Writer Workshop Week
Day 1 – Ellen Hopkins
Writer Workshop Week is a week of guest interviews with well-known authors who Elle and Kate have asked to share a little bit of their writing process for aspiring novelists and readers alike!
Hello, everybody! Today, we’d like to welcome author Ellen Hopkins to Writers’ Workshop Week here on The Book Memoirs. Ellen is the author of eight young adult books, including the Crank trilogy (consisting of Crank, Glass, and Fallout) and the soon-to-be-released Perfect. All of her novels are New York Times best sellers. Formerly a non-fiction author, Ellen was inspired to write her first novel, Crank, after real-life events surrounding one of her daughters.
Kate: Hi Ellen, it’s lovely to have you here! As most people have heard, your début novel, Crank, was inspired in part by your daughter’s drug addiction. What was that experience like, in terms of taking painful reality and transposing it to fiction? It seems too obvious to ask if it was a difficult experience.
Ellen: It was cathartic. Something I had to do, really. For me, if not for an audience. I truly didn’t start the book expecting, or even considering, publication. But through the writing process, it became clear that the story was important, not only to me, but to anyone who has been touched by addiction. The book, in fact, sold with only 75 pages complete because the editor who first saw it realized how powerful the story would be.
Elle: Speaking of real life and real situations making it into your fiction, on your website under the section for budding writers you mention always keeping a writer’s notebook for “when the muse strikes” – just how much of your day-to-day observations of people and places do you think makes it into your novels?
Ellen: Quite a lot, really. Writers must be observers. I can’t stress that enough. Creating realistic, multi-layered characters requires voyeurism, something I practice with zeal.
Kate: When I taught, your books were easily the most stolen from the English department’s classroom libraries, a massive compliment to any author! What most helps you keep writing authentic situations that teenagers are drawn to?
Ellen: Respect for the generation. It was never easy to be a teen, despite what some adults might think. Just because your years don’t number many doesn’t mean your problems don’t. Navigating school, relating to others, falling in and out of love, dealing with the adults in your life… these are the easy things. Toss in major choices like whether or not to have sex, drink, use, etc., the waters become choppy. Add things you cannot control—abuse, desertion, rape, etc., you have a tsunami. Survival is everything. I want to help them survive.
Elle: You mention critique groups on your website. Many writers advocate a group of fellow writers, others show friends and family, and others seem to keep their manuscript solely for their editor. Who is your first audience and how important would you say that their opinion is to you in terms of revisions?
Ellen: I used to have an amazing critique group, but over the years it dissolved. People moved. People got frustrated and quit writing. Toward the end, I had published a couple of books and my group became a bit too deferential. Now, I have a select group of writing friends, all published, whose opinions I totally respect. We do retreats together, and this is where they might serve as beta readers. Truthfully, though, at this point in my career, I don’t have time for rounds of revision. Rather, I self-edit heavily as I write, so my first draft is largely my last draft.
Kate: You used to write nonfiction books for children. I think the number was somewhere in the 50s! How was your writing process when you were writing nonfiction books different from your process now that you’re writing fiction?
Ellen: I wrote the nonfiction much faster. But it still had voice, which is why the editors loved it. I could also write more than one nonfiction book at a time. Can’t do that with fiction. I need to stay vested in the characters I’m writing. And, even though fiction pays better, it feels less like a job. This is fun!
Elle: I’m interested in the locations that you write in. Do you only take notes in your notebook or do you ever flesh out full scenes? Do you prefer quiet or activity? Coffee shop or office? All of your notes and/or storyboard with you or writing-free, so to speak?
Ellen: I am now writing two books a year—one young adult and one adult. I don’t have time to write scenes in a notebook, then transpose. And my note taking is, too often, on scratch paper. I have stacks to sort through. Also, because the verse-novel formatting is so specific, I actually write to trim size, so that the word placement is exactly how I want it. I write at home in my office, or on the road on my laptop (sometimes on airplanes, often in hotel rooms). I need quiet and focus.
Kate: What do you find distracts you the most from writing? Do you find you suffer from writer’s block? Writing yourself into corners? “Delete everything I wrote yesterday” syndrome?
Ellen: My family. I do travel a lot for promotion, so I understand they want my attention when I’m home, and I do my best to spend quality time with them. But that is also my best writing time, so it can become an issue. I don’t block on story, but do sometimes on scenes. When that happens, I work my body somehow—walk or garden or play with my dogs. Physical movement lets my subconscious kick into gear and gets me where I need to go. I don’t write myself into corners and if I have ever deleted everything I wrote the day before it was totally by accident, and completely maddening.
Elle: Linear or scene-by-scene? Do you think that it detracts from your writing if you don’t write in order or do you think it packs more of an emotional punch to craft the scene you’re most in the mood for?
Ellen: Straight ahead. I have to, because each page flows very specifically into the next, and every single word counts. I might, in fact, stress for a half-hour over the exact word or sentence or stanza and get that right before I move forward.
Kate: Your books are written in a very poetic, free-flowing style. Was this a conscious decision you made when starting to write Crank, or just something that came more naturally to you?
Ellen: I started Crank in prose, but the voice was all wrong. Put the book away and went to a writer’s conference, where I saw Sonya Sones (another verse novelist) speak. I’ve written poetry most of my life and decided to try combining verse and story. It worked.
Elle: Most authors seemed to be asked which fellow author is their biggest influence. Instead, I’d like to ask you if you have any particular books which have influenced the way in which you write or have changed the way you view the writing process.
Ellen: Sometimes a Great Notion, by Ken Kesey. Four very different voices, and unique writing styles for each. Complicated viewpoints. It’s a hard book to read, but brilliant, and totally character driven. That one spoke loudly to me.
