David Estes Fans and YA Book Lovers Unite! discussion
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Ashes
Author Q&A
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Ilsa J. Bick (author of Ashes) Q&A Nov. 11-17th
(Jenny)What is your favorite movie/TV remake?I'm sorry: of . . .? You mean, do I think that any remake improves on the original? Off the top of my head, I'd say only one: the TV remake of THE SHINING with Steven Weber is far superior to the Kubrick version. Better storytelling all the way around. The little kid isn't as good...but the rest is much truer to the story King wrote.
(Karen) I know White Space (Dark Passages, #1) is due out next. Can you tell us when it will be released and what it's about? WHITE SPACE comes out Feb., 2014, and I think it's best to think of it as The Matrix meets Inception and Inkheart with a vengeance. Here's the official back blurb skinny:
Emma Lindsay's got problems: a head full of metal, a crazy artist for a guardian, and these weird blinks--stretches of half-remembered time when her mind seems to bleed into other lives. Then, for class, she writes "White Space," a story about kids stranded in a spooky house during a blizzard.
Only now she's got another problem: "White Space" is nearly identical to an unfinished novel about characters that jump off pages into other stories. But she's never seen that manuscript. No one has since the writer, killed years ago, never completed the book. Which means she's blinked into the head of a dead guy?
Or has she tripped into the nightmare of her own story? Because now Emma is trapped in a bizarre, fog-shrouded valley with other kids who have their own dark secrets and strange abilities.
So...is Emma real? Are the others? Or are they only characters who have all fallen between the lines into White Space--and can they escape before someone pens their end?
(K)Did you use the Amish community because it was a good fit as a plot device with the elements of the story, or do you have some connection/special interest in the Amish?Kind of both? They fit in, and I'm intrigued by them. Big community around here, and they remind me, a tad, of more orthodox Jews (I'm very familiar with Lubavitchers, for example): that is, a very insular community that, nonetheless, manages to thrive in a secular world.
(K) Also, while Alex's monster, her tumor spared her, and with Tom and Chris it seems like the psychological trauma of war and abuse may have Spared them, how do you explain the other Spared?Ah, this is beauty of fiction: I don't have to. ;-)
But, the reality is that younger brains are much more plastic and recover better after a traumatic insult. Brains like ours aren't; drown us in cold water, we won't be coming back (but a kid likely will). Older folks, their brains can be little raisins; juice them, goose them, they might wake up.
So...you can think of the Spared teens as all surviving some deep trauma (think about Lena, for example). Or just good luck.
.(Caitlin)A) When you first began working on the Ashes Trilogy did you plan on it being three books?No, I planned on two. It was a very prescient editor--not the one who ended up with the trilogy but someone I respect and trust--who said there were three books to this story and that I simply didn't know it yet.
Once I really sat down and thought about it...he was right.
What is your writing process like? From when you conceptualize something to the final product do you find yourself always doing similar steps with each book? In a way, yeah, and blame the fact that I grew up in work-for-hire (universes like Trek, MechWarrior . . . you always had to show the editor an outline. The editor never told you what to write, but he/she needed to know that, say, you wouldn't kill Kirk and never bring him back. So I learned to outline, and I outline all my books. It's a way of telling myself the story. Once I finish the outline, I rarely look at it again because when I'm writing and into the characters, they frequently take off in directions I didn't expect.
Have you been tempted to do anything else with the world you created in the Ashes Trilogy? Like write a book with different characters that are in the future of this world or anything along those lines.Oh, sure. It's one of the reasons I left the end of the trilogy the way I did. In fact, I wrote a whole blog about this: http://www.ilsajbick.com/?p=2354
Bottom line: those guys have got to call me; I can't be dropping the dime on them. If they need me to tell more of their story, they'll notify me.
Karen)Do you have any "quirks" during your writing process?Not really. I'm quite dull and a real drudge. I mean, I get up at 6 a.m., have coffee, feed the cat(s), say goodbye to the husband, and then screw my butt in the chair and write until my work is done for the day. The only "quirk" is that I need absolute silence: no music, no radio, no nothing. There is no such thing as multi-tasking either; there is only doing several things not very well. Really. Go look it up, you don't believe me.
(David)How do you keep up such a high level of action for so many pages? Do you drink a lot of coffee while writing to keep your energy levels up?Gee, I don't know. I guess if I find myself getting bored while I'm writing? I figure you guys are, too. I just . . . I don't know, I just tell the story. But if you read, you see there are lulls, too; you can't have action-action-action all the time, or people get numb. You have to build in rests. All thrillers do that. Dissect one sometime. I mean it. Take a thriller you like and treat it like an assignment: go through and figure out the structure, how the author made it work. Then you'll see. Every thriller plots in rest cycles.
As for coffee: nope, one cup in the morning is my limit. More, and I get hot flashes . . . er, wait . . TMI?
(Kristina) Why was Ellie such a brat in the beginning?! Did you get her character from someone you know/knew?Heh. Well, I don't think Ellie was a brat; she was eight, had no parents and just lost her only living relative, and was freaked out. I don't know too many tractable eight-year-olds, and she had to build up quite a tough skin to tackle her dad's deployments, if you think about it. I think I tried to make her as realistic as I could--and blame all those years of child psychiatry training. I got to see a lot of Ellies, under stress. No one came into my office at their best ;-)
No, she's not really based on anyone. She's every traumatized eight-year-old kid I ever treated.
Karen wrote: "Caitlin wrote: "Hello Ilsa, thank you for taking time out of your week to talk with us. It is greatly appreciated. And I just want to add, thank you for serving, Happy Veterans Day. Thanks, guys! Missed this last night whilst going through the other questions. Much appreciated.
Good Morning Ilsa,Thanks for joining our group for a Q & A Session!
1. Was your book the Sin Eater's Confession inspired by a real life event?
2. Who are some of your favorite authors and how have they influenced your writing?
Thanks!
Sherrie
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Heh. Well, I don't think Ellie was a brat; she was eight, had no parents and just los..."
Ellie ended up being one of my absolute favorites!
Thank you so much to Ilsa for answering my question. And I'm enjoying the answers to all the others :)
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What do you want readers to take away from reading your books?
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I would love love love to know more about everyone and how they managed after. Especially Wolf!!
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WHITE SPACE comes out Feb., 2014, and I think it's best to think of i..."
White Space sounds so intriguing and CRAZY!! Can't wait! Loved The Matrix, Inception and Inkheart!! I think you'll be making my head spin!! ;-P
Where do these ideas for your books come from? Especially something like White Space?
I haven't read Monsters yet (I'm DYING to read it but school makes it impossible), but I'm really curious about how authors come to the ending of a book. I talked to Lauren Kate (Fallen series) a few days ago and she told me that she'd rewritten the ending of the series about a million times and it killed her. How was that for you? Was it hard to end the trilogy?
Okay, I have to know. Why do you routinely count cats if you've been gone awhile?
(Sherrie)Was your book the Sin Eater's Confession inspired by a real life event? Parts of it, yup. That story about the house fire and the gay men, for example? There's some literary license, but it's mainly true. We've all certainly heard about gay teens who've been beaten or murdered. So . . . yup.
(Sherrie)Who are some of your favorite authors and how have they influenced your writing?I know you'll think this is a complete cop-out, but I don't really have a favorite because even great authors write some real clunkers. So my standard reply is that if you've written a thumpingly good story, then you're my favorite author of the moment.
That said, I can say that I view Stephen King with a mixture of envy and awe, and a tiny dash of hate. If I could be a hundredth of a percent as good . . . Even when he's bad, he's still a better storyteller than almost anyone on the planet.
I can tell you the first book to really make an impact, thought: CHARLOTTE'S WEB. I'm not kidding. I must've been eight? A little younger? All I know is I read it in class (had a great teacher who let you read if you were done with your work) and when I got to the part where Charlotte died, I cried my eyes out in my first grade lunch line because it hit me then that parents are mortal. Until that moment, that hadn't really sunk in.
(Jenny)What do you want readers to take away from reading your books? Nothing, really. I'm serious; I don't set out writing with any kind of agenda or message in mind. If you take away a sense of wow, that was a great book and I can't wait for another, then that's fine by me. If I scare your pants off in the process or make you cry, that's even better. ;-)
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Nothing, really. I'm serious; I don't set out writing with any kind of agenda or message in mind. If you take away a sense ..."
Well, you succeeded in all of the above, my friend! Great book - check, Can't wait for another - check, scared my pants off - check (well, not my pants... threw my Nook across the bed in horror several times), made me cry - Check!!
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Nothing, really. I'm serious; I don't set out writing with any kind of agenda or message in mind. If you take away a sense ..."
Success for me as well! And you definitely scared me and made me tear up at the end...so you got me!!
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Does W take it? (I think he did!)
Hi Ilsa,I just finished Monsters and have to say, this is now my fave trilogy. Will you possibly be continuing the story or any additions? I got so caught up with and connected to all the characters, setting and relationships that I want MORE!!! Hmmm? :)
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Hi Ilsa, do you think YA books are getting more stereotypical these days with instant love, love triangles and daft heroines? As a book blogger these are some of the blogosphere's most hated tropes, yet authors still continue to use them. What are your thoughts on this?
(Karen)Where do these ideas for your books come from? Especially something like White Space?Boy, I have no idea. They just sort of happen. A lot of the time it's because I've read something I liked and I want to try the same idea but with my kind of twist. WHITE SPACE, though, I actually do know: one of my daughters complained that I always kill her off in my stories and books. (This is true, by the way; you'd think the kid would catch a clue.) So that got me thinking not only about the writing process--how much of your life you put into your books--but what might happen if you put TOO much real life into books. Like, what happens to the characters? What would make some characters more powerful than others? And then what about all that white space--the space between lines and in letters and the dead space between chapters when nothing seems to be happening? It's the absence that gives symbols their meanings; without white space, a letter wouldn't mean anything. So that got me thinking about realities and how do you know you're real and all that. Like, just because you wake up . . . how do you know? What makes you certain that you're you? How do you know you're not someone's idea?
Stuff like that ;-)
(Nanouk)I haven't read Monsters yet (I'm DYING to read it but school makes it impossible), but I'm really curious about how authors come to the ending of a book. I talked to Lauren Kate (Fallen series) a few days ago and she told me that she'd rewritten the ending of the series about a million times and it killed her. How was that for you? Was it hard to end the trilogy?JI didn't rewrite the end a million times or anything; I kind of had an idea of how this was supposed to go. But ending was very difficult, and I wrote a whole blog about it here: http://www.ilsajbick.com/?p=2354
(Sorus)Okay, I have to know. Why do you routinely count cats if you've been gone awhile?Heh. Because the husband can't cook and refuses to learn the most basic elements of things like … boiling water. So we've got this standing joke that if I'm gone too long, he'll go all cave-man and start in on the cats. So far, he's refrained, but only by a whisker.
(Karen)Ilsa, from your books, you seem to be a pretty knowledgeable camper and hiker. What survival gear is in your backpack/fanny pack? (I learned all sorts of things from reading Ashes!) Ah, yet another topic for which I wrote a guest blog entry: http://elliottreview.blogspot.com/201...
Pretty much all the stuff I talk about there, you'll find in my pack.
(Karen)This question is one that we batted around during our buddy read of Monsters. I have to be cryptic to not give away any spoilers.Does W take it? (I think he did!)
And that, my dear, is the beauty of that blank, white page at the end of a book: what happens next is up to you. ;-)
(Brenda) I just finished Monsters and have to say, this is now my fave trilogy. Will you possibly be continuing the story or any additions? I got so caught up with and connected to all the characters, setting and relationships that I want MORE!!! Hmmm? :) Oh, thanks, Brenda! I'm glad you enjoyed it. (And would someone PLEASE make a movie or something? Sheesh.)
As for what might happen next or if there's another book in the offing (or my soul), I wrote about this here: http://www.ilsajbick.com/?p=2354. The short answer is . . . sure, but I have to make sure that if I choose to return to this world, it's because the characters need me to do so, not the other way around.
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I hear some authors say things like, "I will never write a vampire book" or "I will never write a book with a love triangle."
Ilsa wrote: "(Brenda) I just finished Monsters and have to say, this is now my fave trilogy. Will you possibly be continuing the story or any additions? I got so caught up with and connected to all the characte..."Thank you, checking out the thread for "Letting go" and ANXIOUSLY awaiting to see if the characters need you ;)
Have there been any other YA novels that you've felt have been a little too close to your work, or that you've felt were borderline plagiarism?How are you able to keep your storylines fresh and unique, when it seems most mainstream YA are all just following the trends?
Sorry, two questions :)
In Shadows, how did Kincaid get back to Rule?
If a zombie apocalypse came upon us, who would you pick as your team to ensure survival? Why? Choose from any fictional character from books or TV.
(Karen)What do you like to do for fun when you're not glued to your desk writing?Not writing? When's that? ;-)
Mostly outdoor stuff: hiking, biking, walking, gardening, grubbing around in the dirt, that kind of thing. If I've got time, I might see a movie (I actually LOVE movies, but it comes down to either exercise or the flick ... so I choose exercise.) I like cooking and baking, too.
(Jeann)Hi Ilsa, do you think YA books are getting more stereotypical these days with instant love, love triangles and daft heroines? As a book blogger these are some of the blogosphere's most hated tropes, yet authors still continue to use them. What are your thoughts on this?Well, I tend not to think of them much, mainly because all genres have their stereotypes. Frankly, I think that if they didn't sell, writers wouldn't use them. But they do, and maybe part of that is a conditioned response. That is, if you think about it--if you do the math and all--about 60% of the reading public reads romance. That's no lie either. By comparison, sf is a paltry 7% (and most people seem to get their sf fix through films). Now you can take one of two views here: that people are conditioned, for an early age, to want romance (Jane Austen was no dummy) and so what you're fed as a kid is something you continue to seek out as an adult; or that people naturally gravitate to happily-ever-after scenarios. If you compare standard YA books cover to romance covers . . . you'll find there really isn't that much difference: http://www.stackedbooks.org/2012/04/c.... So I'm kind of the opinion that readers are steered toward certain genres, and these genres all have their standard tropes. (That sounds nefarious, and maybe it is--but you have to remember: everyone's in this to make a buck.)
(Jenny)What are your book turn offs? And what would you absolutely refuse to write about?Twinkly vampires; werewolves; fairies; kids dissing each other in the cafeteria; girls fretting about nail polish, clothes, or boys--and just about any teenage insta-love romance scenario you can possibly imagine.
Now,you watch: my next book will be about young vampires in love.
(Kelly)Have there been any other YA novels that you've felt have been a little too close to your work, or that you've felt were borderline plagiarism? You know, if there was, I'd almost be flattered? Because someone would think I'm worth copying? But, sadly, no: the only book that ever came close was a TREK book from WAAAAY back. I'd written the first in a trilogy where Kirk gets all Borgified. Pocket read it; I know they did because I heard back from them. They rejected it . . . but, damn, if Shatner and the Reeves didn't come out with pretty much the same scenario about a year and a half later. It was . . . kind of stunning.
But . . . you know . . . you can't copyright a scenario: only exact words (or pretty damn close).
Still...
(Kelly)How are you able to keep your storylines fresh and unique, when it seems most mainstream YA are all just following the trends?Gosh, I don't know. Maybe because I'm twisted and kind of weird? I'm not trying to be flip; I honestly don't know. I just write what I wouldn't mind reading, I guess--and since I wouldn't read half the YA out there because it's SO repetitive and redundant . . . maybe that explains it?
(Sherry)In Shadows, how did Kincaid get back to Rule?He never leaves, Sherry. Read that part again: he stays behind because he won't leave Jess. But he's caught and stopped before he can. Essentially, he takes the fall for everyone to protect Chris.
(Dre)If a zombie apocalypse came upon us, who would you pick as your team to ensure survival? Why? Choose from any fictional character from books or TV.I'm sorry, but most people are wusses these days. I'm serious. They're like Picard that way: all angsty. Give me Kirk any day; he shoots first and never asks questions.
But . . . seriously? If I really had to choose? Well, the younger beefcake Kirk, simply because in an apocalypse, a girl needs her eye-candy; Walt Longmire because he'd also plug you between the eyes, no sweat; Leroy Jethro Gibbs (nuff said); and, you know, if Ziva David would stop with all this angsty there's been so much pain crap and get back to her kick-ass Mossad ways . . . I wouldn't say no.
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Twinkly vampires; werewolves; fairies; kids dissing each other in the cafeteria; girls fretting about nail..."
HA! This gave me a good laugh!! I've heard lots of authors say they were not going to write a vampire book, then they did!
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I'm sorry, but most people are wusses these..."
Oooh.. Good choices! Can I join your team?? ;-P
David Estes Fans and YA Book Lovers Unite!
Books mentioned in this topic
Drowning Instinct (other topics)Drowning Instinct (other topics)
White Space (other topics)
Monsters (other topics)
Ashes (other topics)
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Actually, yes, I did. Remember that apocryphal story, the one where JK Rowling said she wrote down the end of the HP series and then put it away for X number of years? I used to think that was baloney. But when I started ASHES, about midway through, I really believed that I KNEW what the end would be. Had the last scene mapped out, knew the dialogue, who said what.
Only come to find that didn't happen. Was I far off? No, not really. But the last scene I'd envisioned didn't come to pass.
OTOH, did I have some idea of how people were going to be moving to A to Z? Yes, but only generally. It was one of the reasons why I chose to go with a third POV (even though some people swear up and down that ASHES was first POV . . . uh, no . . .). I knew I had a bigger, broader story to tell (I'd roughly outlined SHADOWS and MONSTERS, but only in broad strokes), and I thought one of the big problems with some YA books was that first person POV. Yeah, easier to read and get into, but the vision--and subsequently, the reader's--is really, really limited. You never truly understand why people act the way they do unless they sit down for a "You know, Bob" moment, which is bad story-telling, in my book.
So, yeah. I pretty much knew where folks would be at the end. But they took some interesting twists and turns on the way. And that last scene I sketched out didn't come to pass. By the time I got there, I had what I thought was something much better.