Debut Author Interviews

Sara Zarr is the author of Story of a Girl (Little, Brown Books for Young Readers, Spring 2007)

• Sara Zarr on...Family Appreciation
• Sara Zarr on...The Call
• Sara Zarr on...Setting
• Sara Zarr on...Character and Self
• Sara Zarr on...What's Next?
• Sara Zarr on...Self-Help Books

Now that you’re under contract, does your family better appreciate your writing?

My husband has always been supportive and has taken me seriously ever since I took myself seriously, and I think my extended family has always been hopeful even when they didn’t fully understand what I was doing. What a contract has done for me is make me more secure in how I talk about my writing and in my own identity. Those things were always bigger issues for me than what my friends and family thought.

What happened when you received ‘The Call’ that your book would be published?

I remember that whole week. My agent sent the book to our top choices on a Monday, and by the following Monday we had interest from several editors. It seemed like every few hours I was getting a call or an e-mail about yet more interest. Vocabulary words I’d never heard before like “the floor” and “topping” were being tossed around in 7 a.m. phone calls from my agent, and it all just made me giggle nervously. By Wednesday we decided there would be an auction - that’s when the nausea started. It didn’t help that I’d been sick for weeks with a terrible cold and a cough that wouldn’t go away; I was functioning on very little sleep and a lot of over the counter medication. The auction was on Thursday and I sat at my desk at work with this terrible sense of impending doom that for me seems to accompany any prospect of good news. I was sure that in the end I’d wind up with $5.00 and a gift certificate for the Olive Garden. When my agent called with the details of Little, Brown’s offer and it was all settled, all I can say is that it felt surreal. Because I had worked ten years for this with a number of near-success experiences, it was difficult to trust the good news. I’d known for years that as soon as a window of opportunity big enough opened I’d leap through with both feet, so when the call did come it represented something that would change my life—-not just a book contract but a career change. I don’t remember who I told first. The e-mails and phone calls were flying fast and furious that day.

Where is your novel set, and why there?

Story of a Girl is set in Pacifica, CA, which is a bedroom community of San Francisco. I spent my teenage years there. It had one high school (not counting the “alternative” school), a few strip malls, a sad single-screen theater, and a poor bus system. As an adult, I can see the charm and beauty in this small coastal town, but as a teen there was no escape unless you had a car. We all called it “Pathetica” and had virtually no connection to the diversity and culture of San Francisco, though it was less than 20 miles away. It’s the kind of place where it’s easy for a young person to feel trapped, and the frequent dense fog sort of adds to the despair. The main character of the novel feels trapped and despairs of ever really getting out, and I know the town well, so it seemed like a perfect fit. With each draft, the location played a more and more important part and now I see Pacifica as completely inextricable from this story. It’s a Pacifica kind of story.

Is your main character like yourself?

This is a great question. People often assume that primary characters are thinly disguised versions of the author. It’s an understandable assumption, and one I often make myself when reading a book. Sometimes it’s a pretty safe assumption - like when Dan Brown, in The Da Vinci Code, describes his hero as a tweed-jacket wearing, chin dimpled, fit guy and you flip to the author photo and see a tweed-jacket wearing, chin dimpled, fit guy…well, you see my point. But most of the time while there may be autobiographical elements in a story or character, by the time the finished book is published the resemblance is only slight.

My main character, Deanna Lambert, is really nothing like me on the surface. I don’t think anyone who knew me in high school or knows me now is in danger of thinking that she is me. (I did borrow aspects of myself for Deanna’s friend, Lee, but she isn’t me, either.) Deanna and her brother were inspired loosely by some kids I knew in high school whose lives seemed vastly complicated in comparison to mine—-they seemed world-weary at age 15 or 16, with every trace of childhood innocence or naivete totally gone. When actually writing Deanna and her life and her thoughts and issues the secret is that she is like me, but only in that way that every good character is relatable. If we can’t imagine being them, we can at least look at them and recognize some common experience of what it is to be human—-to be hurt and disappointed, to be humiliated, to want something you can’t have, to feel trapped, to feel like you’ve really screwed something up, to want to fix it and not know how, to long for family, to want to belong to something. I can certainly relate to all of those feelings, and whether or not Deanna and her specific experiences are “like me,” those common human experiences are like me, and I think like most people—-at any age—-and that’s what draws us to stories in the first place.

What’s next after your debut novel?

I’m writing a second book for Little, Brown, which should be out in mid-2008. The working title is SWEETHEARTS, and it’s about childhood sweethearts reunited in high school. Drama ensues. In the book, I’m exploring the power of shared experience and the obligation we sometimes feel (or may actually have) for people from our past. I have a couple of ideas I’m itching to work on after that! It’s always a challenge to do the difficult work on one’s actual WIP when new ideas are dancing tantalizingly in the wings.

What are some of your current favorite writing or author-help books?

As many others have mentioned, BIRD BY BIRD is great. I’m also a fan of Ralph Keyes’ THE COURAGE TO WRITE, which is a great (and often funny) look at dealing with fear. Dorothea Brande’s 1934 BECOMING A WRITER is still totally relevant, as are Flannery O’Connor’s essays on writing collected in MYSTERY & MANNERS. I especially recommend the O’Connor essays for anyone coming from a Christian worldview and trying to figure out if/how/why that worldview fits in with writing fiction. My favorite technical reference for those grammar questions you never remember is WOE IS I by Patricia T. O’Connor. How about magazines? POETS & WRITERS is great—-inspiring and a good resource. They never have much to say about those who write for young readers, but ultimately good writing is good writing and every issue has a lot of information on literary markets, grants, retreats and workshops.