Interview with author Jenna Black + Giveaway
I’m excited to be interviewing fantasy/YA author Jenna Black today! I recently read and really enjoyed Jenna’s most recent book, Replica, and you can too – there’s a giveaway at the end of this post.
Here’s the interview:
First of all, thank you so much for doing this interview! I really enjoyed Replica; I often get frustrated with the formulaic dystopian young adult genre, but Replica was a breath of fresh air. I haven’t read anything by you before, but I saw that you’ve written a lot of series’ already – what makes Replica new and exciting for you?
Thanks for inviting me!
There are a lot of things that make REPLICA new and exciting for me. One of the things I really love about the series and that made it so fun–and challenging–to write was the juxtaposition of a futuristic world suited to science fiction with a society that is based around a more historical concept of hereditary monarchy. Both the idea to write about exact replicas of human beings and the idea to write about corporations functioning as hereditary monarchies had been floating around in my head for a long time, and it was only when I mashed these two seemingly ill-matched concepts together that an actual story began to form in my head. I also loved writing about a careful, hyper-responsible heroine and a reckless, immature hero who have to grow up in different ways–Nadia needs to loosen up and learn to take some chances, and Nate has to grow up and learn to pay attention to the consequences of his actions.
How long is the Replica series going to be – will it be a trilogy? Do you have plans to revisit the world after the series is done, or is this just Nate and Nadia’s story?
This is a trilogy. The second book, RESISTANCE will come out in March 2014, and the third book, REVOLUTION will likely come out sometime late next year, though a date has not been set yet. I have no firm plans to revisit this world when the series is done, but I do have a germ of an idea for something that might happen in a different state, so it’s always possible.
What book(s) are you working on at the moment?
Right now, I’m working on what we writers jokingly call a “Sekrit Project.” Generally, the term is used to refer to a work that is not under contract, and therefore one we can’t talk about publicly. Yet.
What do you find to be the easiest and the hardest things about writing?
The easiest thing about writing is writing first draft material when everything is “clicking.” When I know exactly what I want to do with a scene, and the words are coming out fast and furious, and I’m so anxious to finish the scene that I feel no temptation to get out of my chair and do something else. That’s pure bliss. It feels almost like reading a book you’re really in to, when you can’t wait to find out what happens next. It makes the days when writing is a total slog feel worth it. And there are plenty of days when writing is like slogging through mud. The hardest thing for me is diagnosing the reason why I’m struggling in those periods. Sometimes, it’s just because I’m not in a good mood, or I’m tired, or I’m distracted. Times like those, the best thing for me to do is to keep slogging. I may not enjoy what I’m writing, and I may need to do a lot of editing on it later, but at least I’m moving forward. But then there are the other times, when I’m struggling because I’ve made some misstep in the narrative. There’s something “off,” but I don’t know what it is yet. And what’s hard is that I don’t always know the difference between the two when I’m in the midst of it. If there’s something wrong, something I need to go back and change, then continuing to slog forward does me no good whatsoever and just leaves me with more time not enjoying my writing.
It’s gotten a little easier over time for me to figure out whether I’m struggling because of some temporary malaise or whether I’m struggling because there’s something wrong with the book–for example, if that malaise stretches over a few days without letup, it’s a good bet there’s something wrong–but I still sometimes have trouble knowing whether to push through or stop and go back.
Worldbuilding fascinates me, so I’d love to know how you approach creating a world, since you’ve created several.
I often come up with my concepts for a world before I have an actual story to set in it. I have a big picture already created in my head, with very few concrete details. I then come up with my basic storyline, and I begin filling in the gaps of my world, developing some major details that have immediate relevance to the story I’m telling. When I actually begin the writing of the first draft, that’s when I have to start figuring out the smaller details. It’s kind of like I’m looking at my world through a camera lens. At first, it’s little more than an impressionistic blob. When I’m plotting, it comes into a little clearer focus, and I can see major landmarks. But it’s not until I’ve finished the first draft that the picture is fully in focus. Doing my worldbuilding in layers like that is very helpful for me and gives me an enormous amount of freedom. I don’t commit to details until I’m sure I need them–and I’m sure they won’t cause me problems later on in the draft, or even later on in the series.
As an example, with REPLICA I started out with a really big picture idea for what the world was like. I knew the society was stratified, that the story would be set in a futuristic New York, and a little bit about the history of how the United States turned into the Corporate states. When I started plotting the book, I decided the three classes would be the Executives, the Employees, and the Basement-dwellers, with the Executives being like royalty, the Employees like ordinary people, and the Basement-dwellers the poor and unemployed. When I started writing the sample chapters for submission to publishers, I focused very tightly on what life was like for my main characters, coming up with the societal expectations that were placed on both of them. They are Executives, members of the highest of the three strata of the society I created, and I worked on the details of Executive society–while having only a blurry vision of what society was like for the other two classes. I didn’t need details for the other classes yet, so I left them vague. When I got to my first scene set in the Basement, that was when I started pulling together details for what the Basement was like. That was when I decided what the buildings looked like, how the residents dressed, how the territory was divided up. In a later draft, I would seed some of the details back in the earlier parts of the book where I’d left things vague before, but by waiting until I needed the details to flesh them out, I avoided writing myself into any corners and making decisions I would later regret.
What themes do you like exploring in your books?
Sometimes it’s hard for a writer to see the themes in his or her own books. In a lot of ways, theme is in the eye of the beholder. That being said, I do feel that I have some themes I tend to revisit, even though I’m not making a conscious choice to do so. One theme I’ve explored a lot in my adult books is that of redemption and hope. Many of the characters in my adult books have dark pasts, either because of bad things that have happened to them or bad things they have done. I love taking these characters who could so easily spiral down into misery for the rest of their lives and finding a way to redeem them and give them hope. I want the message to be that no matter how bad your past, no matter how many bad things have happened to you, it’s possible to have a fulfilling and happy life–but it’s up to you to get yourself there.
I don’t particularly see that theme popping up in my YAs (though it’s possible it’s there and I just am not aware of it), maybe because my teen characters just haven’t lived long enough to sink to the depths some of my adult characters have. With the YAs, I definitely see a theme of taking control of and responsibility for one’s own life. This is particularly true for the heroines of my two teen series. In the Faeriewalker series, Dana spends a lot of time feeling powerless, feeling like a pawn in other people’s games. (And to some extent, she is.) But over the course of the series, she learns to recognize her own power and through that gains a kind of emotional independence. There’s a moment at the end of the final book, SIRENSONG, when Dana thinks: “I might be in the room with two of the most powerful people in Faerie, but thanks to my unusual magic, I was one of the most powerful people in Faerie, too.” That do me was the endpoint of Dana’s character arc, the point where in many ways she became a full adult.
I definitely see some of the same theme in Nadia’s character arc, although she has a different set of problems in that her choices involve so much risk to people she loves. In the beginning, she’s almost crippled by her need to protect her loved ones by doing what those in power tell her to do. As for where she goes from there . . . Well, you’ll have to read the whole series to see.
Your website’s tagline is “Romance with an attitude, fantasy with an edge”. Could you elaborate on that?
My first published books were paranormal romances (the Guardians of the Night series, which is being re-released in 2014). I have a love for characters who have a sarcastic sense of humor, which might not be the first thing people think of when they think of romance novels. Hence, “Romance with an attitude.” The second series I wrote was the Morgan Kingsley series. It has some romantic elements, and my heroine is certainly a queen of sarcasm, but it didn’t really fit into the romance genre, so I decided to modify my tagline to include it. The Morgan Kingsley series is by far the edgiest series I’ve ever written (with scenes that make me hope my teen readers don’t pick it up), and that’s where “Fantasy with an edge” came from. I have not modified the tagline since I started writing YA, partially because it would get cumbersome, and partially because the tagline I have still applies to some extent to my YA books. There is certainly an edge to the REPLICA series.
If Replica was made into a movie, who would you want to play Nate and Nadia?
Embarrassingly, I am completely clueless when it comes to questions like this. I’d say it’s because I don’t watch enough shows with teens in them, but I don’t do very well answering this question about my adult books, either. I guess I just don’t think in movies.
Is there anything else you’d like to add?
I love hearing from my fans! You can reach me via Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/jennablackbooks) and Twitter (@jennablack), and you can visit my website at www.JennaBlack.com. Thanks again for having me!