Pub Rants

Category: QandA

Interview with Shelby Van Pelt

by Tallahj Curry

This month, NLA had the pleasure of interviewing Kristin Nelson’s client Shelby Van Pelt, author of the debut novel Remarkably Bright Creatures.

In your new novel, Remarkably Bright Creatures (Ecco, May 3), an unlikely narrator—an octopus—steals readers’ hearts. While his wit and charm appeal to readers, Marcellus doesn’t talk. How did you decide the limits of his voice?

Figuring that out was one of the most challenging things about writing this book! At various times while drafting, I played around with allowing him to write (could an octopus hold a pen?) or perhaps chat with the other sea life at the aquarium. But, eventually, I realized I needed his communications to flow one way to reflect his loneliness.

There’s also the matter of where readers would draw the line. An octopus narrator is already weird, at least in a book that’s otherwise realistic. I knew I was not writing a fantasy novel and didn’t have much latitude with world-building; rather than creating a world where octopuses can communicate, I needed to create a communicating octopus that felt at home in the real world.

In your recent LitHub article, “Lessons Learned from a Year Listening to the Fictional Octopus in My Head,” you remind us that “you write…therefore, you’re a writer.” Why is this mantra so important when writing your debut novel?

For anyone who produces any sort of creative work, writing or otherwise, I think there’s this leap when you go from having it be a private hobby to sharing it with others. To selling it, even. To me, at the time, it all just felt so presumptuous. Maybe I even felt a little like Marcellus with his journal entries, firing off words into some sort of void, not sure anyone would ever receive them.

Remarkably Bright Creatures is already making waves since its release earlier this month. What advice would you give to authors hoping for the same result?

Well, I do realize how incredibly lucky I’ve been! But I can’t tell you how many times I really doubted even querying because my book didn’t seem to fit neatly in a marketable category. Finding comps was challenging. It’s an odd book!

So, I guess my advice is: write the odd thing. Or rather, write the you thing, whatever that happens to be. And plan to invest time in your query letter! I spent more hours writing (and rewriting, over and over) my query letter than I did drafting the last several chapters of the book. Capturing the essence of your story in a couple of paragraphs is a huge challenge, and it can take a lot of work to get it just right.

Do you critique or beta read for other writers? What is the value in that?

Absolutely! I would never have finished this book without my critique partners.

There’s this image of a novelist as a solitary creature, sitting in a cabin with a beautiful view, pounding out pages. They’ll emerge at some point with a finished draft, ready to serve up to beta readers. And honestly…that sounds amazing! But as someone with two young kids, that’s not going to be my reality anytime soon. And I’m not sure it would suit me, honestly. I tend to do a lot of critique in real time with my beta partners, exchanging a couple of chapters a week, discussing, then taking time to pause and course-correct as needed. If I did a whole draft without feedback along the way, that thing would be a mess.

I also really enjoy beta reading shorter pieces for other folks in my writing communities. Learning to give and receive feedback is so important, and it’s a skill I try to practice as often as I can.

Finally, what tools in the literary space/community have been the most helpful in your writing process?

I’ll put my plug for writing contests here! Sometimes, a frenzied weekend with a bizarre set of prompts is just what I need to shake off a writing slump. Many competitions also offer formal feedback and/or have a space, like a Facebook group or forum, where you can swap critiques with other participants. It can be a good way to find a writing community.

Classes are also great. I’m a big fan of continuing-education courses, library writing groups, and the like. I’ve participated in several of those over the years. I’m a deadline-driven person, so having regular pressure to prepare material gives me a needed nudge. As a bonus, they’re often reasonably priced, and since anyone can join, there’s usually a nice variety of folks from differing backgrounds and stages of their writing journey.

Remarkably Bright Creatures by Shelby Van Pelt was released May 3, 2022. Order your copy today!

Interview with Luke Smitherd, Author of The Stone Man

by Tallahj Curry

This month, NLA interviewed Kristin Nelson’s client Luke Smitherd, author of the recently released novel The Stone Giant.

Your latest novel, The Stone Giant, is book three of your Stone Man series. How do you get readers caught up on what happened in books one and two? How do you gauge when to introduce new antagonists and when to return to past ones?

I wanted the fates of the surviving characters from The Stone Man to form part of the mystery of The Empty Men for the reader…but I also knew I wanted to bring the survivors back for The Stone Giant once the new stakes were well established and answers were required (that, and I’m a sucker for a team-up). The backstory, or in this case the five-year gap between books one and two, is a huge part of the plot of The Stone Giant, and I had a lot of fun dropping the various reveals into the story. Books two through four were heavily plotted out before work was started, and keeping the past-and-present continuity tight over the three or four years I was working on these books isn’t something I particularly ever want to do again! 

Which of your characters have you had the hardest time leaving behind once the novel was complete? Which character was the easiest to pick back up?

Maria was probably the hardest to pick up again by far, because the events of The Empty Men change her so much; likewise with many of the other protagonists. They’re very different people now. (But Brigadier Straub was easy as pie.)

How do you get to know your characters?

I get to know my characters—as cliché as it many sounds—as I go on. Then on the second draft I lean into the elements that have come out organically through the first draft.

Describe a scene from one of your novels that was particularly difficult to write. Why was writing it so difficult?

The scenes that are difficult for me to write are always logistical issues, especially with sci-fi. I know what I want to happen, and the effect required, but how do I describe something magical or otherworldly in a grounded way? I’m a real stickler for detail in that regard so it has to be right.

When editing, what aspects of critique do you apply to your novel? What aspects do you feel require the context of the whole manuscript? 

As you can probably tell by this interview, I talk too much. Editing is all about trimming for me. After that it’s all about checking that the characters appear on the page the way they do in my head, and—to answer the context element of the question—that the way they change (or don’t) through the text is consistent with the (usually awful) events and/or crazy things they’ve encountered.

The Stone Giant by Luke Smitherd was released March 29, 2022. Order your copy today!

Interview with Stacy Stokes

by Tallahj Curry

This month, NLA had the pleasure of interviewing Joanna MacKenzie’s client Stacy Stokes, author of the recently released novel Remember Me Gone. 

What challenges did you face writing about memory and memory loss?

I love keeping secrets from readers, so I had a lot of fun sprinkling breadcrumbs throughout the story for the reader and [the protagonist] Lucy to discover together. The novel is told in first-person present, which allows the reader to experience things with Lucy as they happen. But it also presented a unique challenge—there are moments in the book when the reader knows more than Lucy. Finding the balance between Lucy’s discovery and the reader’s knowledge was tricky at times, but also fun to navigate. 

What inspired the family business featured in the novel?

The inspiration for Remember Me Gone and The Memory House came from an episode of True Blood, the HBO series based on The Sookie Stackhouse novels by Charlaine Harris. In the episode, someone hires a vampire to erase her husband’s memories in the hopes of curing his PTSD. I started wondering what it might be like to run a memory-taking business, and, boom! The idea was born. Sans vampires.

The first line of your novel, “People come from everywhere to forget,” is so great! What advice would you give authors on nailing their first line?

A good first line should not only suck readers in but convey something unique about the story that sets the stage for what’s to come. Think about the key elements that make your story special and try to work at least one of them into the opening line. For Remember Me Gone, I wanted to introduce the concept of memory-taking while also working in the remoteness of [the town of] Tumble Tree.

A good way to find inspiration is to look at the opening lines of your favorite books. My all-time favorite opening line is from Maggie Stiefvater’s The Scopio Races: “It is the first day of November and so, today, someone will die.” She manages to tell the reader so much about the story to come in just a few words—it gives me chills every time I read it.

Did you write this story in a linear fashion or skip around as Lucy uncovers answers?

I tend to write linearly, but I always have a few scenes in my head that I’m writing towards, kind of like an invisible road map. It’s also a good motivator for me—there’s a sense of accomplishment when I finally make it to one of the scenes. Without giving away any spoilers, there were three scenes I knew I was building towards—the scene with Lucy’s father at the end of chapter six, the scene with the Oklahoma woman in chapter thirty, and the scene with the mirror in chapter thirty-three. I also had a fairly clear sense of how I wanted the story to end. The rest of the process was connecting those dots.

Finally, has being a novelist changed the way you read novels?

Absolutely! For starters, I have immense respect for anyone who completes a novel. Now that I’ve been through the process, I know how hard they’ve worked to not only get their words on a page, but to get them published and out in the world. 

I also often use the books I read as textbooks to make me a better writer. When a story is working well, I can’t help but ask myself why the plot and narrative are so compelling. What is the writer doing well that I can learn from? The same holds true if I’m reading something that isn’t working—thinking about why helps me improve my own craft.

Remember Me Gone by Stacy Stokes releases March 22, 2022. Preorder now!

Interview with Richard Chizmar, author of Gwendy’s Magic Feather

by Tallahj Curry

This month, NLA had the pleasure of interviewing Kristin Nelson’s client Richard Chizmar, author of recently released novel Gwendy’s Final Task.

You have an incredibly fascinating perspective in the literary space. You are the founder of both the horror and suspense publishing company Cemetery Dance and the magazine of the same name. As a publisher, author and a reader, which of these perspective do you feel is the most helpful when writing your novels? Using that perspective, what advice would you give to a writer in the query stage?

I feel like they have all contributed invaluable experiences that (hopefully) have helped to make me a better novelist. Being a publisher has certainly helped me to better understand the reality of today’s publishing landscape: from packaging and marketing to selecting cover art and working with stores and distributors. Editing the book imprint and magazine has helped me understand the basics of what makes a story work and what doesn’t. Whether that be poor characterization, dialogue, pacing, etc. It’s also forced me to focus on the nuts and bolts of writing such as grammar and rhythm. Of course, the most helpful experience has been just sitting down and writing. Finding my voice as a writer. Finding my confidence and learning how to write honest, personal prose instead of pretending to be something I’m not. When I began to write stories that really mattered to me, that’s when I began to find an audience that cared about what I was creating. It took years and years of practice to get there. That’s one thing I always tell newer writers: there are no shortcuts in this business.

In a previous interview with Nightmare Magazine, you mentioned that you do still choose most of the Cemetery Dance published books. When reading for publication, how do you tether the line between a book you personally enjoy and a book you want the publication to represent?

As an independent publisher, those lines are blurred much of the time. Mostly, I tend to publish stories and authors that I personally enjoy. Publishing is such a grind of a business that I’ve never seen the point of promoting folks I don’t like or stories I don’t believe in. Now with that said, there have been times when the business side of publishing has entered the picture and affected such decisions to some degree. I have a handful of regrets, but I’ve learned from them. Still learning every day after almost 35 years.  

The Washington Post writes, “Chizmar’s voice and sensibility dovetail neatly with King’s own distinctive style…” in reference to your recently completed trilogy, concluding with Gwendy’s Final Task (Cemetery Dance, February 15). When working with another author, what does that collaboration process look like? Are there moments in which you each create individually and come together to piece together the final book, or do you communicate and collaborate throughout the entire process?

Each experience is different. For instance, when Steve King and I wrote the Gwendy books, we simply played a game of email ping pong with the manuscript—each person sitting down and writing a chunk of pages, then sending it on so that the other could write his own pages. Back and forth it went with minimal communication about what we thought should come next. We gave each other complete freedom and confidence to do what he wanted with the story. It was creatively challenging and exhilarating, and most of all, a lot of fun. 

On the other hand, when my son, Billy, and I wrote the supernatural novella Widow’s Point, we worked a lot closer together, often times sitting next to each other and each of us contributing sentences to the same paragraph. This was also fun and challenging.

Finally, is there a novel that you find yourself drawn to read again and again? If so, what about it draws you in to come back? 

Stephen King’s It for inspiration and sheer storytelling and a reminder of why I do what I do for a living. Robert McCammon’s Boy’s Life for much of the same reasons. And Lord of the Flies for nostalgic reasons. 

Piecing It All Together

by Tallahj Curry

This month, we asked two NLA authors about outlining.

Do you outline before writing a new novel? If so, how closely does the finished novel resemble your original outline? If not, what is your process for piecing it all together?

“This is a process that has evolved over time with me. Early on, I never outlined, preferring the freedom of following where the story took me. I quickly learned that my brain doesn’t naturally follow a story arc this way though, and my drafts were jumbled, very long, and in need of some painful cuts. For a while after that realization, I began outlining in detail, but that inhibited a lot of freedom for my characters to express themselves. Now, I do a skeletal outline: I make note of the bones of the novel—the turning points, the climax, crucial character changes in each act, etc.—and then allow the story to play out in the space between.

“My stories almost always closely follow my outlines to the three-quarter mark. Then, inevitably, one of my characters has to reveal something HUGELY IMPORTANT to me, and after some groaning and a lot of chocolate, I have to backtrack and layer it all in.”

—Kristen Simmons, author of the Vale Hall series and Set Fire to the Gods

“No, I wish I could! I have tried, but whenever I have outlined, even if I’m already at the halfway point trying to figure out how to get to the end, the finished novel never bears any real resemblance to what I’ve planned.

“I’d like to call my process organic, but really it’s perilous—let’s not even talk about time-consuming. I do my novels in several exploratory drafts, basically writing each draft until I realize that I’m doing something fundamentally wrong—or that so many things need to be changed that I might as well go back to the beginning to incorporate everything I’ve learned so far about the story.

“For example, at the moment I’m writing a mystery set on a steamship. I’m 30,000 words in and I’ve just now had to stop and make a choice about what my main characters were doing when the murder took place. That is, what is their actual purpose for being on the steamship in the first place? 

“Not that I didn’t have a rough idea earlier—more than one rough ideas, in fact. An outliner would have figured out the specifics sooner, probably. But for someone like me, I simply don’t know what should happen until I’m at the point where I absolutely can’t write another word unless I first make a number of story decisions, from the very broad to the very detailed. 

“I’m no good at knowing what should happen ahead of time, but usually my gut has a pretty good sense afterwards if I’ve arrived at the correct story decision. I get the feeling of something clicking into place, of inevitability, of, ‘Ah, so this is what it should have been all along.’

“Now if only I can achieve that in outline form one of those days!”

—Sherry Thomas, author of the Lady Sherlock series and The Magnolia Sword

Creative Commons Photo Credit: Rebecca Tozia Tyszka

Interview with Josh Malerman, Author of Pearl and Bird Box

by Tallahj Curry

This Month, NLA had the pleasure of interviewing Kristin Nelson’s client Josh Malerman, author of recently released novel Pearl and New York Times bestselling novel Bird Box.

In your new novel, PEARL (Del Rey, October 12), an unusual suspect—a pig—might just be responsible for the grisly havoc on Walter Kopple’s farm. How do you give a voice to non-human characters? How do you keep the voice consistent?

I’m interested in what I’ve come to think of as the space “between intelligences”, the idea that we are no smarter than animals and animals are no smarter than us, that our minds work in different ways and so therefore there’s a canyon (or a distance anyway) between how we process, how we exist. Now, that space between those intelligences… that’s fun. Not the differences so much as the irreconcilable differences. So, Pearl, to me, is a living creature that finds himself capable of traversing that space, of experiencing both states of mind. His entire life he’s been “elevated,” but today, the day of the book, is when he finally glimpses the full potential of his mind. To me, because it’s day one of discovery, there must be a sludginess to how he’s handling it, even to how he’s evolving. And it’s in there, in that sludge, that I found his voice. It’s atonal. It’s half-right. It’s brilliant. It’s simple. And as he grows? As the day grows long? He can (and must) change, too. Because that’s what today is for Pearl: the day he rises above.

Besides an “un-put-down-able thriller,” Kirkus calls PEARL “part twisted fairy tale, part animal rights protest, part PTSD drama, and part Triumph the Insult Dog.” I love that! What’s your response to that endorsement? Is there anything you’d add?

Well, I’m glad they liked it. That’s for sure. And I like all that. But I definitely see Pearl as more akin to Joe Dante’s segment of Twilight Zone: the Movie, in which the little boy Anthony has God-like powers and lures people into his mental web. Pearl to me is more Carrie than Charlotte’s Web, more slasher, too, than fable. As goes the animal rights part of things: I’m a vegetarian and I was more than happy to see Pearl gain power by the minute, especially over those who dismissed him as product. In some ways, I really relate to Pearl. Insomuch as he’s ambitious: he had a glimpse of what he is capable of and I’m not sure anything can stop him from reaching that mountaintop. At the same time? I wouldn’t want to drive too close to Kopple’s Farm. I’m the exact kind of persuadable person who would be sucked right up into that telekinetic web without knowing I was.

With PEARL, you took a wild and maybe tough-to-take-seriously premise and succeeded in making it an acclaimed work of slasher horror that’s twisty, dark, and truly chilling. That’s not easy! Was that a challenge you set out for yourself with this project? Or is this a story that took on a life of its own as you wrote it?

Let me tell you! While working on the books, any time I was talking to friends and they’d ask what I was up to, it was nearly impossible to explain this story. The second I started to do it, I’d feel like, “WHAT am I talking about?” But Pearl is one of those books where the actual book itself is better than the “pitch” and I think we’d all rather write books like that in the end. But from my angle, it wasn’t a difficult book to write because, like the river in Bird Box or the Trail in Unbury Carol, Pearl’s evolution is something of a straight line, right? A clean path upward and outward, his “web” stretching out and out to all the locals in town until almost everybody is stuck in his design. In other words: it grew, on itself, and it wasn’t hard to “top” the scene before it with each day’s writing because Pearl got more powerful as the book grew, too. Then again, all the books take on a life of their own, in a way, especially when you don’t outline. And I almost never do! 

It feels like horror is really opening up right now and making space for storytellers to explore new concepts and themes in unique ways. What story-development advice do you have for writers who might be working on finding their niche in this expanding horror space?

Well, trends scare me. They always feel like moving targets. At the same time, I’d already written some 14 books by the time my first came out and so now I’ve got a back log of twenty-four books or so and sometimes it’s tempting to choose one of them to come out next if the horror-verse seems to be leaning its way. I guess my advice would be this: you think you have “your” voice and there are voices you believe are more elastic, more far-out, than your own. You can equate this to music. And a young musician might think, I could never be as expansive as David Bowie, as St. Vincent, so I’m not going to try. But the thing is, you’re not David Bowie (and thank God for that! David Bowie is David Bowie, you are you), so if you try to stretch like he did, you’re going to end up with a different result, but you will still have stretched. Am I making sense here? What I mean to say is: go for the idea that feels a little outside your idea of yourself, and once you do it? Then that book is now part of your style, your voice, yourself. And if you do this enough times, you’ll end up closer to the artist you want to be than if you never make a move to stretch at all.

Finally, because inquiring minds always want to know, tell us about your writing habit. Any charms or talismans hanging around your writing space? Any rituals you do to get you into the creative headspace? Or can you just sit down anywhere, anytime, and write?

It used to be I wrote novels in a bus, in a van, touring America. I wrote in bars, restaurants, people’s homes that were housing us. Dad’s basement and all-night coffee shops. Everywhere. These days I’m mostly in my office, with a horror movie soundtrack playing on the record player. But I’m still game for doing it anywhere, and maybe I should. Maybe your question will prompt me to write another one freehand. I love doing it that way. One thing I’ve noticed is this: while there isn’t an overall routine to how I write books, a routine does exist for each book in and of itself. Bird Box was written from around 8AM to 11:30AM every day, about 4,300 words a day. Ghoul n’ the Cape was usually in the afternoon, 1000 words a day. So those experiences were totally different, but consistent in and of themselves. And there is one weird thing I do (that I can’t believe I’m telling you): I wink at the page or the screen when I think I nailed a scary scene. Yep. I actually wink at the book like, “Yeah, we did it. We did it.”

What I Wish I Knew Before I Became a Novelist

by Tallahj Curry

This month, we asked three NLA authors for their best advice for first-time novelists.

What’s one piece of advice you wish someone had given you before you began writing your first novel?

Kathleen West, author of Are We There Yet? and Minor Dramas & Other Catastrophes

I’m fairly certain people did tell me this, but I wish I had internalized it: There’s very little authors can control in the publishing realm. The two things you can always do, though, are to keep writing and also to cultivate genuine, mutually respectful relationships with other writers and the members of your publishing team. Otherwise, hold it all—the “success” and the “failure”—loosely.

Meghan Scott Molin, author of The Golden Arrow Mysteries series

One piece of advice I think I wished I’d known (or internalized) when I started: One book deal doesn’t mean you “arrive.” Even a multi-book deal. I wish I’d known how many friends would switch publishers, agents, editors, publicists in their first year of getting a book deal. I’m slowly adjusting to the idea that it’s always a battle in one arena or another…the road isn’t smooth sailing. I think better preparing young writers for the “building years” between contracts, the months spent waiting on sub, the heartbreak of an editor backing out on an additional project…it’s all really valuable conversation.

Valerie Valdes, author of the Chilling Effect series

I wish someone had told me that all writing advice is akin to tools you can put in your toolbox. It’s okay to only reach for the tools you need while others collect dust, and not everyone uses the same tools, or uses them in the same way. Even you won’t necessarily use the same tools with every novel, and that’s okay, too. There’s no single right or wrong way to write.

I also wish someone had told me to focus on setting manageable goals that I control, instead of ones that other people ultimately have control over. So for example, “try to write a little every day” instead of “try to get an agent by the end of the year.” The latter is a milestone, and those are worth celebrating, but treating milestones as goals can lead to frustration and disappointment.

Photo by Ann H from Pexels

Author Scott Reintgen on Best Approach for Writing Middle Grade Stories.

by Tallahj Curry

This Month, NLA’s Tallahj Curry had the pleasure of interviewing Kristin Nelson’s client Scott Reintgen, author of the Nyxia Triad and the upcoming novel Breaking Badlands, Talespinners series book three.

How much do you know about the plot of a series before beginning the first novel?

Saving Fable was one of the few books I didn’t write with a series in mind. I honestly just wanted to have fun again when I first started writing it. I’d been reading really intense, brooding stories. I was writing something similar. So for Saving Fable, I dove in without thinking about the big picture. I just wanted to have a blast in each and every scene. I really only had the first book in mind, even if the story and world do lend themselves to a series!

When writing a series like Talespinners, what is your process for creating a new antagonist/conflict in each book? How do you determine if the conflict will suit your main character?

For the first book, I just had to figure out who could cause Indira the most trouble in her first year of school. There were a few natural answers to that. In book two, I really wanted to imagine someone powerful that Indira could not take on by herself. The whole point of book two is teamwork, so she needs her friends if she wants to defeat the antagonist. In book three, well, she goes to the literal birthplace of all antagonists at Antagonist Academy in Fester. She’s kind of surrounded there!

In her adventures, Indira encounters many famous characters like Alice from Wonderland at Protagonist Preparatory. What is your method for writing characters from familiar stories? How much research do you do before adding a classic character to your story?

For me, I really want to honor those characters, but also put my own slight twist on them. I think that’s what people are really looking for most of the time. Something that honors the spirit of that beloved character, but that also sheds a new light on them.

What inspired you to write the Talespinners series?

The very first inspiration was that I saw a girl run and leap into a puddle with wild abandon. I imagined her vanishing, and tried to imagine where she went next. That scene never made it into the books, but it’s certainly where the entire thing began.

How do you approach writing a novel for a middle-grade audience?

My approach is to have a bit more fun, and throw in a bit more whimsy. I also kind of assume that a lot of my audience will read up. So I’m not really writing for eighth graders with this series so much as I’m writing for fifth graders. Readers, often, want to reach up into the next category. I wrote Saving Fable with that in mind.

You are an author of science fiction and fantasy, both middle grade and young adult. How do you adjust your writing process to the switch in genre and audience?

It’s mostly tone and character POV. Ultimately, though, I hope the DNA of all my stories is the same. I want to write something wildly entertaining. I want to write with the understanding that my audience could, and might, set the book down at any time if I’m not drawing their interest. So the goal is just to write a great story, no matter the audience.

Breaking Badlands by Scott Reintgen releases September 21, 2021. Preorder the book here!

Interview with Sarah Zachrich Jeng, Author of The Other Me

by Tallahj Curry

This Month, NLA’s Tallahj Curry had the pleasure of interviewing Joanna MacKenzie’s client Sarah Zachrich Jeng, author of upcoming novel The Other Me.

In The Other Me, Kelly is trying to make sense of a life that feels unfamiliar. She finds answers that lead to more questions. What is your process of mapping out a mystery that grows throughout the novel?

I spent some time brainstorming ideas for how Kelly could investigate—what if she interviews a certain character? What if she finds some sort of document?—and tried to figure out what she might discover using each method, what bearing that new information would have on her “case,” and where else it might lead. Since I did a lot of this in revisions, I knew most of what she would ultimately need to find out. It was just a matter of getting her there in a way that didn’t feel like too much of a leap.

Do you write the novel ending first, last, or somewhere in between? How does this help you build suspense?

I usually don’t have the ending written or even outlined too exactly when I start. Though I like to have some idea of where I’m going, the last couple of things I’ve written have ended up in very different places than I thought they would. With The Other Me, I wrote two or three different endings, because the middle of the book had changed in ways that demanded the ending change as well. Generally revisions are where the real attention to pacing and tension gets paid.

Kelly goes through a massive, unexpected jump that tests her own memory. The life she is told she lived does not match the life she thought she lived. What is your method for making two versions of the same character?

Spreadsheets. Really. I had a tab for her Chicago life and a tab for her Michigan life, with dates and key events from birth until the novel’s present. I also made lists of things that might have changed, such as her appearance, and the ripple effects of those differences, like how her brother Nick now has a son and a decent job, because since Kelly didn’t go to an out-of-state school he had no excuse to keep living at home to look after their parents. 

Not everything was super precise. Our memories play tricks on us all the time, and I figured in a parallel universe kind of situation, some things would just be different because a butterfly flapped its wings a thousand years ago. But I tried to include enough plausible anomalies to keep Kelly off balance.

What was your process for writing a different take on a familiar trope? How did you follow the rules of the fictional world as you wrote the story?

I’m going to try really hard to answer this without spoilers. The short answer is “more lists.” (Can you tell I’m a list maker?) I had a list of the way events proceeded linearly, as well as according to each key character’s perception. I had a list of the principles that a certain important piece of technology in the book operates under, and theories that either correspond with or contradict what happens in the novel. I wasn’t too concerned with accurate science (for reasons that will be obvious once you’ve read the book), but I was concerned with consistency.

I also wanted to make sure that by the end, I’d made it clear(ish) to readers why Kelly’s life changes all at once, at the exact moment it does. So I spent a lot of time thinking through the implications of what happens to cause that, and writing and rewriting. I drew this really ugly diagram of [redacted thing that happens] so I could have a graphical representation to refer back to when I forgot what a certain character was supposed to know about at a certain part of the story.

How much did you draw from your own life when creating the characters for The Other Me? Do you believe advice to write what you know is helpful or restrictive?

I played in rock bands in my twenties, but once I got a “real” job and had a child, that lifestyle wasn’t practical anymore. However, I found myself missing both the creativity and the feeling that something exciting could happen at any time. (When you live in the suburbs and go to bed at 10pm, not much happens that’s unexpected, except maybe getting puked on.) So writing The Other Me was both a creative outlet and a way for me to work out my feelings about the ways in which my life had changed.

“Write what you know” can be helpful when you’re feeling your way into a new project or trying to evoke emotions. My writing is always more resonant if I’m trying to capture a feeling or an experience that I myself have had, even if I’m coming at it from a different direction. That said, like any writing guideline it’s not absolute. If you decide you want your main character to have a job you don’t know anything about, that’s what research is for. “Know what you write” might be more apt advice in those situations.

I do think writing is enriched by personal knowledge. As I’ve learned more about the zero-sum nature of publishing, I’ve come to believe that white, privileged writers (who are still the majority of published authors) shouldn’t appropriate the stories of marginalized people, when those stories could be better portrayed by authors from those groups. 

What is the greatest lesson one of your characters has taught you?

That one thing you think you want is probably not the thing that’s going to make you happy.

What is one of your favorite lines from The Other Me?

Kelly: “Everyone has regrets. If you don’t you’re either an a**hole or you’re lying to yourself.”

The Other Me by Sarah Zachrich Jeng releases August 10, 2021. Preorder the book here!

Fan Favorites and Likability

by Tallahj Curry

This month, we asked three NLA authors about their fan-favorite characters and what makes them so likable.

Which of your characters is a fan favorite? What makes them likable? Is that important? Why or why not?

Stacey Lee, author of The Downstairs Girl and Luck of the Titanic

Jo Kuan of The Downstairs Girl seems to be a favorite. As an advice columnist, she is principled, and opinionated in a way that real life doesn’t allow her to be. She also has a bit of a wit, and I think that endears her to readers.

Swati Teerdhala, author of The Tiger at Midnight series

One of the fan favorites in my series, The Tiger at Midnight trilogy, is actually a side character. Alok, the best friend of Kunal, one of the main characters, quickly became the character that garnered fan mail and questions. He also got into my heart as well, refusing to let me push him to the side in the later books. Alok is the type of character who is fiercely loyal but isn’t afraid to take Kunal, his best friend, down a peg or two. He’s also the person in the room who often says what everyone’s thinking. We all have a friend like that, or we are that friend! He’s a character that is really easy to understand and root for in all situations and that relatability is what makes him so likable. I don’t think fan favorites have to be likable necessarily, but there needs to be something about that character that makes people connect.

Celesta Rimington, author of The Elephant’s Girl and Tips for Magicians

I’ve had very positive reader responses about the character of Roger in The Elephant’s Girl. He appears to be quite the fan favorite, and he even made some “Favorite Fathers in Middle Grade” lists on Twitter. Roger is the train engineer at the zoo, an aficionado of “old things,” and the rescuer of the little girl he finds after the tornado. He turns his life upside down to become Lexington’s foster father and to protect her.

Roger is likable because he is both strong and gentle, he’s extremely patient with Lexington, and he shows unconditional love for this quirky young girl as though she were his own. He’s also a bit quirky himself as a man in a contemporary world who restores steam trains and believes in ghosts. I think for my young readers, Roger represents support and safety. For my adult readers, he also represents the memorable qualities in beloved father figures they may have known or admired.

I think that in middle-grade books especially, it’s important to include likable characters with whom young readers can feel safe. A book isn’t interesting without conflict, but perhaps it isn’t memorable without characters the readers would wish to know in real life. And if you want your readers to keep reading, you’ll want to write characters who cause your readers to care about what happens to them.

Photo by Andrea Piacquadio from Pexels