I read that Stephanie Meyer, author of the runaway bestselling Twilight series, had muses give her ideas, like in a freaking Greek myth: MUSES. I may have found it on her blog or something. But, the story goes like this: Steph wasn’t a professional writer or anything, she was a stay-at-home mom with a background in … I don’t remember (did some research, she studied English at BYU and was a receptionist pre-babies). Soon after the birth of her second or third child she had an epic dream. In the dream, a glittery vampire boy lays in a meadow with an average teenage girl, he’s trying not to bite/kill her, and all the while falling in love with her. The next day Ms. Meyer opens a new document on her computer and writes the scene from her dream (ends up being Chapter 13). Thusly, out her fingers in a matter of months flies the Twilight universe with its super moral and yet still bloodsucking vampire boy entwining himself (sometimes literally) with a typical (if not completely mundane) human girl.
That time when her dream became a book that became a movie with actors being awkward in a meadow.
She wrote the story as a gift for her sister, who loved it and encouraged Stephanie to send it to publishers. She shopped it around a little bit (15 inquires is a little, seriously, like so very little) and boom bang shamalamadingdong it’s a worldwide bestselling mega-franchise.
Now, I do not want to diminish the work and effort Ms. Meyer did on honing and crafting and editing her books, I just want to share a story that is completely and entirely different from, and does not even reside on the same planet, as my own.
My characters did not come to me from the ether. And, most of the time they are quite slippery to hold onto (another way of saying ‘sometimes I have no effing idea what or who I’m writing‘). They are made out of my brain working very hard to craft people worth reading, people worth loving.
So, here’s how I got to my cast of characters:
1. I spent the lion’s share of the last decade hanging out with real life teenagers pretty regularly. It was not with the expressed purpose of turning them into fiction, it just so happens that I genuinely enjoy almost-adult humans and find their entire selves the most interesting of any other kind of human. I could (and probably will) write more about why teens are the best.
2. I remembered and rehashed my high school experience with friends (sorry for that guys – you know far too much about 16 year old Erin, but luckily I know a lot more about 16 year old Erin too, and will endeavor to only be the most whole parts of her)
3. I decided to figure out the type of character I was writing before figuring out what type of story I was writing. (i.e. there is still very little plot in the novel, its more of a setting up the pins and watching them fall kinda situation)
4. Along the to-plot-or-not-to-plot lines, I wanted a character that was highly relatable and lovable, also flawed, more than I wanted a scenario full of danger & intrigue (those things are not mutually exclusive btw). So, I made a list of qualities, quirks and internal dilemmas of real teen people I know, narrowed the list to my favorites, and then started writing scenes that let me work some of that out. For instance: My girl character loves order, and uses it to cope with chaos, so I wrote a scene where she is doodling a zig-zag pattern around the edge of her beloved mint green day planner on the first day at a new school.
5a. I wrote out some autobiographical stories in the voice of my main character that seemed very teen – first kisses, best kisses, obsessive crushes, feeling lonely in large crowds, driving a car when I still had to think about what I was doing … you know, the usual.
5b. I deleted a lot of that, but the parts that remain are my very favorite parts.
6. I wrote a secondary voice and main character for months that I ended up deleting because I was having a hard time empathizing with her and I found her story ultimately un-interesting, or less-interesting – she also happened to be 30+ years old (see #1). Delete Delete Delete
At the end of the day I wanted to create a honest and realistic teenager. I am finding it NOT simple. It is easy to be cliche or to just write myself – which ends up reading 32 not 16. At the very least I am doing some pretty solid post-processing 16 years in the making, and that’s good.
“So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.”
-F. Scott Fitzgerald-
Below are two photos of me at 16/17 years old for your enjoyment. You can find Part One: My Tale of Getting Started here.
in a boyfriend’s letterman jacket – yeah, that was a thing that happened – as you can see I feel weird about it too **
A little happy and a little uncertain and a little 90’s hair-fabulous. That about sums it up.
** not a reflection on said ex-boyfriend, just that I had lettered in 2 (maybe 3) different sports while in HS and should’ve been wearing my own jacket.
A Tale of Two Thirtysomethings 