Recently, I read CHARM & STRANGE (St. Martin's Griffin),
Stephanie Kuehn’s debut YA novel. From the beginning, I was sucked into the
world of Win, a troubled student at a boarding school, and Drew, his alternate
identity who exists in fragmented memories of his childhood. The complexity of
the main protagonist, both as a child and as a teen, kept me very intrigued.
The question of why Win doesn’t go by his birth name contributed to the
suspense. The conclusion made me gasp, and it answered all my questions.
I had the pleasure of
interviewing Stephanie. She has her own author page here, and she also blogs at
YA Highway.
It says on your web site that you grew up in Berkeley. Were
you born there too? Where did you go to school?
I was not born in Berkeley. However,
I was adopted when I was very young and my parents still live in the same
Berkeley house I grew up in. My father was a journalist and editor for the San
Francisco Chronicle, so I was around writers and books and passionate people
who love words my entire childhood. That was very special and inspiring. For my
undergrad degree, I went to UC Santa Cruz, where I studied linguistics.
Tell me about your road to publication.
I think my path to publication was
fairly standard and unremarkable. CHARM & STRANGE wasn't the first novel I'd
written or queried, and I came up with the concept for it over a snowy spring
break in Tahoe. I wrote a very short first draft, then revised it before
querying agents. I connected with my agent (the awesome Michael
Bourret) through a regular query letter/sample
pages and it has been wonderful working with him. One thing to mention about
the querying process: if you've read CHARM & STRANGE, you probably know
that it's a book that seems to be about one thing, when it's really about
something else. When I wrote the query letter for the book, I absolutely
spoiled the whole thing in a very upfront way. I was not coy at all about the
plot.
CHARM & STRANGE came with a twist, and the story
effectively built me up to that twist with the right amount of pacing and
suspense to keep me hooked. What advice do you have for writers working
on a story with a twist?
It's interesting, I watch a lot of
psychological thriller films, and in some ways I think there is no such thing
as a twist ending. For people to buy what's going on, the truth has to have
been there all along and it's a matter of when/how that individual
reader/viewer puts the pieces together. I also believe there has to be meaning
to the twist that goes beyond the element of surprise, which is why The Sixth Sense
worked for me, but The Village less so. In order to tell a compelling twisty
sort of story, I guess my advice is not to hide things. Instead, just keep
telling the truth, page by page, bit by bit. All that being said, however, I
never set out to write CHARM & STRANGE as a mystery. I simply wanted
readers to go on Win's journey with him, and to experience the world the way
that he does, because that is how I believe empathy is created.
I found the main protagonist’s first person perspective, as
both the troubled young Drew and the hard-to-reach adolescent Win, very honest
and raw. What tips do you have for nailing a distinctive first person voice?
In my mind, a distinctive voice is a
confident voice. In real life people don't qualify their points of view and I
don't think they need to in literature either. If a character doesn't like
eggs, there doesn't need to be a long internal monologue about why they don't
like eggs or what the backstory behind their distaste is (unless it's plot
relevant). They would just think: "Eggs are gross."
I also think, especially in the
first-person present-tense point of view, that self awareness can sometimes
detract from authenticity. While insight and observation can define a voice,
characters who are able to consistently and astutely reflect on their own
in-the-moment experiences don't always ring true to me.
As writers, we can often get sucked into our own stories.
Because of the dark subject matter of CHARM & STRANGE, did you ever feel
overwhelmed while you were working on this? If so, how did you overcome this?
I was very often overwhelmed by it.
It still overwhelms me every time I read it and I don't think you can overcome
being upset by something like that. However, I definitely found personal
meaning in sharing Win's story because I think it's one that is easy to
overlook or dismiss. The topic of the book is not something people want to talk
or think about, but it's real and it's painful, and I believe that without
compassion or conversation or awareness, people will continue to suffer in
silence and people will continue to feel alone.
What books/authors did you enjoy reading from as a child?
I read a lot of animal stories as a
child. As a teenager, I loved Robert Cormier, Joyce Sweeney, Gordon Korman, and
Peter Straub.
Would you like to discuss any upcoming projects?
My second young adult novel will be
out next year. It's called COMPLICIT and it's about a teenage boy whose life
gets turned upside down when his estranged older sister comes back to town.
Thank you so much!
You're welcome, Stephanie!
