"Keeping it Real" in the Garden State
Carlie Webber -- School Library Journal, 5/20/2009
Four popular YA authors spoke about writing and the YA literature market in a two-hour session at the New Jersey Library Association conference in Long Branch, NJ, in April. Best known for their realistic fiction, authors Maureen Johnson (Devilish; 13 Little Blue Envelopes), Chris Krovatin (Heavy Metal and You; Venomous), and E. Lockhart (The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks; Dramarama) fielded questions from audience members and moderators Sophie Brookover, a librarian at Eastern Regional High School in Voorhees, NJ, and Kimberly Paone, supervisor of branch and teen services for the Elizabeth Public Library in New Jersey. Attendees were treated to some enlightening (and maybe surprising!) answers from the panel.
Science fiction and fantasy are the hottest things in YA today. Where do your books fit into the larger scale of sci-fi/fantasy sales?
Lockhart:I don’t really think much about the market until I visit a bookstore, or until the check arrives. I did write one fantasy, Fly on the Wall, but I forgot it was a fantasy because I was trying to write about feelings, not an epic quest or journey. You can take your passion for one thing and transpose it into another. Write what you know to be emotionally true, and write about what is interesting to you.
Krovatin: It’s about feeling less alone. It’s about trying to find the place where someone else would understand who you are. Inside, we are all flies. I enjoy fantasy but don’t understand the characters’ plight as much as I understand what happens in realistic fiction, like puberty and dealing with life issues.
How much does your first draft look like your final copy?
Johnson: It looks very, very different. I almost never put the ending on the first draft. It’s really not done until it goes to the printers. I’ve done things in late drafts like kill characters or change major plot points.
Krovatin: My final copy looks very different, too. Not something drastic, but I’ll change the order of events, or language, have fewer four-letter words or get rid of retelling of points. Your editor’s job is to hand you the note that says, “You are not Shakespeare.” If you’re thinking too much while writing, you have to go back and say what you really meant.
Lockhart:I rewrite as I go, so my first draft is also my 12th. Dramarama was originally a story about drama camp politics, but then I had to put romance and kissing in. Frankie is really about Vassar, but I interviewed boarding school students about restrictions on their behavior, things you would have at boarding school but not in college.
The panel also answered questions about their writing, Web presence, fan mail, college majors, and hobbies. After being heckled by audience member John Green, the author of Looking for Alaska and Paper Towns, Johnson talked about receiving a picture of a middle-aged male fan in a tiny Speedo. That, however, is a story best heard in person.
