Top questions asked by students while in Germany. Enjoy!
You are a male author, so why did you choose to write the story from a female point of view?
Excellent question. First let me point out that writing from a female perspective is not new for me; I did it in Party, Zero, Shackled, Hellworld, and Violent Ends as well. My adult horror novella Those We Bury Back is not, nor is manicpixiedreamgirl; Sex, Death, God; or Sick. So I’m just about 50/50 in terms of which gender I choose to write from.
I’m going to use a broad generalization here, so please don’t flip out on me: Broadly speaking, boys tend to be physically aggressive in their bullying behavior, and girls tend to be verbal. This makes sense because, broadly speaking, girls have a better vocabulary and speak more frequently than boys do. That’s not a values judgement in either direction, it’s just an American cultural phenomenon. Since the plot of the novel was primarily about words and how they are used to hurt people, it seemed to make more sense to have a female playing the role of the bully (or villain, which Tori is).
Interestingly, in the first draft, the Tori character was male and the Andy character female. So the story did not start out the way it ended up. That happens a lot!
Right away, Andy asks Tori if she believes in God, and Tori says no. Do you believe in God?
Yes, someone actually asked me this. First time ever.
While I don’t think anyone truly cares–except maybe my mother-in-law, oh snap!–I’ll tell you the same thing I told him: That I do not know if God exists, that no one knows for certain whether God exists, but that I hope–deeply, truly hope to the core of my being–that God does exist in some way. I really do hope so.
I stopped there because otherwise we would have been there all night listening to me go on and on about matter spiritual, scientific, and religious. I’ll save it for a nonfiction book. But I am so proud of that kid for having the courage to ask the question!
Who is your favorite character in the novel?
I get asked variations on this question a lot, and I always qualify it by saying, “This is my answer today. Ask me tomorrow, it might be different.” Today, my answer is Andy. He holds all the cards, he has all the inside information, and he has reason enough to really attack Tori, but he doesn’t. I admire that about him. I also enjoyed writing him because, unlike in real life, since he knows the entire story and is leading the conversation, he can say clever or funny things that I could never have come up with on the spur of the moment. He has an agenda, so he gets to choose his words more carefully than we usually get to.
Would you have been friends with Tori in high school?
Probably not. She’s an athlete and I . . . wasn’t. We just would not have run in the same circles. I very well might have been friends with Kevin, though, or Jack. In fact, Jack and I would have had a lot in common. The cystic acne part of his story is something I know a lot about!
Do you like Tori?
I feel for her. I wish other people would, too. She’s very young and very inexperienced, and makes bad choices like all of us do when we’re that age. But she has potential, and the people who love her see that in her. I think she will make better choices after the story ends, and will learn from her bad ones, and will make a positive difference in the world as she gets older. It sometimes feels like a few readers have never committed a “sin of commission or omission” in their lives, the way they talk about her. That hurts, I’ll be honest.
Why not show the trial itself?
There’s a reason the book ends the way it does. It’s because I am not and never was interested in the legal aspects of Tori’s case; I was interested in the social and personal aspects, namely: How does a person who has done what Tori has done justify it? How can a person convince herself she need not take any responsibility for what has happened? The result of asking that question was Random, which is why the protagonist is also the villain.
Sometimes I regret that choice because apparently, for some people, there needed to be a big-ass red warning label on the cover.
ICYMI, here’s a short video of one of my readings at the English Theater in Berlin. It was such a cool night!
