Author Insight: Novel Secrets

Tell us a secret about your most recent book.

"The sequel to Beautiful Creatures, Beautiful Darkness, releases on October 26th. We can't say much about it, but I will tell you that it's darker and the stakes are much higher. There are lots of twists!" - Kami Garcia, co-author of Beautiful Creatures.

"My youngest boy was the most adorable cherubic child ever...but couldn’t process big feelings very well and would sometimes just melt down completely. During one of those meltdowns, I sweatily turned to my exhausted husband and whispered, “My God. It’s like he turns into a werewolf.” The character of Munch, just grew out of that idea. He’s a six-year old witch who has a few, shall we say, behavior issues. For instance he has a little problem handling anger so he turns into a werewolf and tries to eat his first grade teacher. By the way, my son eventually grew out of the meltdowns. Thank God. He thinks the book is funny." - Rhonda Hayter, author of The Witchy Worries of Abbie Adams.

"Tell Me A Secret is all about secrets! Bits and pieces of life and characters, all blended up in the psyche and poured out into a story that somehow took on a life of its own. The inspiration for the book was the loss of our daughter, Ezri. In many ways, it was written in her memory." - Holly Cupala, author of Tell Me a Secret.

"Laurel’s attracted to Everett, even though she claims she’s not." - Amy Brecount White, author of Forget-Her-Nots.

"Half of Personal Demons is told in my demon MC’s first person POV. Have you ever been inside a demon’s head? It’s amazing the things you’ll find in there. That’s all I have to say about that." - Lisa Desrochers, author of Personal Demons.

"Hmmm . . . I wrote The Replacement because I'm obsessed with metaphors, and adolescence, and metaphors for adolescence, and one day I had this random thought that changeling lore was like the ultimate metaphor for adolescence. I sat down at the computer to see what I could do with it, and discovered it was a novel-length idea. (Then I had to discover a plot.)" - Brenna Yovanoff, author of The Replacement.

 

"To really capture characters, I go for method acting and pretend I am them when I'm doing chores around the house or something. Once, I went grocery shopping as Jace. I brought home Twinkies and Ho-hos. My kids were thrilled." - Swati Avasthi, author of Split.

  

 

 "You never know a character's actual name. Never. He's given a name in the book by another character, but I never tell the reader what his name was before. But *I* know." - Victoria Schwab, author of The Near Witch.

 

"I keep a few character secrets hidden around my website at denisejaden.com so if you want to stop by and look for those, you can. When I wrote Losing Faith, I really wanted to delve into a sister story, since I always wished I'd had a sister. I lost one of my closest friends when I was sixteen, and I think that in part was also inspiration for the story." - Denise Jaden, author of Losing Faith.

 "Okay, so in The Rise of Renegade X, there's a character named Gordon. And his superhero name is the Crimson Flash. Well, at some point I was worried it sounded too much like Flash Gordon and would be a problem somehow. So when I started writing, I changed his name to Herman. (Yuck!) He was really not a Herman, and halfway through the book I changed it back to Gordon and never looked back." - Chelsea Campbell, author of The Rise of Renegade X.

"Hm…there aren’t any secrets I can actually tell. ;)" - Tiffany Trent, author of the Hallowmere series.

 

 

"Hmm. I would tell you, but then…(well, you know what I’d have to do!)." - Lauren Oliver, author of Before I Fall.

 

 

"For several of the tertiary characters in The Body Finder, I decided to use my friend’s and family’s first and last names (never together though). At my book launch party, many of them wore The Body Finder shirts with their names or character descriptions on the back. For example, one of them had the word “Floater” on the back of her shirt. I’ll let you try and figure that one out on your own! :)" - Kimberly Derting, author of The Body Finder.

"In 13 to Life (which releases June 22) the usage of one character's name in particular gives a big clue to how things line up in the next books in the series." - Shannon Delany, author of 13 to Life: A Werewolf’s Tale.

"The description of the "Mistwood" is based largely on the old growth forest in Seward Park, Seattle." - Leah Cypess, author of Mistwood.

"There weren't any references to cherries until I saw the cover and my friend mentioned it would be interesting to slip a couple subtle ones. I did for each POV, but only one is obvious." - Alexandra Diaz, author of Of All the Stupid Things.

Don't forget to come back Thursday for more secrets about our authors work!
<< Previous