Debut Author Interviews

Jay Asher is the author of 13 Reasons Why (Razorbill/Penguin, Fall 2007)

• Jay Asher on...Prior Research
• Jay Asher on...Promotion
• Jay Asher on...Ideas
• Jay Asher on...Why Kids?
• Jay Asher on...Setting
• Jay Asher on...Dream Editors
• Jay Asher on...Outlines
• Jay Asher on...Impact on Readers
• Jay Asher on...First Novels
• Jay Asher on...Character's Conflict
• Jay Asher on...Completion

How much research and/or meditation about your subject did you do before you began your first draft?

13 REASONS WHY is a suspense novel dealing with suicide. In high school I was trained in suicide intervention as part of a Peer Helping class. I’ve also read many books on the subject and have known people who have either committed or attempted suicide. So when the main idea for the book hit me, it wasn’t something I shied away from. The idea came while I was driving in the snow at around four in the morning. I pulled into the nearest gas station parking lot and just sat there (with the heater running!) for about twenty minutes because the main storyline came flooding fully formed into me. That night, I wrote the introductory scene and part of the first chapter as fast as I could because I wanted to capture the eerie atmosphere while it was still fresh.

When it came to writing the thirteen backstories that make up my novel, I talked to several of my female friends about what happened to them in high school that they thought they would never get over. The greatest compliment I received during a critique of my manuscript came from one of my female writing partners. “I swear, somewhere inside of you there’s a sixteen-year-old girl hiding.”

What is your plan to get the word out to the public about your book?

13 REASONS WHY sold at auction and one of the things each editor had to submit as a part of their bid was a marketing plan. The publisher I went with (Razorbill/Penguin) submitted a strategy that blew me away with its creativity. They’ll be sending out press kits that play on the suspenseful tone of my book, hopefully leaving booksellers and librarians intrigued. They’ll be setting up a highly interactive website so readers can dig deeper into some of my (intentionally) loose threads. A lot of my pre-publicity will be working with Razorbill to make things as creative as possible (writing text, recording podcasts for the website, etc…). Outside of the publisher, I’ll be using my blog (www.DiscoMermaids.blogspot.com) and the Class of 2k7 to keep reminding people that my book is ON ITS WAY!!! When it hits the shelves, I plan to speak at as many schools, bookstores, and writing conferences as possible. Hopefully I can also get added as a panelist in workshops and conferences dealing with some of the teen issues dealt with in my book.

Where did you get the idea for your book?

I took a self-guided tour where each person was handed a Walkman with a cassette tape inside. Standing in front of each display, you pressed PLAY and the narrator told you what you were looking at. Then you hit STOP and moved on to the next display…or stayed to admire the first display for as long as you wanted without a tour guide yelling at you to “Keep up!” I’ve always been drawn to books with unique formats and kept the self-guided tour idea in the back of my mind for a future book. Instead of chapters, there would be sides of cassette tapes (Chapter 1 = Cassette 1: Side A, Chapter 2 = Cassette 1: Side B, etc…). But it was many years later that the storyline to 13 REASONS WHY hit me: A teenager decides to take her own life, but instead of writing a suicide note, she records thirteen stories about thirteen people who pushed her toward that decision and mails the tapes to the first person on her list. The book reads as sort of a double first-person narrative, her tapes are listened to by one of the thirteen people as he walks a self-guided tour around town.

Why write for children and teens?

Why write for kids or teens? Take a look at the option! I’ve been to a number of multi-genre writing workshops and discovered that too much time writing books for adults has a horrible, long lasting, effect on authors — it makes them dull! I’d much rather hang out with the writers you’ll find here, in the Class of 2k7.

Also, teenage characters offer amazing benefits to writers. Every experience at that age is much more intense than at any other point in life. Why? Two reasons:

1. For the first time in our lives, we’re viewed as ultimately responsible for our actions (which means we’re also responsible for the consequences).

2. Raging hormones.

Combine both of those elements and the story writes itself…almost.

Where is your novel set, and why there?

The unnamed town in 13 Reasons Why is a mash-up of the city I lived in before eighth grade and the city in which I finished my public education. In my novel, Clay Jensen follows the footsteps of Hannah Baker as he, in one night, unearths some of the reasons she decided to end her life. Many of the locations he goes to were inspired by actual stores, houses, schools, and parks within those real-life cities. But I never realized (until now) that places inspired by my old town have an air of mystery around them, whereas the places I’m more recently familiar with are much more as-is.

How did you choose your editor and was he or she the “dream editor” you wanted?

I was lucky enough to have three editors interested in Thirteen Reasons Why. Because of that, my agent set up an auction, with one guideline being that I got a chance to speak with each editor on the phone. One editor was from a fairly literary house, one from a very commercial house, and one from a (ahem) random house. I felt like Goldilocks, searching for the one editor who would suit me “just right.” All three editors had different ideas regarding the strengths of my manuscript…as well as what needed tweaking. It’s weird to imagine that the book that’ll be on bookshelves across the country would’ve been different, in small but significant ways, had I gone with a different editor.

In the end, I went with the editor who seemed most excited about my manuscript—Kristen Pettit at Razorbill. And yes, she turned out to be more than “just right.” Her ideas improved my manuscript tremendously (I felt a little embarrassed that I hadn’t come up with some of the ideas myself). When you read the book, hopefully you’ll have no idea which parts were in the original manuscript and which were added after it sold. If one particular scene or character stands out as your favorite…that was my idea!

Do you outline before writing?

In the past, no, I never outlined. By the time I started any novel, I knew the main story I wanted to tell, scenes that needed to happen, and enough about the characters to know how they’d react to any given situation while also leaving wiggle room for them to surprise me (always a nice thing).

But with Thirteen Reasons Why, I needed to outline a little. Each chapter dealt with a separate experience Hannah Baker went through which lead to her decision to end her life. I wanted to write the manuscript as a suspenseful story rather than a depressing one, so I felt I had to know (as the author) what was coming next. First I figured out the “thirteen reasons why,” then I put them into an order I was comfortable with. That’s as far as I went with outlining. While I knew the basics of each “reason why,” I let those stories unfold individually as I wrote them.

So far, whenever anyone reads the book, somewhere within their first sentence is the word ‘suspenseful’…and I’ve yet to hear the word ‘depressing.’ Phew!

What should readers get from your book?

Chills.

Was this the first full-length novel you wrote, or rather the first that you sold?

The first full-length novel I wrote was a humorous middle grade called My Udder Life. That manuscript ended up winning SCBWI’s Sue Alexander Most Promising New Work Award (though under a different title). It earned me a free trip to NYC to meet with editors, landed me a big-name agent, and an editor at a major publishing house took it to an acquisitions meeting. I was on my way!

But that was over six years ago.

Since then I wrote another humorous middle grade that I just knew was going to be my foot in the door. An editor at another major publishing house critiqed the first couple of chapters and made me promise to send it to her upon completion. “Sure,” I said. “No,” she replied, “I mean promise me.” And that promise got me a form rejection letter.

So I wrote a suspenseful YA and here I am.

What drew you to the conflict you created for your main character?

Tension!

For many years, I wanted to write a novel with a particular format. Instead of chapters, the story unfolds using the two sides of a bunch of audiotapes (Chapter 1 = Cassette 1: Side A). The listener (Character A) goes on a self-guided tour around his or her town, lead by the voice on the tapes (Character B). So I needed a story to bind both of my characters together. For some reason it took me years to ask the question, If I were to come home and find a shoebox full of audiotapes on my doorstep, what would I not want the tapes to be about? Answer: I definitely wouldn’t want them to be the suicide tapes of someone I knew…with my name mentioned on them.

That idea freaked me out so much that I had to write my first YA novel, 13 Reasons Why.

How did you know you were “done” with your book and ready to submit it?

I knew my book would never be “done” in my mind. There would always be nitpicky things to change or better ways to say things. But if I ever wanted teens to read my book, at some point I needed to just stop.

I realized it was time to stop when, during the revision process, I could no longer find anything exciting about my book. What I intended to be suspenseful sounded dull. What I once thought was clever sounded cliche. At that point, I knew that any changes I made would work against the book and I needed to just suck it up and send it off.

Of course, my editor pointed out plenty of dull and cliche moments that I missed.