Debbie Manber Kupfer On Building Fiction from Personal Experiences

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 included 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 Debbie Manber Kupfer, author of the P.A.W.S series. Debbie grew up in the UK and has lived in Israel, New York and North Carolina. She ended up in St. Louis, where she works as a writer and freelance puzzle constructor of word puzzles and logic problems.

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?

Yes, P.A.W.S. begins with my lead character, Miri, receiving a silver cat charm from her omama (grandmother) the night before her omama dies. Miri is ten years old at the time. I also lost my omama, whom I was extremely close to, when I was ten years old. I was on my own with her when she had her heart attack and there when they took her in the ambulance. I grew up with this as a pivotal point in my childhood. I used to share so much with my omama. We’d bake together. She’d tell me stories about my father as a child, about their cats, Kitty and Susie, about their life in Vienna, and later during the war in Northern Ireland and after the war, in London. She didn’t tell me too much about the Nazis who forced her to put my father on the Kindertransport. And how he traveled on his own to England when he was just six years old. But the story came out over the years and the idea that this would be part of a book series I’d write in the future was always with me.

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

The plot unfolded during a trip to the zoo with my son, Joey. I’d clearly seen the beginning sequence: Miri receiving the silver charm. I knew it was important, but didn’t quite know where it was leading. Then one Saturday in October 2012 I took Joey to the zoo and told him the story. How Miri was pulled from her life in New York, taken to St. Louis by her aunt, sent to a boarding school and bullied by the kids there for being different. And how this all led to her finding her magic and P.A.W.S.

When I got back home from that trip to the zoo, I started writing and slowly the plot unfolded.

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

Oh yes. Those who have read P.A.W.S. will know that the antagonist is an extremely evil werewolf by the name of Alistair. What you wouldn’t expect is that Alistair wasn’t in my original concept of P.A.W.S. at all. Rather I had thought that the main antagonist would be Miri’s uncle, David. But several chapters into P.A.W.S. Miri meets Josh, the young werewolf that will bring her to P.A.W.S. and become her mentor and friend, and while Josh tells his story, Alistair forces his way in and makes it all about him. 

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

My mind is constantly abuzz with new ideas and new characters. The key is not to get sidetracked, so when I get a new idea I write it up quickly in a different file and then go on with my work-in-progress. Some of these new characters will end up in the P.A.W.S. Saga. Others will be part of short stories. 

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

I’ve got a pact with myself that I *have* to finish my series before I write anything else novel length, but I do occasionally take a break to write short stories in different genres.

I have 8 cats (seriously, check my Instagram feed) and I usually have at least one or two snuggling with me when I write. Do you have a writing buddy, or do you find it distracting?

Eight kitties – yay! You really need to come on my blog, Paws 4 Thought, sometime. My readers love anything cat related! I have just the one kitty currently, Miri Billie Joe (named for my lead character and Billie Joe Armstrong of Green Day). She sadly is not a lap kitty, but does like to sit somewhere near me while I work at my computer each day.

Wednesday WOLF - The Living Room

I'm a nerd. I'm in fact such a big nerd that I tend to look up word origins in my spare time because I'm fascinated by our language. The odder the origin, the better. I've got a collection of random information in my brain that makes me an awesome Trivial Pursuit partner, but is completely useless when it comes to real world application. Like say, job applications.

In any case, I thought I'd share some of this random crap with you in the form of the new acronym-ific series. I give you - Word Origins from Left Field - that's right, the WOLF. Er... ignore the fact that the "from" doesn't fit.

The living room... we like being in there, right? It's where the TV and microwave burritos get us through slow evenings, a spot to crash with friends, and (in my case) a gathering place for cat and dog hair.

You might think we call it the living room because we do a fair amount of our living there, but there's a... let's call it, a slightly more macabre reason why.

The beginning of the 20th century marked some great strides forward for modern medicine. Germ theory was widely accepted, and simple procedures such as washing hands and the introduction of public health measures drastically reduced death rates. So much so that many people felt that humans were on the verge of eradicating illness.

At that time, the room in the home where guests were received was called the parlor. Generally reserved for public gatherings, it was also used for the purpose of a laying out. At the time, it was still common practice for families to hold a wake in their home, with the deceased laid out in the parlor for family and friends to say their goodbyes before burial.

Due to the rise in public health, and new discoveries in medicine, the Ladies Home Journal boldly suggested renaming the parlor the living room, since we wouldn't be gathering there quite so often after a death.

Then the flu epidemic of 1918 hit...

Kaitlyn Sage Patterson On Dealing With Submission Anxiety

If there's one thing that many aspiring writers have few clues about, it's the submission process. There are good reasons for that; authors aren't exactly encouraged to talk in detail about our own submission experiences, and - just like agent hunting - everyone's story is different. I managed to cobble together a few non-specific questions that some debut authors have agreed to answer (bless them). And so I bring you the submission interview series - Submission Hell - It's True. Yes, it's the SHIT.

Today's guest for the SHIT is Kaitlyn Sage Patterson who grew up outside the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. After completing her M.F.A., she moved to South Korea, where she taught English and started writing her debut novel. THE DIMINISHED will be published by HarlequinTEEN on April 10, 2018, followed by its sequel in 2019.

How much did you know about the submission process before you were out on subs yourself?

I am, in the deepest part of my soul, a researcher. Before I went on submission for THE DIMINISHED, I tried to learn as much as I could about the process, but honestly, aside from your blog, there’s not much out there! I’m actually on submission again, and it is just as harrowing as the first time!

Did anything about the process surprise you?

I was surprised the first time with how contradictory the feedback was! One editor would love the voice, but find the pacing too slow. Another editor would love the pacing, but not get into the voice. It felt like taste tug of war! This time has been super interesting in that the rejections are universally very complimentary, far more so than with my debut, but no bites yet! *fingers crossed*

Did you research the editors you knew had your ms? Do you recommend doing that?

I did and I don’t! Like I said before, I am fueled by research. I dove DEEP when I was on sub with my debut. I’m talking reading ancient interviews that I pulled from the depths of the internet. I read every applicable entry in Publisher’s Marketplace. I read into every tweet.

And honestly, in all of that research, the only thing I really learned was that I can’t see the future. So as I go through this round of submission I have done some minimal research, but the only thing I’m really looking at is the other books that the editors have acquired to get an idea of their tastes.

What was the average amount of time it took to hear back from editors?

In both cases we’ve gotten responses anywhere from a couple of days to several months! The one thing I hold close is that no response means just that… no response. I know that editors are really good about getting back to agents as soon as they read and make a decision.

What do you think is the best way for an author out on submission to deal with the anxiety?

Ugh. If you have any suggestions, I’d love to hear them! I tend to do a lot of reading, both beta reading and catching up on my TBR. I know people say that you should write, but I find it difficult to really get words down when I’m so focused on something else. It is, however, a good time to do that kind of staring at the wall, thinking really hard work of figuring out a story that’s been brewing for a while.

If you had any rejections, how did you deal with that emotionally? How did this kind of rejection compare to query rejections?

Here’s the thing for me with submission rejections. I don’t want to work with someone who isn’t DEEPLY, MADLY in love with the books that I write. So the passes, for me, just feel like stepping stones to the person who will say yes.

It’s different, too, from query rejections, because I already have someone on my side who believes in the book. That’s really huge for me. I know that even if the book isn’t right for *that* editor, it doesn’t suck, you know?

If you got feedback on a rejection, how did you process it? How do you compare processing an editor’s feedback as compared to a beta reader’s?

Like I said, with THE DIMINISHED, the feedback was ALL OVER THE PLACE. As each pass came in, I assessed how I felt about it. Was there a kernel of truth? Something I could work on?

Truth be told, the way I process feedback doesn’t changed based on who is giving the feedback. I trust my beta readers, I trust that editors have good taste, and I know that every book is not right for every person. So I try to think about how or if each piece of feedback would change or shape the vision I have for my book for the better.

When you got your YES! how did that feel? How did you find out – email, telephone, smoke signal?

Oh goodness, I was totally over the moon. I work in fundraising for non-profits in my day job, and I was in a meeting with the chair of my board of directors, my boss, and my boss’s boss the day I got the call. I knew I’d gone to acquisitions, so I had my phone with me, which I normally wouldn’t do, and, because of the combination of nerves and trying to get ready for this big meeting, I’d forgotten to turn my ringer off. So as I was presenting our Year to Date Budget, my phone started blaring “Formation” by Beyoncé. It was really hard to say, “I’m so sorry. I need to take this,” with a straight face, but I grabbed my phone and ran out of the room before anyone could say anything.

When I eventually finished giddily screaming with my agent on the phone, I went back to the meeting and after about 30 seconds of congratulations, I resumed my presentation. #reallife

Did you have to wait a period of time before sharing your big news, because of details being ironed out? Was that difficult?

I did, but thankfully not for long! It was SUCH a whirlwind time for me. My boyfriend and I bought a house in October, I signed with my agent in November, my boyfriend and I got engaged in late November, I went on submission in February, got the news about the sale in early April, and signed the contract the day before my wedding at the end of April. So at my wedding, when people were asking me about my book, all I could do was smile! It was intense!! I was so relieved to finally be able to tell people when we made the announcement in May.