T. I was hell-bent on following that outline, not realizing that it didn’t work. I was at least halfway through the book, if not more, when I had to step back and be like, this outline kind of sucks, and I need to deviate from it big time and go back and revise everything I’ve already written. That’s when I learned to not trust the outline as much because I was too beholden to it, and I left no room for spontaneity. 

So now, I jot down notes, I jot down character stuff. I always have this big, long file where all the research goes and little snippets and little ideas. Anyone not knowing what I’m writing will look at it and it will make zero sense to them, but it does to me. Now I do try to wing it more and trust myself that the answers will be there when I need them. 

Yeah, and also, because of late, we have had some books of mine where, when I handed them in to my editor, I knew they didn’t work. She knew they didn’t work after she read them [laughs]. There would come these moments when it was like, I need to literally rip out a third of this book and replace it with something else and make sure none of the seams show. In order to meet that production deadline, I have three weeks. Having gone through that multiple times now, it’s horrible.  

But I have also learned that I can do this. I don’t get too freaked out by it. You can do this. And so that has helped me with these later books just to go with the flow a little bit more, knowing that I can figure it out. Even if it is at the very last moment. 

It was a tough decision, and it really was decided for me by my agent who had been with me from the beginning. Final Girls was my last-ditch effort. It was definitely a Hail Mary pass. I had just become so disillusioned with publishing. I hadn’thad any good experience whatsoever, and I was ready to just close up shop. At the time, I was working part-time in the local library, in the kids’ section, and I was this close to just being like, I’m done writing. I’m going to go back to school, get my degree in library science, and become a children’s librarian because I like it. I sent her a one-page synopsis for Final Girls, and she said, “I know five editors who want to read this right now, so write it as fast as you possibly can.” 

And I did. She read it and said, “This is special. This could be a big book. I think you need to use a pen.” I said, “I want my name on this book. I’m proud of this book.” This is the best advice she ever gave me— and I’m not sure if there’s swearing allowed in Writer’s Digest, but there’s going to be some swearing here. 

She flat out said, “You can put your name on this book, and every editor I send it to will look at your previous sales and see that they were abysmal. And if you get an offer, which you probably won’t, it’s going to be a shitty offer. They’re going toslap a shitty cover on it, and they’re going to release it with no publicity, and you’ll be exactly where you are now. This book doesn’t deserve that, and I know you know that.” [That was] absolutely what I needed to hear, because she was 100percent right.  

So that was the decision to come up with “Riley Sager.” At the time, I really was in desperate need of money, and so any book deal at all would’ve been a boon to me. So, I was only thinking about like, I just need some book money coming in. I don’t even care how much, just some kind of book income. I never, ever thought that it would turn into what it’s become, because who can foresee that? 

There were many, many years of toil. When Final Girls came out, it was 20 years after I first tried writing a novel. So, it really felt like I’m an overnight success after 20 years. I think for a lot of writers there is this behind-the-scenes toil and struggle and rejection, and you just have to push your way through it and hope for the best. Sometimes you get lucky, and I’ve benefited from a lot of luck.