Lucy Christopher is the author of Stolen and Flyaway.  She has lived in both Wales and Australia, where she pursued being a nature guide and an actor, among other things, before finding her calling as a writer.  Currently living in Wales, Lucy spends much of her time lecturing, blogging, and reading books (when she’s not writing, of course).   To learn more about Lucy, visit her website at www.lucychristopher.com. 

1.  Nature and teens seem to be intrinsic parts of your novels so far.  What is the connection you feel between the two?

I think there are loads of connections between nature and teens.  Firstly, it’s a question of space … when you’re a teenager, there aren’t all that many places you can go to hang out, or to be private with your friends or your boyfriend.  Natural spaces, such as the local park or woods, are often used as social spaces for people growing up.  I know they certainly were for me.  So there’s that.  I also think there’s a subconscious connection between the ideas of growth and wildness and with the process of being a teenager.  The wildness of a natural space often works well as a writing metaphor to express the wild, loneliness of sometimes being a teenager.  In Stolen, Gemma’s growing appreciation of the natural world around her directly leads to a growing awareness of herself and an understanding of her place in the world. 

2.  Your book Stolen has a lovely, cinematic feel to it.  Having tried acting first, how do you relate to the idea of the ‘writer as actor?’

Interesting question!  I think I do approach my writing very much from the perspective of character – for me, character is more important than anything, and when I have my character right, my plot seems to flow much easier.  This focus on character and character-led stories may well have been inspired, or helped along by, my time as an actor.  I spent quite a lot of time learning about Stanislavski’s method, and perhaps that focus on character motivation helped too. 

3.  Who would you identify as some of your strongest literary influences?

Definitely John Marsden!  John is a fantastic Australian writer for teenagers and his books inspired me hugely to read, as well as write, when I was a teenager and beyond.  I love his series of books entitled ‘The Tomorrow Series’.  In terms of others, probably also the magnificent (adult) writer Tim Winton with his clever and evocative use of language, and the beautiful and lyrical David Almond.

So, we’ve all heard the Golden Rule: “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.”  It’s sort of laid the ground work for social equality, drawn the baseline of morality, and has helped keep all our egocentric selves (especially when we’re children) in check.   Those who follow the Golden Rule are helping to maintain a safe society for all.  And safety, in real life, is a good thing.  It’s what we want.  Safety First.  Safety First is what they say.

But in the world of fiction, it’s only when rules are broken that things get interesting.  And when it comes to creating believable characters, we must throw the Golden Rule out the window.  For our characters it must always be Safety Last.  Do unto characters what you would never dream of doing unto yourself.  

But perhaps Mr. Lloyd took this concept a little too far...

Ever since my undergrad years, I’ve heard folks chanting the same mantra: Throw your character up a tree. Throw your character up a tree. Throw your character up a tree.  And they mean it.  Run your little darlings up the tallest tree you can find, and then throw stones at them.  Have birds come along and peck at their faces—gouge their eyes out if you can stomach it (metaphorically speaking, of course…sort of).   

I don’t know about you, but giving my characters a hard time is one of the hardest parts of writing for me.  Here are some of the ways I’ve made it even harder on myself than it should be:

• I like them.  I feel a particularly close connection with my main character (probably because I’m ‘writing what I know’) and I don’t want to see anything bad happen to them. 
• It’s me.  I’ve made the mistake of creating fictional projections of myself rather than true stand-alone characters.  The result is that I am resistant to making myself go through the hardships I intended my characters to suffer.  Repeat after me:  It is not about you.
• I love them.  Really.  I have fraternized with my characters and need to create some emotional distance in order to establish a more professional relationship with them.   I am aware that this will only sound sane to other writers.
• I’m weak.  I’m too soft-hearted, avoid conflict like the plague and, overall, am sort of a gutless soul.
• It’s your fault.  The Golden Rule has been so engrained in me that I’m just not used to treating people like crap.  I like this excuse because I get to blame society for it.

 Whatever the reason, I am constantly having to tell myself to go back in there and really let my characters have it.  Even when I think I’ve created some great conflict, I always look back at a scene later and realize how I could make it even worse for them, raise the stakes one notch higher, and create even more intense…tension. 

Let’s face it.  As authors we are basically there to ruin our characters’ lives.  But the wonderful thing is that we get to put them back together afterwards!  Unless, of course, you are writing a tragedy.  But we won’t even go there.  For the most part, our characters are encountering all these hardships to be changed individuals by the end (or in order to change the world around them).  This is a heroic feat.  This is what I remind myself of when I am tempted to call the firefighter and rescue my character from his tree too early. 

“This is for your own good,” I whisper, as I thrust the burning torch into the branches and watch them scramble higher.  “This is for your own good.”

DISCUSSION:  So what about you?  Is it easy to throw your character up a tree and keep him/her there?  What are some tactics you’ve learned?

As a Children’s/YA Library Assistant, I read a lot of books within the youth market.  Sometimes I read certain books because they were recommended to me, or so that I will have recommendations to share with others; but for the most part I read because Children’s and Young Adult Fiction is the body of literature that resonates with me the most. 

So when adults ask me for a book recommendation, my fingers immediately flit to the Young Adult shelf.  “Oh,” they say, frowning.  They shift their eyes, run their fingers along the edges of the book, and then hand it back to me with a shrug.  “I prefer something a little more…real.” 

I blink my eyes.  Stammer. Do a double-take.  I’m not necessarily presenting them with a book about prancing unicorns or mind-chomping zombies (though sometimes I am).  The book I am currently holding is about ‘real’ life.  So what do they mean? 

What they mean–or what they think they mean–is, this is not real for me.  It may be real for a teenager, but I am an adult.  And what’s real for one cannot be real for the other.  So, would you please direct me to a book that applies to me?  Thank you.

At this point, I usually pass them off to someone else.  Ha!  No, I generally ask them what is real for them. What appeals?  What do you look for in a book? Sometimes they specify:  I want adult characters operating in fully adult worlds, enmeshed in fully adult situations.  Nothing else matters.  Just get me the heck out of here and into the world in which I belong.  In which case, we promptly go elsewhere. 

Other times, though, they describe a genre or interest that fits the jackets of thirty marvelous books right where we’re standing.  When I point this out, sometimes they’ll try the teen book.  Often, they don’t.  But I’ve never had an adult who accepted a teen book recommendation come back disappointed.  They’ve always returned smiling and asking for the next book in that series or for similar ones by other YA authors.  Now, they could just be doing that to make me feel better.    Nevertheless, I go home a little cheered at having introduced another adult to the amazing world of YA books.

It’s a thin line between classification and marginalization, no doubt.  The literary market, I feel, does its best to guess which types of books will appeal to the highest percentages of  certain demographics. Then they make it easier on the reader by sticking books on the shelves with the appropriate label.  It’s immensely helpful in certain situations, but frustrating in others.  

Let’s face it, most of us like things that can be classified and are clearly marked.  Though we don’t necessarily like being labeled ourselves, we like to know where other things belong so that we can properly gauge where we fit in. 

For instance, if I see a cute pair of jeans in the Juniors department, I won’t even try them on.  I’m an adult.  With hips.  End of story.  The label prevents me from entering official humiliation.  It protects me.  If the blue bathroom sign has a man on it, I don’t go in.  Once again, I’m saved.  If there is an interesting book cover in the Young Adult section, I promptly do an about-face and head towards the adult area where I belong.  Classification or Marginalization?

Still, there are those who dare to cross the lines on their own–without a librarian badgering them–and they are slowly closing in the gap.  Teens boldly walk to the other side of the bookstore or library to gorge themselves on adult chick lit, sci-fi, or Kurt Vonnegut; and grown women sneak around the corner to the teen section to get their vampire fix. 

When adults begin to dabble in YA books on their own, I get excited.  Regardless of their reasons (their child recently became a teen and they want to get a jump-start on reading/monitoring ‘what’s out there;’ a movie is coming out based on the book and they want to read it first; they are taking a Kiddie Lit fiction course in college; they just can’t find anything good in the adult section anymore; or they’re genuinely interested in the books because of the subject or the jacket description), many people who’ve voluntarily read a teen book as an adult have ended up addicted to them. 

For these adults, they’ve found that YA books are real, and that they actually do resonate with them.  But for others, teen books genuinely don’t.  And that’s okay.  I just ask that they find out for themselves.  And the next time someone tells me that they prefer real books, I will earnestly reply, “So do I.”

DISCUSSION:  So–what about you?  What resonates with you about YA books?  How did you end up reading them?  Have you run into other adults who disregard teen books as real literature?