Finding Inspiration in Darkness: Cults, Characters, and Crafting Only the Guilty Survive
By Kate Robards
When I sat down to work on my second thriller novel, I knew only one plot point: a teenager would go missing from a place called the Bird Haven, a wildlife sanctuary where she worked part-time after school.
As a dedicated plotter, I finessed this idea through multiple iterations of outlines, but the stories just weren’t compelling enough for me to put pen to paper. Meanwhile, I started another document on the side, jotting down ideas for a third book—an overly optimistic task when I struggled to form the concept for a second book.
Day after day, I found myself excited to open the document with ideas for the third novel, which centered around a cult. Finally, one day, I pulled up the files side by side and wondered if the cult lived at an abandoned bird sanctuary and if the teen who would go missing was a member intent on escaping the cult. The outline came together quickly after that, and the words flowed soon after. It took about six months of daily writing to draft the initial manuscript.
It’s no surprise, really, that the concept of a cult is what lit a fire in me. For more than a decade, I’ve devoured every nonfiction book I can find about cults, with a particular interest in understanding the people affected by the events in Jonestown in the late seventies. I first picked up an old, tatty book on the subject at a library sale for less than a dollar, and I was hooked on the subject. The psychology of cults is fascinating to me. The more I read, the more I realized cults are not a far-fetched concept—they are closer to home than most realize. It would be easy to dismiss those who find themselves immersed in these groups as gullible or weak-minded, but that’s simply not the case.
One book in particular, a memoir by Deborah Layton called Seductive Poison: A Jonestown Survivor’s Story of Life and Death in the Peoples Temple grabbed me by the throat. It’s a visceral, emotional account of the circumstances that led her to Jim Jones and the People’s Temple, then to the remote jungle compound in Guyana, and finally, to defect, leaving behind her family and friends. It’s relatable, and truthfully, that scares me.
When I sat down to develop the characters for my upcoming thriller Only the Guilty Survive, I was inspired by Deborah Layton’s experience as a defector and the strength she needed to leave. She, in part, inspired one of the main characters, Laurel “Lollie” Tai, who is ready to leave a cult known as the Flock. Drawing from my original concept, I knew Lollie was the teen who would go missing from the Bird Haven, the place the Flock calls home.
As a counterpoint to a defector, I knew I wanted to round out the story with the viewpoint of a cult loyalist and a leader.
Claire Kettler became the character who was once loyal to the Flock, but as the sole survivor after a tragedy claimed the lives of the other members, she’s left behind to return to a “normal” life. We follow Claire in the present day, ten years after Lollie goes missing and the rest of the cult dies, to see how Claire grapples with the weight of being a survivor. She endured the trauma of being in a cult and her friends’ deaths, and that’s translated into post-traumatic stress disorder and survivor’s guilt.
Finally, Dominic Bragg became the leader of the Flock. An amalgamation of many of the real-life cult leaders I’ve studied, Dom is leading his followers to their fate. It took me time to wrap my head around his character. While I enjoy writing (and reading) from the perspective of unlikeable characters, Dom was on another plane. Getting into the head of a remorseless, evil character required research. I tried to understand how cult leaders throughout history evolve, how they justify their words and actions, and, ultimately, how they wield concepts of psychology to draw in followers.
With Lollie, Claire, and Dom, I had my three main characters and alternating viewpoints: defector, survivor, and leader.
When writing Only the Guilty Survive, I focused on one character at a time so I could thoroughly immerse myself in their very different voices. I wrote from Claire’s perspective first, then Lollie’s, then tackled Dom’s point of view.
Importantly, through Claire and Lollie’s characters, I wanted to convey that they’re not oddities. Cults are surprisingly rampant, and so, too, are people affected by cultic groups. One recent estimate suggests there are as many as 10,000 cults in the United States today. Many of these groups fly under the radar and don’t garner national attention. There are different types of cults, of course, so there are also different reasons why someone may join one of these groups. It was important for me to convey that there’s a widespread misunderstanding of cult members and victims.
While Only the Guilty Survive is a work of fiction, I wanted to raise unsettling questions about guilt, self-justification, and blame to craft a dark story with complex characters.
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Kate Robards is the author of two thriller novels. Her debut novel, The Three Deaths of Willa Stannard, was nominated for the 2024 Simon & Schuster Mary Higgins Clark Award and received a starred review from Kirkus Reviews. Her second novel, Only the Guilty Survive, will be released in the summer of 2024.
She studied journalism and advertising at Southern Illinois University in Carbondale. Currently, Kate works in communications at a nonprofit organization.
When Kate isn’t writing her next book, she’s spending time with her children, gardening, reading, or tackling a new sewing project. She lives outside Chicago with her family.
About Only the Guilty Survive
A podcaster digs into strange connections between a cult’s mass suicide and the murder of a local beauty queen in this twisty psychological thriller about true crime culture, perfect for fans of Riley Sager and Lisa Jewell.
The mass suicide of a cult known as The Flock sent shockwaves through the small rural town of Iola, Michigan. Led by the charismatic Dominic Bragg, The Flock camped at an abandoned bird sanctuary before their sudden and shocking demise. The deaths came just weeks after one of their members, Laurel Tai, a local pageant queen, was abducted.
The town turned its blame and fear onto the sole survivor, Claire Kettler—Laurel’s best friend. Burdened by grief and unanswered questions about her friend’s murder and her fellow cult members’ deaths, Claire can’t help but wonder what really happened, especially when the cult leader is nowhere to be found.
When podcaster Arlo Stone begins poking around ten years later, determined to uncover the truth about the cult and Laurel’s murder, Claire is propelled back into action. In a desperate attempt to puzzle out the past and keep her secrets from being spilled for the entertainment of thousands of listeners, Claire must dig into a tangle of unanswered questions before time runs out and history repeats itself.
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Category: On Writing
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