Mindy: Welcome to Writer Writer Pants on Fire, where authors talk about things that never happened to people who don't exist. We also cover craft, the agent hunt, query trenches, publishing, industry, marketing and more. I'm your host, Mindy McGinnis. You can check out my books and social media at mindymcginnis dot com and make sure to visit the Writer Writer Pants on Fire blog for additional interviews, query critiques and more as well as full transcriptions of each podcast episode. at WriterWriterPants on Fire.com. And don’t forget to check out the Writer, Writer, Pants on Fire Facebook page. Give me feedback, suggest topics you’d like to hear discussed, and let me know if there is someone you’d love to see a a guest.
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Mindy: We're here with Abigail Dean, author of Girl A. It covers so many different topics but specifically the main character is a survivor of a really shocking case of child abuse who escapes and then as an adult has to return when her mother dies and makes the main character, Lexie, the executor of her will. So why don't you tell us a little bit more about the book Girl A?
Abigail: So, yeah Girl A is Lexie Gracie. She is the survivor. She's the woman, kind of summoned back 15 years after this escape that she's made from her parents’ house which becomes kind of known as the House of Horrors in the press. Lex is really a character who in a way she wants to be known as anything other than Girl A. That's almost become a kind of millstone to her, this association with her parents, almost this heroic image has become something she's just desperate to get away from. And when she is summoned back to deal with her mother’s will, she's also dealing with the fact that she's being left the House of Horrors along with her siblings in her mother's will. That's kind of what prompts this reconnection with her siblings. She grew up with six brothers and sisters and they suffered this shared childhood which was a childhood of trauma. Girl A, I think to me really deals with sort of resurrecting those old battles and alliances that the siblings developed in the house, really just seeing how they translate into adulthood and how each of the siblings has both coped and failed to cope, I guess with what happened to them.
Mindy: I’m currently reading a book, not to change the subject too quickly, but I think this could tie into a book that I'm reading right now that's called The New Evil and it's very much like a psychological textbook, but it's all about understanding modern violent crime, specifically 1960’s and forward. Child abuse is not a new crime. This is something that has always gone on. But I think our understanding and the public perception of the damage that is done to Children in these situations has changed. Like we've come to understand that these adults may not be fully functioning or may have some real trauma and triggers in their adult lives as well.
So I think it's interesting to talk about that and the disparate ways that some of your characters have healed or failed to heal, as you say in this book that I'm reading called the New Evil. They talk about the fact that pretty much without exception, very few exceptions, serial killers typically suffered some sort of abuse in childhood. You can almost count on it. However, not every child that is abused in childhood grows up to be a serial killer. So if you could talk a little bit more about the coping mechanisms and the way that Lex has performed better or worse than some of her siblings as an adult.
Abigail: I think that's exactly right in terms of these kind of very interesting and very, very tragic as well, kind of studies and greater understanding into what actually causes crime, I think are just really valuable and definitely something I was thinking about it in kind of creating Girl A, I think especially in the context of juxtaposing the past and what happened to the different siblings with who they've become In the present.
Kind of 15 years later, not all of them have become particularly sympathetic characters. One of the reasons that I kind of wanted to move quite a lot between the present and the past in writing the book is I think it kind of sets a challenge in terms of your sympathies because certainly with some of the characters, and I'm probably thinking especially if Lex’s older brother Ethan, he's a really difficult adult. He's very, very difficult to like, and can be kind of extremely unpleasant. A lot of people said to me, you know, he's kind of the real villain of the novel and I kind of question that because as a child he's so sympathetic and he does his best to kind of stick up against his father.
That was one of the reasons for the sort of structure of the book in terms of the very close passages of the past and present, focusing on each of the siblings. I always like to think that I would have coped with Lexie’s kind of grace in a way, you know, she's very kind of resilient, she's an incredibly strong, dry, humorous character in many ways. She sees the world with the kind of very wry sense of humor. Um but I'm not sure, you know, going through what the characters in the book do go through, I'm certainly not sure if I would have come out with Lexie’s perspective on life. And it was a question I kept kind of thinking as I was, I was writing the book, you know, would I have been like Lex or would I be more like Ethan, who is very questionable or like his younger brother, Gabriel, who just really struggles through life and is kind of as much a victim outside of the house in a way as he was within it.
Mindy: I’m a writer as well. And whenever I teach any writing workshops I always tell my students and my audience that everyone, and your characters of course this applies to them, but you can move the lesson into real life. Everyone is the way they are for a reason and everyone is also the hero of their own narrative and that is something we really struggle with sometimes because I'm like, even the worst person that, you know, is the hero in their story. When I'm talking to my students, when we're doing any sort of writing workshop, I always ask them to consider whose story are you the villain in? Because you are. To someone, you are a bad person, I know whose villain I am. And so I think it's an interesting way to really make people consider when you're building your characters not to create a moustache twirling villain.
Abigail: I love that idea that, that you know, everybody is the hero of their own narrative. I really agree with it and I think that that kind of, in building characters in a way is what's going to make them most alive. And to me that always seems to be the kind of key thing, you know, above having particular characters who you think will elicit sympathy. It's more just about creating people who feel incredibly real to you as a writer and to the reader. I know that I sort of become really obsessed with the characters, kind of end up thinking about them almost all the time and their relationship dynamics with one another, which I think was one of the real joys of writing Girl A was creating those kind of sibling relationships, I think you see, in that there's dialogue scenes as well. exactly that - that each of the Children believes that they have handled things in the right way.
Mindy: So did you do any research about childhood trauma or about different psychological responses for each different character?
Abigail: I did. And I did especially in relation to Gabriel and Delilah's characters. So, in terms of Delilah sort of some reading around Stockholm syndrome and how that can develop for people who have been in the kind of incredibly high stress traumatic situations that she has lived through. And then also in relation to Gabriel who suffers from these kind of rages that he can't control, almost kind of a physical residual response to his anger and his sort of frustration from being in the house. I did some reading into the psychology behind the characters.
But at the same time I kind of wanted it to be a question as well around how much of these characters is entirely formed by their childhood. To what extent would they have been like that anyway, to some degree, because I think you see sort of little glimpses of the characters even as Children maybe, but before that they kind of go through these traumatic events. And so I wanted that to be kind of a lingering question as well and for it to be kind of in a way I guess slightly more ambiguous I guess then a sort of cause and effect case.
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Mindy: So let's talk about you yourself, you actually have a day job as a lawyer for Google. So what made you decide to go this creative route?
Abigail: In a way, I think some of it was such a product of where I was at the end of my 20s. I used to work at Google, I used to work in a law firm. It was a kind of incredibly intense lifestyle, um kind of like Lexie’s lifestyle in Girl A to a huge degree. So a lot of kind of airport lounges and meeting rooms and sort of, you know, sleepless nights. I'd lived like that for kind of six years or so. They were kind of the bulk of my 20s years and I think I sort of started approaching 30 and I really felt like I'd let go of this thing, writing that as a teenager, as a child, had been this huge part of my life. It had been kind of an absolute love. I tried to write novels then, and I tried to, I wrote loads of fan fiction and I think I was a bit shocked to find that I'd neglected it. And I think that's sort of coincided with the realization that I wasn't particularly um happy day to day in my job, that I didn't really have time for a lot of the things that I just love to be doing.
I actually took three months out. I left my job in a law firm, took three months out to start writing Girl A and then joined Google at the end of that three month period. This role in Google kind of allows me to do both. Like it allows me to write in the evenings while at the same time, really enjoying a legal job as well. I kind of find that the two things complement each other quite a lot in terms of that sort of scrutiny of language, you know, deciding the weight behind each word and this sort of impact of it. And you know, questioning whether there'll be any ambiguity behind it. I kind of see quite a lot of similarity in terms of law and writing in that respect. I think just the sort of power of words, I guess.
Mindy: That makes sense. I really like it because, of course, I have no legal background, but when I am writing, I am weighing every word. If I use this one, as opposed to that one, does it change the flavor of the sentence and how does that affect the paragraph and so on and so forth? So yeah, that's a really interesting parallel.
You also worked as a bookseller at a point in your life. I've been a librarian for 14 years, so it's similar. I'm always pitching books to people trying to talk them into, take this one, take this one, you'll like this one. Thinking about that then as being a bookseller. What about that job did you love? And what kinds of books were your favorites? And if you were pitching your own book, if you were hand selling your book, how would you do that?
Abigail: I loved the job and I think the very sort of best thing was just talking to customers about books. Especially I think talking to like child customers about books because I think Children were just sort of uniquely excited to be in a bookstore. I still remember really vividly working the launch of the last Harry Potter book. I just remember the sort of joy of these kids and teenagers who queued, you know since 10 p.m. and then we opened the store at midnight and they kind of flooded in wearing amazing costumes. Ao there was just a real kind of joy I think in sharing experiences of books. Whether it was an event like that or just chatting to some of the people who became regular customers. I'm sure you find this as a librarian as well, Random people coming in and saying they enjoyed a book that you recommended, Just like a real gives you a kind of glow.
Mindy: In real life when you do matchmaking it’s different. I have a unique matchmaker resume. Everybody I've ever introduced got married but they also got divorced
Abigail: With a book you don't have that risk of legal entanglement. And if I was selling Girl A, I think I would say, you might read the back and think of this, this could be a kind of dark story. But I'd also say that it's really a book about family relationships and a book about a huge amount of hope I think in the face of something traumatic. So yeah, that it's about strength and resilience and hope those would be the kind of attributes. But I would talk about what lies behind the pale.
Mindy: You’ve had some tremendous success already here with the Girl A, which I should add it has released here in the United States. It was on sale February second. But it is one of the Most Anticipated Books of 2021 from Marie Claire, O Magazine, Good Housekeeping, Lit Hub. It's sold in international auction and it's sold in 25 territories. So a division of Sony, preempted tv rights for a series with the director from HBO’s Chernobyl attached to it. This is your debut novel, I should add. So you have come out of the Gates running. So is there anything about the success that has set you back a little? Has it surprised you? And does it feel, I know many people that I talked to who have had a debut that really blew everything else out of the water and they are like, oh shit, what do I write next?
Abigail: I am definitely surprised, I am hugely surprised, I think kind of it's just a very surreal thing when this dream that you had as kind of a kid actually starts to happen. I think I’m kind of potentially still in a bit of a state of shock about the whole thing. My agent had some really amazing advice for me just as Girl A was sold and she essentially said, look before it is published, get as far with your next book as you can, so that you don't have that kind of self doubt and that sort of second guessing and um you know, just try and plough on with that second book.
And so that advice I think was really, really helpful because although I've not finished my second book, I've kind of made a lot of headway with it and I'm sort of, a first draft is nearly in place. So I think that was really helpful advice because otherwise there'd be a much more intense kind of pressure and yeah, I think of course it changes things because writing Girl A was done in such kind of isolation. My objective was just to see if I could write a novel and and finish it, you know, maybe self publish it, get it published if things went well. That was I think the extent of the ambition behind it. Um So yeah, it is definitely different writing with the deadline and writing with some expectations, but I think the nice thing is that a lot of the writing of my second novel was done before Girl A went out into the world.
Mindy: I think I have 10 books out now and another one coming out in 2022. You do get into a pattern of trying to get the next one as far as long as possible, particularly if you're writing in a series, because I had the experience of working on a second book knowing that the first one had not done well at all. That was very difficult because I'm trying to deliver a good product and write a good book for the few people that did read the first one, but at the same time really just kind of working out of a sense of, well, I know very, very few people are going to read this because very, very, very few people read the first one. So that can create a vacuum, kind of in which you're trying to write and be hopeful and wish all the good things that you can for this manuscript. But Knowing that typically in publishing you lose 40% Of your readers from the first book, only 60% pick up the second and knowing what those numbers already looked like. That was difficult.
Abigail: And it just seems, I think writers in general are, there's so much self doubt, self criticism anyway. Like even sort of writing with zero expectations and with zero pressure, there's still sort of self doubt. I think it's that kind of slight cliche of feeling self doubt and doing it anyway. It seems to be the only way to keep going. Is that how you overcame it, Mindy?
Mindy: Yeah, well that and I had a contract to fill. So I had to write the book and it's like, I'm not going to put something half assed out there. It's like I'm going to write this book. And you know, sadly enough, it was a fantasy series that I wrote. It did not sell well. And sadly enough, I feel like it's some of my best work, just the challenge of the genre and the multiple POVS I was writing. It was work. They are the longest books I have ever written and they are the most complicated plot wise that I have ever written and they are the least read. So I put a lot of like, real work into those books. I could feel myself stretching my skills and my bounds as a writer and being like, wow, like you're really doing something with this, but you know, nobody cared.
And that's a risk that you take every time. And it's something you… published or unpublished, but being unpublished is much more…. my fifth novel was the first one that got picked up. So, you know, writing something that you're fully aware no one may ever read. That's tough. And you're talking about self doubt, you're so right. I have a book coming out in about two weeks and I'm so I finished it, you know, turned it in and while I was writing it, I'm like, this is awesome, this is this, is good. This is, like, my best work has great critical reviews and has been, you know, picked for a book of the month for different things.
I substitute now. I'm no longer a librarian in the school districts, but I substitute, which has been pretty much a full time job lately. And the other day I had a group that I couldn't get them settled and I was like, hey, I just got my author copies of my new book, Want me to read you guys? And they were like, oh yeah, cool. Right. So I started reading and I was sitting up there and I hadn't touched this material in, you know, probably six months, so I'm sitting up in front of them and I start reading from my book that comes out in two weeks and I'm like, this is, this is terrible. I'm just, what was I thinking? You know? And meanwhile everyone… most everyone that has read it, like it has great early reviews and everybody's like, oh, this is so great. As soon as I, as an author started participating in a public forum, I'm just like, oh my God, this is embarrassing.
Abigail: I think it's Sadie Smith who said that in a way, once the novel is published, you're kind of free to hate it, it doesn't really belong to you anymore. And you only need to love it for a very short amount of time, enough to press SEND. I don't know anybody who kind of looks back at their work and thinks, I mean every sentence that was just immaculate. Yeah, that's quite comforting. I think that actually there's some freedom there and actually that's the point when you can't do anything about it. So that by then it's actually okay to have the doubt. It's okay to have the hatred. It's done.
Mindy: You can't do anything about it. Yeah, there is some comfort in helplessness. And I will say, my older novels because, you know, I've been writing for like 20 years, been publishing since 2013. So some of my older novels when I read them aloud, I truly am a better writer now than I was when I wrote them. So I tell audiences if I do a reading, which I don't do that often, but I tell audiences, you know, if you're interested to see how I would write this now, follow along because I edit as I'm reading aloud my older books now. I change things like no, I wouldn't do, now. Yeah, so it's interesting. Last thing, let listeners know where they can find the book Girl A and also where they can find you online.
Abigail: My website is Abigail hyphen Dean dot com and you can find kind of upcoming events there and some kind of blog posts that I've done in partnership with my editor and agent and I'm Abigail S Dean on Twitter and Instagram, so feel free to say hi. Girl A is out. It's available online in most bookie, most bookie places I know that independent bookshops in particular have had a rough time over the last year and you can certainly order it from your local independent bookshop. .
Mindy: Writer Writer Pants on Fire is produced by Mindy McGinnis. Music by Jack Korbel. Don't forget to check out the blog for additional interviews, writing advice and publication tips at Writer Writer Pants on Fire dot com. If the blog or podcast have been helpful to you or if you just enjoy listening, please consider donating. Visit Writer Writer Pants on Fire dot com and click “support the blog and podcast” in the sidebar.