Ask the Author: Brendan Halpin
Answered Questions (6)
Brendan Halpin
Thanks so much for your question and for your kind words! I really appreciate it!
I didn't find it that hard to move from one character's voice to another, but I did sometimes find it hard to figure out how to tell part of the story through an email or text or whatever. That's why I used the transcripts of the meetings at school. I was very worried when I wrote it that people would think using those was "cheating," but nobody's ever complained!
I didn't find it that hard to move from one character's voice to another, but I did sometimes find it hard to figure out how to tell part of the story through an email or text or whatever. That's why I used the transcripts of the meetings at school. I was very worried when I wrote it that people would think using those was "cheating," but nobody's ever complained!
Brendan Halpin
Thank you so much! I really appreciate the compliments!
Forever Changes was inspired by the death of my wife Kirsten from breast cancer in 2003. I actually think of Forever Changes as the last of my "grief trilogy." In Donorboy, I wrote about a grieving kid, in Long Way Back I wrote about a grieving husband, and in Forever Changes I wanted to write something about the person facing death.
I was and am in awe of the way in which Kirsten faced her death, and I wrote Forever Changes in part to honor her. But also, I wanted to address the issue of how you live with the knowledge that you're going to die. Which is Brianna's problem in the book, but also everybody's problem, really.
Sorry to be a downer, but, hey, it's a sad book. :)
Forever Changes was inspired by the death of my wife Kirsten from breast cancer in 2003. I actually think of Forever Changes as the last of my "grief trilogy." In Donorboy, I wrote about a grieving kid, in Long Way Back I wrote about a grieving husband, and in Forever Changes I wanted to write something about the person facing death.
I was and am in awe of the way in which Kirsten faced her death, and I wrote Forever Changes in part to honor her. But also, I wanted to address the issue of how you live with the knowledge that you're going to die. Which is Brianna's problem in the book, but also everybody's problem, really.
Sorry to be a downer, but, hey, it's a sad book. :)
Brendan Halpin
Thanks so much! I really appreciate your compliment and your questions!
I really just write the stories I'm interested in telling. There's a pretty common idea out there that YA fiction has a responsibility to be didactic, but I think this seriously underestimates the critical thinking ability of teenagers. Teenagers are sophisticated consumers of all kinds of media, and they know (and typically reject) when they're being preached at. They can also distinguish problematic or inaccurate portrayals. So I'm pretty strongly against the idea of writing in order to send a message.
Having said that, one of the things I always try to write into my fiction is the importance of empathy, but I think this is more me atoning for being kind of a dick in high school than trying to teach anything to my readers.
As far as writing marginalized groups that I'm not a part of, I mean, you can never really be completely sure that you're portraying someone else's experience accurately. I get a lot from knowing a wide variety of people- I think it's easier for me to write about different kinds of people because I know different kinds of people. The rest is pretty much just empathy--imagining, okay, if this were my situation, how would it affect me?
I really just write the stories I'm interested in telling. There's a pretty common idea out there that YA fiction has a responsibility to be didactic, but I think this seriously underestimates the critical thinking ability of teenagers. Teenagers are sophisticated consumers of all kinds of media, and they know (and typically reject) when they're being preached at. They can also distinguish problematic or inaccurate portrayals. So I'm pretty strongly against the idea of writing in order to send a message.
Having said that, one of the things I always try to write into my fiction is the importance of empathy, but I think this is more me atoning for being kind of a dick in high school than trying to teach anything to my readers.
As far as writing marginalized groups that I'm not a part of, I mean, you can never really be completely sure that you're portraying someone else's experience accurately. I get a lot from knowing a wide variety of people- I think it's easier for me to write about different kinds of people because I know different kinds of people. The rest is pretty much just empathy--imagining, okay, if this were my situation, how would it affect me?
Brendan Halpin
I would, and I have! Emily and I wrote Tessa Masterson Will Go to Prom after Fauxmance, and I've also written three books with Trish Cook, most recently A Really Awesome Mess.
With both Emily and Trish, the process was pretty similar: we'd get together at the beginning to talk about what the book was going to look like,and then we'd trade chapters, with me writing the boy chapters and them writing the girl chapters. There's usually some back and forth in the middle where we figure out whether we're headed in the right direction or not.
Fauxmance actually came from an idea that an editor pitched to us. My other books with Emily all came from ideas that she originally had that we worked out the details of together; with Trish, I had the skeleton of an idea for Notes From the Blender, and she had the idea for A Really Awesome Mess, and, again, we fleshed them out together.
I don't really know where inspiration comes from. In my case, mostly from being nosy and curious--I'm just interested in people and their lives and how they deal with situations. But I also often find something from my own life that connects to the characters.
With both Emily and Trish, the process was pretty similar: we'd get together at the beginning to talk about what the book was going to look like,and then we'd trade chapters, with me writing the boy chapters and them writing the girl chapters. There's usually some back and forth in the middle where we figure out whether we're headed in the right direction or not.
Fauxmance actually came from an idea that an editor pitched to us. My other books with Emily all came from ideas that she originally had that we worked out the details of together; with Trish, I had the skeleton of an idea for Notes From the Blender, and she had the idea for A Really Awesome Mess, and, again, we fleshed them out together.
I don't really know where inspiration comes from. In my case, mostly from being nosy and curious--I'm just interested in people and their lives and how they deal with situations. But I also often find something from my own life that connects to the characters.
Brendan Halpin
I usually get ideas for stories and just pursue them rather than thinking at the beginning about where the story is going to fit. It just happens that a lot of the stories I want to write have to do with teens. I'm not sure why--I have teenage children, I was a high school teacher for ten years, and I am fundamentally kind of immature. So those probably all factor in.
Brendan Halpin
I've just finished a crime novel which is going out on submission. Trish Cook and I are also working on another collaboration which is top secret at this point. And I have an idea for an adventure series that I hope to start working on within the next couple of weeks.
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