Madeline Dyer On Sources Of Inspiration

Inspiration is a funny thing. It can come to us like a lightning bolt, through the lyrics of a song, or in the fog of a dream. Ask any writer where their stories come from and you’ll get a myriad of answers, and in that vein I created the WHAT (What the Hell Are you Thinking?) interview. Always including in the WHAT is one random question to really dig down into the interviewees mind, and probably supply some illumination into my own as well.

Todays guest for the WHAT is Madeline Dyer, a fantasy and science fiction writer, who has a special love for all things dystopian, paranormal and ghostly. Her debut novel, UNTAMED, was published by Prizm Books in May 2015.

Ideas for our books can come from just about anywhere, and sometimes even we can’t pinpoint exactly how or why. Did you have a specific origin point for your book?

Normally, I can’t pinpoint exactly where my ideas come from—usually, they come from a mixture of things… but with UNTAMED I do have a specific origin point: the music video for ‘La La La’ by Naughty Boy featuring Sam Smith. More specifically, it was a scene in this video, where I saw what I interpreted as a human heart being sold at a market (whether it was actually a pig’s heart, I’m not sure) and I just thought what if people can buy emotions at an everyday market like that (as a human heart can represent love, passion, commitment, etc.)? And that’s where the idea came from really. Of course, it soon grew into something much, much bigger, as I combined it with research and imagination. 

Once the original concept existed, how did you build a plot around it?

So, once I had this premise worked out—that people would be able to buy the emotions they wanted to feel—I started thinking about characters. For me, characters always drive the plot, so once I’d created a handful of characters that I absolutely fell in love with, the plot came pretty fast. At this point, I started on the world-building, and decided I wanted a strong dystopian regime in place that tried to eradicate all negative emotions—at the expense of humanity. And I also wanted conflict. A lot of conflict. From then on, the plot just grew and grew, thanks to my characters and their actions. 

Have you ever had the plot firmly in place, only to find it changing as the story moved from your mind to paper?

Yes! This happens quite a lot. I’m just trying to think back to when I was writing the first draft of UNTAMED… there were quite a few plot points that changed dramatically when I went from my plan to the first draft. Mainly, these changes were caused by the characters not doing what I wanted. They all had different ideas, and a couple of them reacted totally different to how I expected, throwing the story off in a whole new direction. 

But most of my big changes occur when I’m going from the first draft to the second. Usually, by the time I’ve finished the first draft, I know the characters really well, and I’ve got loads of ideas about what needs changing. With UNTAMED, one of the major changes was who the love interest of my main character was going to be; another character just wasn’t happy about my plans at all—to the extent that the original love interest got written out in the second draft. 

And these changes happen all the time! I’m currently working on book two in the Untamed Series, FRAGMENTED, and I’ve just finished rewriting a massive section. It still leads to the same place, but uses different means to get there that are more appropriate to the characters and the story.

Do story ideas come to you often, or is fresh material hard to come by?

I always seem to have ideas! And I can’t type fast enough! 

I’m currently actively working on three different projects (the next two Untamed books, and a new dystopian novel for adults), and I’m feeling a bit overloaded by just how much motivation and inspiration I have. Sure, I have days where I can’t be bothered to write and the thought of sitting down with my laptop again fills me with dread—but at the same time, I want to write, I need to. And when I have, I feel a lot better. It’s addictive. 

How do you choose which story to write next, if you’ve got more than one percolating?

Ah, now this is something I still haven’t quite perfected. I always seem to be overrun with ideas, and tend to work on more than one story at a time—though, even then I always have one main one. Still, it gets a bit hectic, and I keep separate notebooks for each project so I don’t mix my ideas up. At the moment, I’m working on Untamed book two (as my main project), and then writing scenes and bits and pieces of Untamed book three, and my new work-in-progress.

I tend to just go with the story that I want to write that day. Unless I’m on a deadline! 

Sometimes the perfect word eludes me. If I can’t come up with it in the moment I usually write something in ALL CAPS like A GREAT WORD HERE and move on to catch it later in revision. Do you roll with the flow, or go find that word right away?

I do the ALL CAPS THING all the time! And you know what? I’m so glad I’m not the only one! I think that if I stopped every time I couldn’t find the perfect word, I’d definitely disrupt the flow of the story—particularly if it’s the first draft. And I’ve found I work best when I get the first draft down as quickly as possible. I completed draft one of UNTAMED in around 24 days, then spent the following 18 months fixing things, rewriting and revising, and working through edits with the lovely editor my publisher assigned me. 

So yeah, my first drafts tend to resemble a bit of a patchwork really. They’re filled with notes, comments, highlighted sections that need rewriting and lots of capitalized reminders. 

Anyway, the later drafts are for finding the perfect words, right? I usually don’t allow myself to start editing, changing words or doing major research (unless it’s absolutely necessary) until I’ve finished a draft for fear of disrupting the rhythm I’ve created. 

Lydia Kang On The Value of Down Time While Marketing

Welcome to another acronym-ific writer-centric interview series, the SNOB (Second Novel Omnipresent Blues). Whether you’re under contract or trying to snag another deal, you’re a professional now, with the pressures of a published novelist compounded with the still-present nagging self-doubt of the noobie. How to deal?

Today's guest for the SNOB is Lydia Kang, author of CONTROL and CATALYST. Lydia is an author of young adult fiction, poetry, and narrative non-fiction. She graduated from Columbia University and New York University School of Medicine, completing her residency and chief residency at Bellevue Hospital in New York City. She is a practicing physician who has gained a reputation for helping fellow writers achieve medical accuracy in fiction. She believes in science and knocking on wood, and currently lives in Omaha with her husband and three children.

Is it hard to leave behind the first novel and focus on the second?

For me, my second novel (Catalyst) was the sequel and end to the series. So in some ways, I didn’t leave the first novel (Control) behind at all, because it was a continuum. But one of the hardest things was trying to focus on creating the new novel under the constraints of the world building I’d established in the first book. There were times when I’d tied my own hands regarding plot issues, and that was a pain. The other hard thing was trying to amp up the oomph as far as character development and world building. There are a lot of things that are resolved at the end of Control; the challenge was how to reopen a character arc that was different and not redundant, and create a story that touched on some of the best elements in Control but make them fresh and different in Catalyst.

At what point do you start diverting your energies from promoting your debut and writing / polishing / editing your second?

I started writing Catalyst as soon as the book deal for Control happened. I had a one book deal, so there was zero guarantee that Catalyst would be acquired, and that was a huge amount of uncertain stress on me. I wrote the majority of the book when I realized I had made a huge plot mistake (one of the main characters never showed up and that was a big no-no). So then I had to rewrite it.

There was a two year gap between the acquisition of Control and its publication date. In that first year, I wrote Catalyst and it was acquired. During that year leading up to Control’s release date, I was promoting a lot. Then, three weeks before Control debuted, I had to revise Catalyst with a 7 week turnaround, because my editor and I simultaneously decided that Catalyst should be the end of the series, instead of book two of a trilogy. So I had to massively revise it again and smoosh book three into Catalyst to complete the duology. It was incredibly stressful to revise on that tight of a turnaround and promote at the same time! I don’t know how I survived.

Your first book landed an agent and an editor, and hopefully some fans. Who are you writing the second one for? Them, or yourself?

For my fans, my editor, and for me. I put an enormous amount of pressure to make Catalyst work in the story arc with Control, feel new and fresh, but still be familiar. It was a learning process and there was no surprise that I had to revise it so many times to make it happen. I made a lot of mistakes.

Is there a new balance of time management to address once you’re a professional author?

Definitely. But if anything, I’ve learned to slow down a bit and enjoy my life more. I’ve traveled a lot promoting both books. And though I was thrilled to go to events I’d only dreamed of, like Comic Con in San Diego, teen book festivals around the country, school visits, TLA, ALA, and RT, I also learned that I’m far more of an introvert than I realized. So my down time is really important to me now.

What did you do differently the second time around, with the perspective of a published author?

I focused on keeping a gauge on my energy levels and lean on my family and author friends when I’ve been stressed out. This can be a lonely, isolating profession at times and my family and friends have been tremendous in supporting me. Also, instead of my experiences blitzing by in the shininess of new experiences, I was able to take a larger look at things, slow down a bit, and enjoy them more. :)

Emma Pass On Using The Newspaper For Inspiration

Inspiration is a funny thing. It can come to us like a lightning bolt, through the lyrics of a song, or in the fog of a dream. Ask any writer where their stories come from and you’ll get a myriad of answers, and in that vein I created the WHAT (What the Hell Are you Thinking?) interview. Always including in the WHAT is one random question to really dig down into the interviewees mind, and probably supply some illumination into my own as well.

Today's guest for the WHAT is Emma Pass, who grew up at an environmental studies centre near London, went to art school in Cornwall and now lives in the north-east Midlands, UK. Her YA dystopian thrillers ACID and THE FEARLESS, are available now.

Ideas for our books can come from just about anywhere, and sometimes even we can’t pinpoint exactly how or why. Did you have a specific origin point for your book?

With THE FEARLESS, definitely. I attended a workshop run by UK YA author Julie Bertagna, and she was talking about how she got her ideas. She handed out some newspaper articles as examples, and the one I got was about a pill being developed to stop soldiers suffering from PTSD. I started wondering what would happen if there was a pill that didn't just stop you being affected psychologically by traumatic events, but stopped you feeling fear altogether – along with any capacity for empathy or love. What would it do to people? How would they behave?

Once the original concept existed, how did you build a plot around it?

I started to think about how people might be forced to take this drug against their will, until vast numbers of them – now called 'The Fearless' - were invading every country in the world, forcing the drug on everyone else. It would be a bit like a zombie invasion, only far scarier as these people were still alive, with the capacity to think and plan. I imagined a small group of survivors, and what their lives might be like post-invasion. Living among them was a teenage girl, Cass. What would happen if her little brother, the only family she had left, was taken by the Fearless, and everyone else was too afraid to help her get him back? What choices would she have to make? What journey would she go on? Would she be able to survive? I've always loved post-apocalyptic, disaster stories that ask 'what would you do?', so this was my perfect opportunity to write my own.

Have you ever had the plot firmly in place, only to find it changing as the story moved from your mind to paper?

Always! I'm not much of a planner so I don't generally have the plot firmly in place before I start a first draft. Too much planning bores me, so I like to write and discover the story as I go along – and it always surprises me! I do have to do a lot of editing with subsequent drafts, though, but I love editing (yeah, I'm weird!), so that's OK.

Do story ideas come to you often, or is fresh material hard to come by?

I don't have millions of story ideas at any one time, but there are always a few brewing. I find the one way not to get ideas is to try and consciously think them up. Instead, I try to be receptive to unusual things I might see or hear or read (OK, so that's a fancy way of saying I'm nosy, but you have to be if you're a writer, right?). Eventually, they might turn into an idea, which might turn into a story…

How do you choose which story to write next, if you’ve got more than one percolating?

I generally have one idea which is more 'ready' than the others – I might have a vague idea of the ending, or the characters might start speaking to me and insist that I write their story now. Sometimes, though, I just have to start writing and see – and if the story isn't ready, I soon find out! I don't consider it wasted, though, as I know I can come back to it another time.

I write best when it’s raining outside. Do you have a favorite weather to write with?

I like sunny days the best, because I can sit outside and look at the garden and daydream – an essential part of my writing process!