Some stories begin with a carefully crafted plan, while others are born from emotion, frustration, and an unexpected spark of creativity. In this candid interview with Book Nerdection, Alejandro Torres De la Rocha takes us behind the scenes of Mortal Vengeance—from its surprising beginnings in the late 90s to its evolution into a modern thriller shaped by psychology, fear, and the darker sides of human nature. He shares the inspirations behind the novel, the characters who stayed with him, the challenges of writing believable horror, and what readers can expect from both the sequel and his future projects.
But first, who is Alejandro Torres De la Rocha?
Alejandro Torres De la Rocha is a Dominican-born and raised writer, trainer, and creative strategist who has never fit neatly into a single box — and frankly, never tried to. He holds a Bachelor’s in Advertising Communications from UNIBE and a Master of Science in Public Relations and Corporate Communications from NYU. He also survived 12 years of Jesuit school, which gave him discipline, a moral compass, and an insatiable desire to question authority — all of which show up in his work whether he invites them or not.
- What first inspired you to write Mortal Vengeance?
The honest truth? The book was born from pure rage, boredom, and a desire for petty revenge. I first wrote Mortal Vengeance in the late 90s, using it as an outlet to vent the frustration of getting a D- in Spanish class. The bad grade itself wasn’t the main issue, but rather the heavy punishment my parents handed down to make me “focus”: no internet (dial-up), no Nintendo 64, and no TV. That left me with only time and a very imaginative mind.
- What drew you to this genre, and what do you enjoy most about writing it?
The first version of Mortal Vengeance was actually written as a screenplay during my freshman year in the late 90s. At the time Scream and Scream 2 had revived the slasher genre, and Kevin Williamson seemed to be everywhere. He had Dawson’s Creek dominating television and had just released Killing Mrs. Tingle.
What fascinated me about those stories was how they combined suspense with sharp dialogue and self-awareness. The characters felt real even when they were trapped in terrifying situations.
That influence stayed with me. But over time I realized what thrillers actually do—what makes them different from other genres—is strip away the social masks people normally wear. When fear enters the equation, you finally see who everyone really is. And that exposure, that psychological nakedness, is what I keep coming back to.
It’s not really about the mystery of who did it. It’s about watching people become themselves under pressure. That’s what I enjoy exploring the most.
- Which character in Mortal Vengeance was the most interesting for you to write, and why?
Technically they were all interesting to write because each character represents a different perspective within the story’s social ecosystem. But if I had to choose one, it would be Alex.
Alex was heavily modeled after myself in the original screenplay version of the story. At the time I was a teenager with a very inflated sense of how clever I was, and Alex became a way to channel that mindset. In my imagination he could verbally dismantle authority figures, outmaneuver the people around him, and always stay several steps ahead.
In many ways he reflected how I saw myself at that age: someone who relied heavily on intelligence, sarcasm, and strategy to navigate difficult situations.
But something interesting happened while writing him. As the story developed, Alex stopped being just a projection of teenage ego and started becoming a mirror. Writing his decisions and imagining his future forced me to think about my own path.
At one point I imagined Alex pursuing law school and building a very structured life. Watching that future unfold on the page made me realize something important: it wasn’t actually the life I wanted.
So while Alex began as a character built on teenage bravado, he eventually became a tool for self-reflection. The version of myself I put on the page helped me figure out the version I actually wanted to become. That’s something I didn’t expect from the process, and it’s something I still think about.
- Did any of your characters surprise you while writing the story?
Yes, absolutely.
There’s one character in particular—though I won’t name her to avoid spoilers—whose original arc had a very clear ending. In the original plan, she was supposed to die. It would have been a shocking moment that perfectly set up the sequel’s revenge plot.
But as I began revising the manuscript and receiving feedback from early readers, something changed. The more I wrote her scenes, the more I understood how she functioned in the emotional center of the story. She wasn’t just a plot point. She was a kind of moral anchor, someone the reader could hold on to as everything else destabilizes.
More importantly, I had a strong feeling that readers were going to feel the same way I did about her.
At that point I had a decision to make. I could stick to the original outline, or I could let her live and accept that doing so would dramatically change the direction of the sequel.
I took the risk. She survived, and that decision ended up reshaping the sequel in ways I’m very happy about.
- How did you approach building the atmosphere and tension in the novel?
The original script was very Scream-influenced. The villain would call the characters and tease them in that classic slasher style.
When I revisited the script years later to turn it into a novel, one of my main goals was to ground everything much more firmly in reality. Characters might perceive things in distorted ways because they’re frightened, but the world itself still follows real rules.
Fear changes behavior. People become cautious, suspicious, and paranoid. If something violent happens, the entire social dynamic shifts—people stop trusting each other, and every decision carries more weight. That erosion of trust is where most of the tension actually lives.
Updating the story to modern times also meant incorporating technology into that tension. Social media, streaming platforms, smart devices—they create entirely new ways for someone to manipulate and terrorize people. Hacking the connected devices inside a house can transform an ordinary home into something far more sinister. That kind of threat feels immediate in a way a phone call from a masked killer no longer does.
- What was the most challenging part of writing Mortal Vengeance?
Creating a believable motivation for the murders.
In many stories within this genre, the reveal of the killer is shocking, but the explanation for why they did it can feel thin. I really wanted to avoid that.
My goal was to create a motivation that didn’t excuse the crimes but did allow the reader to understand how someone could reach that point.
Understanding is not the same as justification.
But it adds a deeper emotional and psychological layer to the story. The challenge was balancing that line. If the motivation is too weak, the reveal feels hollow. But if it becomes too sympathetic, it risks undermining the horror of the crimes.
So the process involved digging into the characters’ histories and emotional pressures to create something that felt tragic, human, and unsettling all at once.
- What was the most rewarding part of bringing this book to life?
Even though I’ve said before—and it’s true—that I wrote this book for an audience of one, and that audience happens to be myself, I’d be lying if I said reader feedback doesn’t matter.
Writing is an incredibly solitary process. For long stretches of time you’re alone with the story and the characters, never really knowing how someone else will experience it. You start to lose perspective on whether what you’re doing is landing at all.
So when a reader leaves a review that mentions a specific character moment, or sends a message saying they stayed up finishing the book, that’s not just flattering—it’s confirmation. There was a review early on where someone described the ending as the kind that makes you sit with the book closed for a few minutes before you can move on. That was the reaction I’d been writing toward without knowing anyone else would feel it.
There’s something quietly powerful about realizing that a story that started in your imagination eventually found its way into someone else’s.
- How would you describe your writing process from idea to finished manuscript?
My process starts with obsession. When an idea is worth pursuing, it won’t leave me alone. It keeps showing up—in conversations, in random moments, in the way I start noticing things that connect back to it. That persistent pull is usually my signal that there’s a real story there.
Once I commit to an idea, I map out the structure: where the story begins, where it ends, and what major beats need to happen along the way. That creates a roadmap.
After that I focus on the characters—their goals, their motivations, how their decisions will shape the narrative. Even with a plan, stories have a way of evolving. Sometimes the narrative follows the outline perfectly. Other times the characters lead somewhere that actually works better than what I had written down.
When the first draft is finished, I step away from the manuscript for a while—sometimes two weeks, sometimes a month—so I can return with fresh eyes. That distance helps you spot things you couldn’t see before: plot threads that didn’t pay off, scenes that need strengthening, pacing that could be tightened.
If the story is part of a series, the revision stage is also the opportunity to plant seeds for future storylines and reinforce foreshadowing. That’s one of the more satisfying parts of the work—setting something up that a reader won’t fully understand until two books later.
- What do you hope readers feel once they reach the final page?
More than anything, I hope they feel unsettled in the best possible way.
Thrillers often focus on the mystery of who the killer is, but the question that interests me more is why.
One of the central ideas behind Mortal Vengeance is that monsters rarely appear out of nowhere. More often, they are created slowly by the environments and systems that were supposed to protect us.
So by the time readers reach the final page, I hope they’re thinking not only about the twists but also about the chain of events that led everyone there.
If the story stays with them for a while after they close the book, then it has done its job.
- What’s next for you as an author—are you working on anything new at the moment?
Right now, I’m in the final stretch of completing the first draft of the sequel, titled Mortal Vengeance II: To Reel or Not Too Real?—a play on the Hamlet quote that hints at the story’s themes of performance and manipulated reality. There’s definitely some intentional wordplay in that title that reflects the themes of the story.
The sequel expands the world of the original novel and explores how easily reality can be manipulated in an era where media, technology, and entertainment blur the line between what is real and what is performative.
After finishing that manuscript, I plan to focus on a very different project: a children’s series called IMALIVE.
The series began when my nephews asked me to write them a story for their birthday. They’re growing up across the world from me, and there were a few things I wanted them to know: that they are loved even when distance separates us, that sometimes changing your perspective can change everything, and that imagination is one of the most powerful tools we have.
I’ve already written the first four books. The idea is that the series grows with its readers—the early books are short, but as the children grow older, the stories become longer and explore how the world often pressures people to abandon their imagination.
In many ways, IMALIVE is about protecting the spark of imagination before the world convinces you to bury it.
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