Rebecca Mahoney on Building the World of "The Memory Eater"

Inspiration is a funny thing. It can come to us like a lightning bolt, through the lyrics of a song, or in the fog of a dream. Ask any writer where their stories come from and you’ll get a myriad of answers, and in that vein I created the WHAT (What the Hell Are you Thinking?) interview. 

Today’s guest for the WHAT is Rebecca Mahoney, author of The Memory Eater, the story of a teenage girl who must save her town from a memory-devouring monster

Ideas for our books can come from just about anywhere, and sometimes even we can’t pinpoint exactly how or why. Did you have a specific origin point for your book?

The Memory Eater was the meeting point for a couple different concepts I wanted to write: a town built to hold a monster in, a teenage girl somehow responsible for the livelihoods and well-being of the adults around her, and a community that thrives on supernatural capitalism. But I think if there was an original origin point, it was probably my own tendency to ruminate over memories I’d rather not think about, much like many of us do when we’re falling asleep. It’s very easy to daydream, during those long nights, about the ability to just toss a memory out of your head and out of existence. So in writing this story, I wanted to ask myself – what if that went horribly wrong?

Once the original concept existed, how did you build a plot around it?

I think my plots always come together in concentric circles: I start with the very basics of the idea, then I usually nail down the emotional arc first, and build out the plot and the finer details around it. The Memory Eater’s construction process was a bit messier, since it was the first ever book that I wrote on deadline. With previous manuscripts, I usually wouldn’t sit down to write until I knew exactly what the scene was going to look like, but with TME, I didn’t have as much time for precise brainstorming or self-editing. But in a lot of ways, that ended up being very useful, because when I had to keep pushing ahead, I was able to figure out, in reverse, exactly what I wanted to do with the book. And once I had a clean draft to share with my editor, the basic plot beats of TME actually needed much less work than manuscripts I’ve written before!

Have you ever had the plot firmly in place, only to find it changing as the story moved from your mind to paper?

Oh, all the time! I’m generally a plotter – I always need a fairly detailed outline so I can always be aware of what plot and emotional beats I want to hit, both on the scene level and the chapter level. But I always go into a story very aware that the outline is going to change as I get going in earnest. Sometimes my original idea doesn’t work as well on paper as I thought it would, sometimes one of my critique partners will say something that connects a dot I didn’t realize was there, or sometimes I realize I need a bit more connective tissue to really drive home the emotion in the scene. The basic skeleton of the outline often stays the same, but the fine details grow as the story does!

Do story ideas come to you often, or is fresh material hard to come by?

I would say that I get story ideas fairly often, but they always need a little time to finish baking in my little brain oven. I do occasionally jump into a story idea right away, but my two published books, The Valley and the Flood and The Memory Eater, both came about after percolating in my thought for years. I try to keep a running list of things I want to write so that I can revisit them frequently.

How do you choose which story to write next, if you’ve got more than one percolating?

Because of the aforementioned list, I have a bit of a queue! I’m not someone who does well with working on multiple projects at the same time, so by the time I finish something, there’s usually a project or two that’s been trying to tempt me away from my WIP. Sometimes it’s really difficult to choose what I’ll be tackling next, and sometimes I’ll have my agent, editor, or friends weigh in. But generally the next project is the one that feels the most ready to write. (Although some projects just aren’t going to be fully ready until I dive in!)

I have 6 cats and a Dalmatian (seriously, check my Instagram feed) and I usually have at least one or two snuggling with me when I write. Do you have a writing buddy, or do you find it distracting?

My roommate’s cat, Mouse, can certainly be distracting from time to time! She’s extremely chatty, and if I’m sitting on the couch, chances are that she’s going to want me to put my laptop down and pay attention to her instead. But she’s very cute, so it’s never a hardship to take a break and give her what she wants. And if it disrupts the flow a little, that’s okay – the flow will come back!

Rebecca Mahoney is the author of The Valley and the Flood (out now from Razorbill), as well as the forthcoming The Memory Eater (Razorbill 3/14/23), and the co-creator of independent audio drama The Bridge. Rebecca is a strong believer in the cathartic power of all things fantastical and creepy in children’s literature - and she knows firsthand that ghosts, monsters, and the unknown can give you the language you need to understand yourself.

What I’ve Learned Along the Way

By: Polly Holyoke

I’ve been writing and selling books for over twenty-five years, which means I’ve been lucky enough to work in my sweatpants and pjs long before COVID made working remotely so popular. I do have a new middle grade fantasy series out from Viking Children’s Books this month, and Skyriders’ publication has given me an excellent opportunity to pause and take stock. I’ve learned a great deal about the publishing business over the past decades, and these are just some of the things I wish I could have told a younger, greener me decades ago.

Be kind, share and give. People I helped along the way turned around and helped me, sometimes in the most unexpected ways. One debut author I’d met online was attending the same conference I was, but he had no dinner plans. I invited him to join me and my friends, and he has gone on to become spectacularly successful. Now he is wonderful about blurbing my books. A mentee I helped with her romance writing turned around and helped create striking, professional sell sheets for me. I always send handwritten thank you notes to the librarians who host me at their schools, and in turn, they often send me wonderful testimonials I can use on my website or line up more visits for me. 

Join professional writing organizations. There is SO much you can learn from folks farther along in their careers than you are. You don’t need to reinvent the wheel! For years I was writing sensitive, well-written and well-researched historical romances, but they were WAY TOO LONG to sell. Once I joined Romance Writers of America and won a critique from a published author, she set me straight. I trimmed 30,000 words from my manuscript and made my first sale three months later. Also, writing can be a lonely, solitary business, and attending conferences and chapter meetings gives you a chance to meet fellow writers who share your goals and friends who share your passion and ambition.  

Be patient and persistent. Very few writers become successes overnight. Very few writers sell the first project they submit. You’ve probably heard some of these stories. Kathryn Stockett was rejected by 60 agents before the 61st agreed to represent The Help. Madeline L’Engle’s classic story A Wrinkle in Time was rejected by 26 publishers, and Kate DiCamillo’s Newbery-winning Because of Winn Dixie was rejected 473 times. 

You have to be submitting your work to agents and publishers, and submitting frequently, to increase your odds of making a sale. Luck does play a factor. You never know when your work may hit an editor’s computer right after the marketing team asked for more school stories or more fantasies. Whenever I have a project out on submission, I already have the next project polished up and ready to send to my agent. 

Fortune favors the brave. This old Latin proverb is particularly true for professional writers. You can’t sell your work if you don’t take a chance and send it out into the world. I know a dozen fine writers who never actually sold books (and they probably could have) because their projects were never finished or never good enough, in their eyes. Deep down inside, some of these talented people were so afraid of failure, they never took the risk of trying to sell their work. 

Treat writing like a profession. If you take your writing seriously, then your family will as well. You have to protect your writing time and set boundaries. Spouses and kids can be trained (after some effort) to respect the time you set aside to write. If you know you write best in the morning, then find ways to protect those morning hours. Rachel Caine, the author of the wonderful Great Library series and sixty-two other books, used to get up before her day job and her family to write for two hours before going to work. If it’s important, you can find the time. 

Never stop working on your craft. You can always get better and learn from other writers and teachers. Some of the most talented authors I know still go to writing conferences and classes. They read books and blog posts on craft, and they are continually finding new ways to improve their writing. 

Know your goals and why you write. I’ve always written to be published and to make money, and that works for me. I recently joined a small-town writing group where most of the folks don’t wish to be published. But they are having a great time writing their memoirs and their thrillers to share with their friends and family, and that’s a valid reason to be writing as well. 

You need to LOVE writing! Publishing is a brutal business, and I often think it’s sad and ironic that the very sensitivity one needs to be a fine writer also leaves authors open to despair and depression. You may write a wonderful book, and yet it is quite possible that it will sell poorly or be ignored by your industry. Right now, many terrific books in my field of children’s literature are failing because some school districts are requiring (thanks to all those book challenges out there) that a book have at least two positive reviews from the biggies in our industry: Library School Journal, Kirkus, The Horn Book or VOYA. And yet those magazines don’t have as many reviewers as they used to, and some authors are lucky to receive a single review, much less two. 

Finally, be kind to yourself. Don’t compare yourself to peers who first debuted when you did. Some are going to be far more successful than you are. Others are going to be less successful, but writing is not a race, and it is not a zero-sum game. Envying others can only make you unhappy and less productive in the long run. Take pride in every book you finish. Be proud of every excellent sentence you write, and do your best to enjoy the journey. 

Polly Holyoke is the award-winning author of the middle grade sci/fi Neptune Trilogy (Disney/Hyperion) and the new children’s fantasy series, Skyriders, releasing from Viking Children’s Books this month. When she’s not tapping away on her computer, Polly enjoys skiing, hiking, and camping in the mountains.

How Has My Time in America Versus My Time in England Shaped My Writing

By: Mark Ellis

I write a historical crime series set in World War Two London which features DCI Frank Merlin, a Scotland Yard detective. I grew up in the Welsh town of Swansea, whose most famous literary product is the poet Dylan Thomas. After school in Wales and university in Cambridge, I have spent most of my adult life to date living in London. However I have enjoyed three extended stays in America. In 1972 I spent six months as an English Speaking Union exchange student at an American school in Pittsburgh. The school was called Shady Side Academy. My second spell in America was in the late eighties when I was in charge of the US office of a British company located in New York. My third extended visit was in the mid 90s when I had lot of business in America with the UK computer business I had started with a partner. This stay was not full time but I spent almost six months a year in Los Angeles for a few years. In Pittsburgh I lived in the home of a wonderful local family, in New York in an apartment on the East Side, and, in Los Angeles in a flat in Century City.

All three stays were very different experiences. In the first I was a school student, in the second a corporate employee, and in the 3rd an entrepreneur but I had a brilliant time on all of them. I was not writing at all when I lived in America, but maintained my childhood ambition to become an author one day. I travelled a great deal on all my visits. When my stay at Shady Side Academy finished, I bought a Greyhound Bus Pass for $200. This enabled me to travel anywhere I wanted for a month. The journey was memorable. I travelled in one go across America to Vancouver, sitting next to a friendly and fascinating Indigenous American for a good part of the journey. Then I went down to California. In San Francisco, the father of the family I stayed with pointed out his bearded next door neighbour. ‘He’s a film director. Just finished some gangster movie with Marlon Brando I believe.’ I then travelled across the South via Grand Canyon, Houston and New Orleans to Washington. There I happened to spend, I later found out, the night of the Watergate burglary. On my 80s stay in New York I travelled a lot on business, mostly to Florida, Texas and California. I travelled a little on my final stay in the nineties, but mostly on the West Coast or to New York, where my company was eventually taken public.

What impact did my time in America have on my writing? Well the overwhelming impact has come from reading American writers. At school in Pittsburgh, I first became acquainted with great noir masters from the thirties and forties like Raymond Chandler, Dashiel Hammett, James M Cain and Jim Thompson. When I was working in New York, I got to know another batch of great crime writers including Patricia Highsmith, Elmore Leonard, and John Grisham. Then when I was based in Los Angeles in the 90s I discovered Michael Connelly, Robert Crais, James Ellroy and Walter Mosley. Of course all of these great writers have their own styles, but collectively they all know how to keep the reader gripped from the outset, and generally write great dialogue which helps the story zip along. They also write superb plots. The British and Continental crime writers I was reading at the time had many merits but I definitely think this American punchiness stood apart. One favourite European author of mine who does match this American literary characteristic is Georges Simenon, the creator of Inspector Maigret. Simenon has much in common with many of the best Americans – short, pithy dialogue and a lean writing style.

So to the question posed: how has my time in America versus my time in England shaped my writing? The answer must be in the positive influence of those various writers listed above. I doubt I would have read anything like as many if I had not lived in the USA. In addition I have been much affected my experience of living in such a vibrant, exciting country. I think my time in America has made me much more daring in life than I might otherwise have been. I dared to write a book after all!

Mark Ellis is a thriller writer from Swansea and a former barrister and entrepreneur. He is the creator of DCI Frank Merlin, an Anglo-Spanish police detective operating in World War 2 London. His books treat the reader to a vivid portrait of London during the war skilfully blended with gripping plots, political intrigue and a charismatic protagonist.