Nancy Werlin is the author of numerous YA thrillers. Her most recent novel, Rules of Survival, is a gripping and terrifying look at three kids and their violent, narcissistic whackadoo of a mother. Rules received starred reviews from every trade magazine, was a Booksense Top 10 pick, and was nominated for BBYA, Quick Picks for Young Adults and a National Book Award. Whew! We are so pleased that Nancy was able to sit down with us and answer our terribly deep and important questions.
First of all, congratulations on your NBA nod. Has the critical enthusiasm and acclaim gone to your head?
Well, I am terribly happy about it. And I had a really fun three days in NYC for the festivities (anybody who cares to can read all about it, and see lots of pictures, on my NBA blog). And let's see, everybody at my job is thrilled for me and convinced that this means our software documentation is first rate! I don't have the heart to tell them that my skill at writing fiction has few positive implications for our User Manual.
Ha! Fair enough. Rules of Survival is a really unflinching portrayal of psychological abuse. What draws you to this dark material?
Why does one possible story pull and pull over time, eventually forcing me to write about it, while another doesn't? I usually discover sometime after finishing a novel that I had a serious personal stake, on a emotional level, in the themes explored by the novel I wrote. However, I tend to be unaware of this while writing, and I believe that lack of awareness is important during the process; that it helps me immerse in the fictional world. I trust my subconscious. In time, maybe, I will learn more about why I felt so driven to write this particular book.
I do need to add a message from my mom, though. She's been quite concerned that people might think I worked from life, and that she was the model for Nikki Walsh. But unlike the Walsh kids, I was lucky enough to grow up with parents who were safe. My need to work with this material comes from somewhere else.
Hear that, people? Leave Nancy's mom out of this! Speaking of parents, have you had any problems with people wanting to challenge the book - and if you did, what would you say to those people?
No, no challenges thus far. Usually, challenges come from parents concerned about what their kids are reading. I believe parents have every right to monitor what their kids read, although I always find it interesting when they do so without having read the book in question themselves. . I suppose my response to a challenge would depend on what exactly the point of contention was. I have to say that, unlike many YA writers who work with darker themes, I have not been challenged much. My theory is that, since my books are usually classified as suspense thrillers, people simply expect them to contain death, difficulty, trauma, destruction. If that's not what you want, you don't pick a thriller up.
That makes sense. You do write suspense so well - is there a trick to it, or does it just come naturally?
You're in luck! I wrote a whole essay about this recently. The essay is called "What Makes a Good Thriller?" and it was published in the Sept/Oct Horn Book magazine. They posted it online, here.
To this I will add that writing suspense does not come naturally to me, I think because a suspense novel is a tight braid of multiple elements. I have worked very hard over the years to develop the writing skills to support the creation of tension, as well as on my plotting skills. What comes more naturally to me is character development, voice, facility with language, and, I think, the obsession with ethics that underlies most "crime fiction." Crime fiction is always, always concerned with justice and fairness. It's a tremendous vehicle for what the writer John Gardner (see his books Becoming a Novelist and On Fiction) called "moral fiction." By which, of course, he did not mean didactic fiction.
Interesting! That guy is a genius, I loved Grendel, too. On another note: Do you ever imagine your characters as adults? What do you think they'll be like?
Sometimes I think about what might have happened to them years later. I have an idea that David Yaffe from The Killer's Cousin would eventually meet and fall in love with Frances Leventhal from Black Mirror, and vice versa. I imagine that Marnie Skydottir from Locked Inside went to West Point where she excelled at military strategy but was expelled over her attitude. I believe that Eli Samuels from Double Helix is treading a very difficult life road, but I take comfort that I gave him good, loving companions on it.
I don't know much about the future of Matt, Callie, and Emmy from The Rules of Survival, though. It's too soon. Right now, it's enough that they made it through alive and intact.
That's actually the only reason I was able to make it through the book without having a heart attack. I had to keep saying to myself, "OK, it's in a letter and in past tense, so he's definitely alive to be writing it!"
What we really want to know is, how did you start your writing career?
My first novel (which will be reprinted by Penguin Puffin in 2007) is called Are You Alone on Purpose? I worked on it doggedly from when I was 27 until I was 31, while also working part-time as a software technical writer (just as I do now). I was lucky enough to interest editor Lauri Hornik, then at Houghton Mifflin, in an early draft. After I revised it, she bought it, and I've been working with her ever since, though I have had to move along with her as her career grew. She's now Publisher of Dial Books for Young Readers, a division of Penguin.
What sort of books did you like when you were a teenager?
I read everything except bloody horror. Some favorite authors included Georgette Heyer, Fyodor Dostoevsky, Charles Dickens, Anne McCaffrey, Jane Austen, Wilkie Collins, the Brontes (Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre was and remains my favorite book of all time). I went through an Agatha Christie phase. A big science fiction and fantasy phase. A romance phase. A Victorian phase (of course). I read 10 or more books a week. I can't remember most of them, but I can guarantee that many were not respectable at all.
And I can certainly see the suspense influence! So what advice would you give to an aspiring teen writer?
Don't self-publish. Work hard (and read lots) until you've got something somebody else will pay you to publish, even if it takes until you're forty. Seriously. Oh, and go ahead and live your life so you have something to write about.
What are you working on now?
It's hard to describe. A sort of contemporary horror/romance inspired in part by the Childe ballad Scarborough Fair/The Elfin Knight. Of course there's my usual ticking time-bomb suspense and fear thing happening, too.
QUICK FIRE CHALLENGE - Let's Play Favourites!
Literary Sleuth? Nancy Drew. She *made* fourth grade for me!
Art Movement? I like individual artists, not movements. Klee.
Climate? Is there someplace that has spring, summer, and fall, but no winter?
Gemstone? Amber
Font? Times Roman. Always and forever!
Pen? Sharpie.
Zoo Animal? Giraffe.
Magical Animal? Cyclops (ed: is he an animal, or a dude? well, I guess he's a creature, so I'll accept it.)
Superhero? Batman (who, in Double Helix, one character calls "just plain psychotic.") And a close second: Buffy Summers.
Library? New York Public. I spent one magical day there writing in 1995 that I will never forget.
Bookstore? It's gone! Wordsworth, in Harvard Square, Cambridge. Gone, gone, gone.
Sigh. Now I am addicted to the convenience of ordering online. But Porter Square Books, also in Cambridge, might become my favorite in-person store. (ed: actually, that was kind of a trick question - the answer should have been BOOKS INC... no?)
What book (besides your own!) do you think Not Your Mother's Bookclub Members would love?
BEATING HEART by A.M. Jenkins. Sexy and scary, yum.
Finally, is there anything you WISH I had asked, but didn't?
Nope. You've enlivened a flight from Boston to Chicago, Jennifer. Thank you.
No no, Nancy, thank YOU!
CLICK HERE to visit Nancy on the web.
CLICK HERE to read an excerpt from Rules of Survival
CLICK HERE to buy Rules of Survival from Nancy's second favourite independent bookstore.
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First of all, congratulations on your NBA nod. Has the critical enthusiasm and acclaim gone to your head?
Well, I am terribly happy about it. And I had a really fun three days in NYC for the festivities (anybody who cares to can read all about it, and see lots of pictures, on my NBA blog). And let's see, everybody at my job is thrilled for me and convinced that this means our software documentation is first rate! I don't have the heart to tell them that my skill at writing fiction has few positive implications for our User Manual.
Ha! Fair enough. Rules of Survival is a really unflinching portrayal of psychological abuse. What draws you to this dark material?
Why does one possible story pull and pull over time, eventually forcing me to write about it, while another doesn't? I usually discover sometime after finishing a novel that I had a serious personal stake, on a emotional level, in the themes explored by the novel I wrote. However, I tend to be unaware of this while writing, and I believe that lack of awareness is important during the process; that it helps me immerse in the fictional world. I trust my subconscious. In time, maybe, I will learn more about why I felt so driven to write this particular book.
I do need to add a message from my mom, though. She's been quite concerned that people might think I worked from life, and that she was the model for Nikki Walsh. But unlike the Walsh kids, I was lucky enough to grow up with parents who were safe. My need to work with this material comes from somewhere else.
Hear that, people? Leave Nancy's mom out of this! Speaking of parents, have you had any problems with people wanting to challenge the book - and if you did, what would you say to those people?
No, no challenges thus far. Usually, challenges come from parents concerned about what their kids are reading. I believe parents have every right to monitor what their kids read, although I always find it interesting when they do so without having read the book in question themselves. . I suppose my response to a challenge would depend on what exactly the point of contention was. I have to say that, unlike many YA writers who work with darker themes, I have not been challenged much. My theory is that, since my books are usually classified as suspense thrillers, people simply expect them to contain death, difficulty, trauma, destruction. If that's not what you want, you don't pick a thriller up.
That makes sense. You do write suspense so well - is there a trick to it, or does it just come naturally?
You're in luck! I wrote a whole essay about this recently. The essay is called "What Makes a Good Thriller?" and it was published in the Sept/Oct Horn Book magazine. They posted it online, here.
To this I will add that writing suspense does not come naturally to me, I think because a suspense novel is a tight braid of multiple elements. I have worked very hard over the years to develop the writing skills to support the creation of tension, as well as on my plotting skills. What comes more naturally to me is character development, voice, facility with language, and, I think, the obsession with ethics that underlies most "crime fiction." Crime fiction is always, always concerned with justice and fairness. It's a tremendous vehicle for what the writer John Gardner (see his books Becoming a Novelist and On Fiction) called "moral fiction." By which, of course, he did not mean didactic fiction.
Interesting! That guy is a genius, I loved Grendel, too. On another note: Do you ever imagine your characters as adults? What do you think they'll be like?
Sometimes I think about what might have happened to them years later. I have an idea that David Yaffe from The Killer's Cousin would eventually meet and fall in love with Frances Leventhal from Black Mirror, and vice versa. I imagine that Marnie Skydottir from Locked Inside went to West Point where she excelled at military strategy but was expelled over her attitude. I believe that Eli Samuels from Double Helix is treading a very difficult life road, but I take comfort that I gave him good, loving companions on it.
I don't know much about the future of Matt, Callie, and Emmy from The Rules of Survival, though. It's too soon. Right now, it's enough that they made it through alive and intact.
That's actually the only reason I was able to make it through the book without having a heart attack. I had to keep saying to myself, "OK, it's in a letter and in past tense, so he's definitely alive to be writing it!"
What we really want to know is, how did you start your writing career?
My first novel (which will be reprinted by Penguin Puffin in 2007) is called Are You Alone on Purpose? I worked on it doggedly from when I was 27 until I was 31, while also working part-time as a software technical writer (just as I do now). I was lucky enough to interest editor Lauri Hornik, then at Houghton Mifflin, in an early draft. After I revised it, she bought it, and I've been working with her ever since, though I have had to move along with her as her career grew. She's now Publisher of Dial Books for Young Readers, a division of Penguin.
What sort of books did you like when you were a teenager?
I read everything except bloody horror. Some favorite authors included Georgette Heyer, Fyodor Dostoevsky, Charles Dickens, Anne McCaffrey, Jane Austen, Wilkie Collins, the Brontes (Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre was and remains my favorite book of all time). I went through an Agatha Christie phase. A big science fiction and fantasy phase. A romance phase. A Victorian phase (of course). I read 10 or more books a week. I can't remember most of them, but I can guarantee that many were not respectable at all.
And I can certainly see the suspense influence! So what advice would you give to an aspiring teen writer?
Don't self-publish. Work hard (and read lots) until you've got something somebody else will pay you to publish, even if it takes until you're forty. Seriously. Oh, and go ahead and live your life so you have something to write about.
What are you working on now?
It's hard to describe. A sort of contemporary horror/romance inspired in part by the Childe ballad Scarborough Fair/The Elfin Knight. Of course there's my usual ticking time-bomb suspense and fear thing happening, too.
QUICK FIRE CHALLENGE - Let's Play Favourites!
Literary Sleuth? Nancy Drew. She *made* fourth grade for me!
Art Movement? I like individual artists, not movements. Klee.
Climate? Is there someplace that has spring, summer, and fall, but no winter?
Gemstone? Amber
Font? Times Roman. Always and forever!
Pen? Sharpie.
Zoo Animal? Giraffe.
Magical Animal? Cyclops (ed: is he an animal, or a dude? well, I guess he's a creature, so I'll accept it.)
Superhero? Batman (who, in Double Helix, one character calls "just plain psychotic.") And a close second: Buffy Summers.
Library? New York Public. I spent one magical day there writing in 1995 that I will never forget.
Bookstore? It's gone! Wordsworth, in Harvard Square, Cambridge. Gone, gone, gone.
Sigh. Now I am addicted to the convenience of ordering online. But Porter Square Books, also in Cambridge, might become my favorite in-person store. (ed: actually, that was kind of a trick question - the answer should have been BOOKS INC... no?)
What book (besides your own!) do you think Not Your Mother's Bookclub Members would love?
BEATING HEART by A.M. Jenkins. Sexy and scary, yum.
Finally, is there anything you WISH I had asked, but didn't?
Nope. You've enlivened a flight from Boston to Chicago, Jennifer. Thank you.
No no, Nancy, thank YOU!
CLICK HERE to visit Nancy on the web.
CLICK HERE to read an excerpt from Rules of Survival
CLICK HERE to buy Rules of Survival from Nancy's second favourite independent bookstore.
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