We chat with author Hailey Piper about This Movie Doesn’t End the Way We Want, which follows a woman haunted by the disappearance of her sister and best friend thirty years ago and uncovers the terrifying urban legend behind the last film they watched together.
Hi, Hailey! Welcome back! What have you been up to since we spoke last year for Teenage Girls Can Be Demons?
Thank you for having me back! I’ve been writing a new book and new stories primarily, but I also got to roam around a bit for Teenage Girls Can Be Demons and A Game in Yellow, meeting many wonderful readers along the way.
Your latest novel, This Movie Doesn’t End the Way We Want, is out now! If you could only describe it in five words, what would they be?
Haunting, tragic, mysterious, twisty, creepy
What can readers expect?
In 1994, three girls go to the movies and only one comes out. Thirty years later, the survivor learns the movie isn’t done with her yet. So readers can expect the weight of the past, a neo-noir style investigation, unsettling theater scenes of feeling like someone’s watching you instead of the movie, and answers that are worse than the characters can imagine.
Where did the inspiration for This Movie Doesn’t End the Way We Want come from?
I remember seeing the title of a Laird Barron story, “Ode to Joad the Toad,” and thought of an unsettling toad creature menacing a swamp village. While that story turned out to be a dark fantasy tale once I read it, my contemporary thoughts had morphed into a non-existent B-movie, Blood-Curse of the Toad Man, which I thought was a fun idea that on its own wouldn’t make a great story. But what if I kept it as a movie? Around then I was thinking how a lot of horror writing advice suggests mining your personal trauma, which is fine, but what about mining horror from joy? I love going to the movies, so why not use horror to ruin that a little? That ended up birthing my 2020 short story “Toad Man, Toad Man.”
Can you share some insight into the timeline from concept to publication?
A couple years after “Toad Man, Toad Man” was published in Monsters, Movies & Mayhem, I started thinking about what might happen after the end credits. In 2023, I pitched the novel version to Titan Books, and I began writing it immediately. I spent much of 2024 writing the majority of the book, which takes place in the last week of that year, so I had to make a lot of assumptions. Thankfully I was right that DC and Maryland, where the book takes place, were in for a wet start to winter with mild temperatures.
Were there any moments or characters you really enjoyed writing or exploring?
The whole book was an interesting time, but I very much enjoyed writing Roxie’s investigation and her conversations with her friend Barnaby. Probably my favorite parts are the theatre scenes and Roxie laying out her conclusions to Val.
Did you face any challenges whilst writing? How did you overcome them?
Probably the biggest challenge was unraveling the 1994 section. Originally it was longer, but my editor Daniel Carpenter suggested we split part of it into moments of reflection throughout the book. It wasn’t an easy task, but he was absolutely right, and the book works much better for it.
What’s the best and worst writing advice you’ve received?
The best writing advice I’ve received is to jot things down when they occur to you. John Langan phrased this on a podcast once as “a little messenger comes up an elevator to deliver something to your brain” (paraphrasing). If you keep turning the messenger away, eventually you’ll stop getting messages. You have to train your brain to be receptive to observations, ideas, characters, dialogue. The worst advice was probably one of those lists that go “10 things to never do when writing.” Every one of those is complete garbage and is usually something to do sparingly or is a pet peeve of whoever wrote the list.
What’s next for you?
After This Movie Doesn’t End the Way We Want, my next novel comes out from Saga Press, She Isn’t Herself Tonight, which releases on October 27th. And I’ll have a new novel in 2027 as well, but we haven’t announced that yet. I’ll also have stories in upcoming anthologies like The New Golden Age of Horror, Where Devils Stand, and Views from the Overlook, which celebrates the 50th anniversary of Stephen King’s The Shining.
Lastly, what books are you looking forward to picking up? Any you’ve read so far this year that you’ve enjoyed?
Right now I’m enjoying Johnny Compton’s collection Midnight Somewhere and the anthology Something Followed Us Home edited by Cynthia Pelayo, and I had an amazing time getting an early look at the upcoming Gwendolyn Kiste werewolf novel Everything Looks Better in Red. I’m looking forward to checking out Our Cut of Salt by Deena Helm and A Deadly Blooming by Daphne Fama.
