Take 5 with Inara Scott
By Kathleen Bolton | August 23, 2010 |
Please welcome Inara Scott back to WU. Last month, Inara guest blogged with us, and the response was so good, we asked if she would do a Take 5 interview with us on her debut THE DELCROIX ACADEMY, which releases tomorrow. Enjoy!
Q: What is the premise of your new book?
Dancia Lewis is a girl with a dangerous paranormal gift — she can make things happen just by imaging them. The problem is, when she uses her gift, people always end up getting hurt. Dancia tries to make herself invisible, hiding from the world in an effort to avoid using her powers, but when she’s recruited to attend Delcroix Academy, an exclusive boarding school, all bets are off. Suddenly, she’s got the hottest guy on campus and a dark, troublemaking best friend vying for her attention. But why has the most invisible girl in the ninth grade suddenly become so popular? What’s really going on behind the gates of Delcroix Academy?
Q: What would you like people to know about in this story?
Delcroix Academy is filled with lots of romance, danger, and mystery, and lots of tough choices for our heroine, Dancia. You won’t find very much that’s black and white in this story, which was really my goal. I wanted to take the fantasy/paranormal genre, which usually has clearly defined good guys v. bad guys, and make everything into shades of grey.
Q: What problems and challenges do your characters have to overcome in this story?
As I mentioned above, Dancia and her friends have to figure out the line between good and bad at Delcroix and draw their allegiances accordingly. Unfortunately (for them!) everything is tangled up together. Dancia’s also in the difficult position of trying to figure out what to do with her talent, which presents the potential to do amazing things, but also to hurt a lot of people.
Q: What unique challenges did this story present you, if any?
Delcroix was the first book I’d written in the first person, and while I found that made Dancia’s voice easier to capture, it also presented the unexpected challenge of needing every bit of the mystery to unfold before her eyes. This continues to challenge me as I write the other books in the series.
Q: What has been the most rewarding aspect of this book?
That’s easy — getting letters from readers telling me that they loved it. :-)
Kathleen Bolton is co-founder of Writer Unboxed. She writes under a variety of pseudonyms, including Ani Bolton.
She has written two novels as Cassidy Calloway: Confessions of a First Daughter, and Secrets of a First Daughter–both books in a YA series about the misadventures of the U.S. President’s teen-aged daughter, published by HarperCollins, and Tamara Blake, for the novel Slumber.
LOOOOVE that you went for shades of grey, because I think those characters (and thus those stories) are the most interesting.
This book sounds amazing. Love this interview, which is more book-oriented than the one that she did for us about writing process. I liked the concept after reading the book summary, but I have to admit that this interview and the shades of grey idea (as Kristan called it) has moved the book to the top of my to-read list. Inara Scott is offering a giveaway on our site, but unfortunately, I can’t enter. So, I’m off to the bookstore first thing in the morning!
Thanks so much for this interview!
Martina
Hi Kirsten!
I see I’m going to have to make a book store run this week. How exciting to see your book on the shelves! I’m so excited for you.
I’m discovering the lure of YA – not as a writer, but as a reader. I agreed to give a plotting talk at the local chapter to Society for Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators and needed to read some YA so as to have some examples. Loved the books I read. Given that I’m a big fan of paranormal, your book is perfect for me. I can see movie potential in this.
I’m so thrilled that I can say I knew you when (big grin). Enjoy the ride!
Hi Kristan — nice to see you again! I also enjoy my shades of grey, though I worry a bit that the ambiguity of the book will challenge some readers. I have my fingers crossed they will see that sometimes it’s the choice itself that is heroic, rather than the outcome of the act…
Hi Martina, fancy meeting you here. :-) I really enjoyed your interview as well — I would love it if you picked up the book, and if you do, please let me know what you think!
Something I hope people will pick up on eventually (haven’t heard anyone mention it yet) is the way the book reflects certain foreign policy issues. I worry that these issues (including government surveillance and preemptive strikes against “dangerous” nations) are falling out of the spotlight and becoming something we take for granted. I hope we can keep discussing and debating them, and seeing them for the complex problems they are.
If anyone around here is book club minded, there is a study guide on my website that raises some of these questions.
Hey Donna (who knows me as Kirsten, my other pen name!) — thanks for stopping by! How fabulous that you’re getting into YA! I had no idea…I wish I could take your plotting class. I’m sure I’d learn a ton. :-)
I really enjoy the open-endedness of YA novels. I honestly didn’t know how the book would end until I wrote it. And even then, I rethought and rewrote many times (and occasionally still rewrite — at least in my head!).
For any who don’t know her, Donna MacMeans writes fabulous adult romance for Berkeley, and a sister of my alter-ego, Kirsten Scott, over at the Romance Bandits blog. :-)
Great interview. The books sounds intriguing and I especially like that the issues are shades of gray. It sounds like you have some interesting character development going there as well. I’ll check it out.
I love love love this kind of story and I’m a huge YA fan (never really grew up, I guess.) Once I’m done with my current book, I’m running out to pick this up. Anything that was a challenge to write usually ends up challenging the reader’s brain, too. That’s what we need in the YA market!
Hi Lou, and in answer to your blog question, I hope my characters FEEL real to the people who are reading the book! However, I must admit I’m not one of those writers whose characters “take over” the story. The book is mine and I take a lot of responsibility for crafting it, pacing it, and making it all fit together in a way that will be satisfying for readers. Obviously, you’ve can’t make a character do something that doesn’t fit with that character’s motivation, backstory, and psyche. But I am not scared to push around my characters to get them to do what I want. LOL.
Hey Anne, I never really grew up either! Fabulous! People ask me how I write in a YA voice and I just swallow hard and say, “Um, because I still have a YA voice?” :-)
I would love it if you pick it up and let me know if it does challenge your mind. As with most stories, you can read it on different levels. I’ll be curious to see where you take it.
Hey Inara!!!
I can’t wait to get my copy! The trailer is fabulous for it…wraps up all the gray and the mystery and the inherent DANGER awaiting Danica…
Fun interview, Inara!
WOO HOO!! Tomorrow is the BIG DAY, at last! I’ve been waiting for what seems like 4 evah to read this fascinating story.
Have fun and ENJOY the ride!
AC
Inara, your book sounds like a fabulous read! Is this the start of a series? And how many books will there be? Can’t wait to pick up a copy!
Hey Inara, the carrier pigeon is winging its way to me with your book. I can’t wait to read it! I also love that your heroine has difficult choices between right and wrong. Really looking forward to this! I wish that pigeon would fly a little faster:)
Count me as another fan of stories with shades-of-grey. As for the lack of commentary on political issues, you aren’t the only one to notice this. A friend’s book has the potential to push buttons, but reviewers have yet to mention anything substantive on that front. Are we jaded, disenfranchised? I don’t know, but I’m glad there are people who haven’t quit shining the spotlight.
Hi Joanie! I’m so glad you liked the trailer (if you haven’t seen it, you can find it on YouTube at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f4ZUiEX19zw or on my website). It was so fun to make and I couldn’t believe how perfect the girl playing Dancia turned out to be. And it definitely has a high *shiver* factor (“They’re watching me, Dancia. What makes you think they aren’t watching you, too?”) which is exactly what we wanted to achieve.
BTW, if anyone wants to be entered to win a copy of Delcroix and cool Delcroix t-shirt, check out the trailer and then shoot me a comment, email, tweet, whatever!
Hello Anna! Yes, I’m thrilled to say this is the first of a series, and book two comes out in August 2011. A year between, but I’m sure it will go quickly. ;-)
Christine, you’re an absolute GEM. Thanks for stopping by and for waiting for a copy of Delcroix. I do hope you like it. I get a little nervous just thinking about it (what will she think of it? will she like it? eeek!). :-)
Jan, I really appreciate your comment. I am glad to see that the first review of Mockingjay highlighted the political aspect of the story and the call for peace. That makes me happy. :-)
I also think once we get Delcroix in the hands of a few teachers and book clubbers, they’ll run with some of the bigger themes to the book. *fingers crossed!*
This looks amazing. Can’t wait to read it! :)
Lydia — what a super cool blog — love the idea! I’ll have to put one of those together myself! Thanks!
Your novel sounds fascinating, Inara!
I too appreciate that you embraced shades of gray. Did that decision open up more choices for you as you were writing? Seems like it might, especially if you’re a pantser rather than a plotter.
Thanks for being with us today.
Hi Therese — I’m actually a plotter, so I didn’t really notice the freedom as I was writing, but I definitely noticed the feeling of discomfort as I was doing my plotting!
Before Delcroix Academy, I had been writing adult romance, where the genre has some very specific reader expectations that must be satisfied. The move to YA was both freeing and terrifying (wait, there might not be a happy ending? I have to DECIDE what the ending will be like?). Overlaying that with my sense of ambiguity definitely left me a lot of bunny-trails to run down. But ultimately, the story was about choices, so I had to force myself to do the same. That, I fear, may be my hardest challenge as a writer. I love leaving things open, HATE making the decisions that tie me down to one reality.
Hey, WriterUnboxed, I love these conversations! You all have a fabulous community and I really appreciate the opportunity to be a part of it. Thanks so much!
-Inara
I love leaving things open, HATE making the decisions that tie me down to one reality.
Interesting, Inara! No writer wants to make the wrong decision for her story, and I guess that fear is just as prevalent in creating an outline as it would be for a pantser’s draft.
Thanks again for being with us!
I Love that kind of book!! I hope I can get a copy!! Thanks for sharing!