Kate Karyus Quinn Talks Dark Themes & Another Little Piece

I'm lucky (or cunning) enough to have lured yet another successful writer over to my blog for an SAT - Successful Author Talk. SAT authors have conquered the query, slain the synopsis and attained the pinnacle of published. How'd they do it? Let's ask 'em!

Today's guest for the SAT is fellow Class of 2k13 member and Harper-mate Kate Karyus Quinn, author of ANOTHER LITLE PIECE. Kate has two college degrees - a BFA in Theatre from Niagara University and an MFA in Film and Television Production from Chapman University. In addition, her short romantic fiction pieces have been published in Woman’s World magazine.

ANOTHER LITTLE PIECE is a gorgeous, dark and daring story. There are so many elements involved that there are times the reader literally has no idea what is going on -- and personally I loved that experience. Too often our reader-brains are so good at discerning where the plot is going that authors can't surprise us anymore. But you certainly did! How did you manage to keep your readers in the dark, yet still entirely engaged in the story?

The twisty plot for ALP developed organically… which is to say that I was making it up as I went along. I wasn’t going completely by the seat of my pants, because I had a notebook where I would write little notes for the next five to ten scenes. Of course, sometimes something would happen in one of those pre-planned scenes that I wasn’t quite expecting, and I would have to adjust a little. The one thing I did to make sure the story didn’t go completely off the rails and stayed somewhat focused was that I made sure to coming back to Annaliese and what her goals were. Anytime I got lost, I brought it back to Annaliese trying to find the truth of what happened to her and understand exactly what she was.

My writer-brain was fascinated by the concept you present in ANOTHER LITTLE PIECE. It starts out feeling like a contemporary crime drama with psychological twists, then veers into paranormal elements and a sweet romance out of left field -- all with a very unreliable narrator. Did you ever wonder where the heck in the bookstore this thing was going to land, genre-wise?

I honestly wasn’t worried about where it would fit on the shelf, because I knew it was young adult and one of the things that I truly love about writing YA is that such a broad spectrum of books all fit together under one big umbrella together. However, I was concerned about my book ever making it onto any shelf at all due to language, sex, and violence (you can read more about that here. I knew that I was stepping pretty close to the line of what was appropriate for the genre and I wanted to make sure that I hadn’t gone soaring over it. So I started looking for other YA books that were pushing the boundaries to see how far they’d taken things… and maybe to also just feel a little bit less alone.

Some of the books on that reading list were:
Twenty Boy Summer by Sarah Ockler
Bleeding Violet by Dia Reeves
The Unbecoming of Mara Dyer by Michelle Hodkin

I also read a trilogy of novels that some of you may have heard of, called The Hunger Games. By the third book when characters flesh was melting off, I felt fairly reassured that the level of violence in ALP was okay.

You take a brave step in making your love interest a not-so-dreamy dude. Your male MC has issues of his own, and doesn't have movie star good looks or a hunky hell of a body to make up for it. Were you worried that writing the less-than-perfect male love interest would be a problem?

As a reader I enjoy a hero with a healthy dose of hunk in him, especially when paired with the violet-eyed perfect size 2 wisp of a heroine. There is a certain amount of wish fulfillment that is really satisfying when reading that kind of romantic dynamic. However, when I sit down to write, my heroines turn out more like me – not the fairest in the land and not the warty-faced witch, but instead somewhere in between. Of course, you can still match the perfect guy with the less than perfect girl – and I love that dynamic as well (hello Twilight!). 

In the case of Annaliese, she is just such a messed up girl and broken in so many ways, that I think she needed someone equally messed up to match her. I guess that guy could’ve had a six pack and bulging biceps, but instead as I wrote, Dex came out tall and gangly and… oddly charming. I liked him. Annaliese liked him. I could only hope that readers would respond to his nontraditional brand of charm as well.

Self-awareness, deep-seated desires and wish fulfillment play a huge part in the plot of ANOTHER LITTLE PIECE. Are these elements that you think help draw in teen readers, or do you think that adults can fall under these spells as well?

I think half of my teenage years were spent lost in a daydream. I crushed on guys I barely knew, which was convenient because the reality of their teenage boy stuff never intruded on my fantasies. The handful of guys who showed interest in me, I couldn’t run away from fast enough. Even so, I often felt like I was missing out on the whole having a boyfriend rite of passage, but anytime I got close to it, it looked so different from the way I’d imagined that suddenly it didn’t look so great anymore. 

I’ve been guilty of this as an adult as well. I think anytime you get sucked into the idea of the perfect anything whether that be a boy, a dance, or a dream house – you’re setting yourself up for a fall. Annaliese’s fall, though, is a little rougher than most. And in the end she has to decide what is really the most important thing to her.  

So I think both teens and adults can find different things to talk about there, but maybe just approaching it in slightly different ways and with two slightly different perspectives. I also think some discussion between adults and teens can be generated by another big theme of the book. Annaliese has this feeling that she is a monster and doesn’t feel as if she fits in her life. I think teens can relate to that, and from the adult side, I think parents will nod in recognition of the feeling that their sweet little baby has grown into a (sometimes monstrous) teenager that seems completely different from the child they once knew. 

Overall, I think there are some themes that universal and that almost anyone can relate to them no matter where they happen to be in their lives.

Blogs - What Are They Good For?

Hell, I don't know.

Not only do I post six days a week here at Writer, Writer, but I also contribute to six group blogs. Yes six- Book Pregnant, From the Write Angle, Friday the Thirteeners, The Lucky 13s, Class of 2k13 and The League of Extraordinary Writers. Last fall I had the experience of having an aspiring writer who doesn't blog say to me, "You're using all your time for blogging and not actually writing."

Which is kind of funny, really, since she has absolutely no idea how much time I spend (or don't spend) writing. 

I blog because I like to. I think that's the step that a lot of people are missing. I read a lot about blog burnout (it happens) as well as the burning question of whether blogs are a form of social media that actually help to sell our books.

But here's the thing - even if you could tell me for a fact that this blog sold ZERO copies of NOT A DROP TO DRINK, I'd probably keep doing it anyway. There are more than enough words rattling around inside my skull to fill up monthly posts on group blogs, daily posts here, plus a couple of short stories and at least one novel a year. 

People ask me fairly often what my secret is. How do I find the time to do all this blogging?

I don't find the time - I make it. I make it the way anyone with hobbies makes the time to read, scrapbook, knit, or play the piano. My secret is that I actually like to do this.

But I won't mind if you buy my book, either. :)

If you're thinking about jumping into the blogging world, or would like to revitalize your blog and / or your love for it, check out some of these articles below.

Do Authors Need A Blog? - Irene Watson

Do Author Blogs Sell Books? - Nathan Bransford

How Blogs for Authors Help Sell Books - Jan Bear

5 Reality Checks - Author Bloggers CAN Sell Books - The WinePress Blog

Does Blogging Really Help Sell Books? - Jody Hedlund

Blogging with Michelle Krys

I’ve ran across a lot of really awesome people, and culled an enormous amount of information from blogs. As I raided my brain – yes, I picture myself on the prow of a Viking ship, approaching my own gray matter – for more people I’d like to interview, it repeatedly offered up names of bloggers. And so, the third series; Bloggers of Awesome. Yeah, it’s the BOA.

Today's BOA guest is my agency mate Michelle Krys. Her debut, HEXED, features snarky sixteen-year-old cheerleader Indigo Blackwood, who is forced into a centuries-old war between witches and sorcerers only to discover the first of many dark truths about her life. Also, it has boys and kissing. HEXED is coming from Delacorte Press/Random House Children's Books, Spring 2014

You’ve got a fun and straightforward blog. What made you decide to take that approach?

There was never this big decision over which approach I would take to blogging, though I did consciously decide not to try to imitate other author blogs that I admired.  The explanation being that there were (and still are!) so many awesome blogs out there that it was a bit intimidating to give it a try. I worried I wouldn’t have anything to add to the conversation or that no one would want to hear what I had to say because I wasn’t as intelligent or funny as XYZ author, etc. Finally, I told my inner critic to shove it and decided to just be myself, which is apparently fun, so yay (and thanks)!

I know a lot of aspiring writers who are intimidated by the idea of blogging. They want to, but they are worried it will cut into their (already precious) writing time. How do you keep a balance between blogging and writing?

Right, that was another of the worries I had before I started a blog. Only now that I’ve been doing it for quite a while and have fallen into a routine, it really isn’t that time consuming. I can usually get out a post in less than an hour. Less than an hour once or twice a week isn’t so much of a time commitment (especially when you kill two birds with one stone and watch TV at the same time ☺ )

Like me, you do query critiques. What made you decide to offer that to your readers?

I’ve always loved critiquing query letters (writing them too, but I’m told that makes me weird). I’m a huge fan of the Query Shark blog and shamelessly decided to offer the same service on my blog, which in retrospect contradicts my earlier mantra that I wouldn’t imitate blogs I admired. Gah!  In any case, I’m so honored that anyone would want to hear my thoughts on their letters.

Do you think blogging is a helpful self-marketing tool?

Definitely, blogging can be helpful for self-marketing. Having said that, it’s probably not a good idea to blog solely about yourself and your book, as you run the risk of boring and/or annoying your readers. Which is to say, don’t break your arm patting yourself on the back.

Sometimes social media feels like a do-or-die. How do you approach Twitter or Facebook on days when you really don’t feel like you have much to say?

This question is easy, because I always have something to say. Literally, always. It’s a challenge to shut me up. Just ask my husband (or anyone else who’s ever met me).

What other websites / resources can you recommend for writers?

As I’ve mentioned before, I think the Query Shark blog is an awesome resource for querying writers. I also really loved QueryTracker for keeping track of the agents I queried, and the Literary Rambles blog for researching agents accepting YA. And I highly recommend Mindy’s SHIT series (Submission Hell It’s True) for authors on submission.

Any words of inspiration for aspiring writers?

I’ve said this a bunch before but I’ll say it again because it’s still true and helped me a lot during particularly down moments (of which there are many in the writing business): The odds of making it out of the slush pile really aren’t as terrible as writers are often led to believe. The slush pile can be full of less than stellar projects, to put it nicely, and if you’re a good writer, do your research, work hard, and keep at it, then your odds are much, much better of succeeding. Don’t let the statistics scare you!