On Monday, I sent my agent a newly revised draft of a standalone middle-grade novel I’ve been working on, between other projects, since, oh…2015. (Seriously. That’s when I first created a brainstorm document containing the seeds of what would, after many, many rounds of revision, become this manuscript. The creative process is wild!) This book has existed in some form for several years longer than The Thirteenth Circle—and The Thirteenth Circle itself is a book that spent years in development before reaching bookshelves. (It’ll be here in just over six weeks!!)
This other middle-grade book, the one that’s now back in my agent’s hands? I finally, finally feel like I’ve gotten it just about right. And it feels kind of perfect that that’s happening as I’m gearing up to launch The Thirteenth Circle, because although they’re very different stories, they have some thematic elements in common.
I wrote last week about the role writing “X-Files” fanfiction as a teenager played in my development as a storyteller. The Thirteenth Circle started out as a kind of fanfiction: what if Mulder and Scully were seventh-grade girls, teamed up for a science-fair project on crop circles? Now, obviously, the book is much more than that basic premise. As MarcyKate and I wrote and revised it, it evolved way beyond my initial pitch of “middle-school X-Files.” But that old obsession of mine is there. Not just my teenaged obsession with “The X-Files” itself—but also that desire to retell a beloved story, to reimagine beloved characters, to make something I loved deeply mine, in a new way.
Two years before I was struck by the bolt of inspiration that would become The Thirteenth Circle, I was plotting out this other book. At the time, it was going to be a YA novel. The story wasn’t supernatural in the slightest, but the main character loved sci-fi…and she wrote fanfiction. I invented an “X-Files”-esque paranormal TV show for her to be obsessed with. I came up with main characters and a supporting cast, and sketched out some of the seasons’ story arcs. I played around with writing scripts for the actors to use. I also wrote snippets of my character’s own writing about the show she loved.
(Obviously, I was quite inspired by Fangirl.)
The YA version of this particular story ended up fizzling out. I never got further than the first fifty or so pages. But several years later—when MarcyKate and I were well into the first draft of our cowritten “X-Files” book—I figured out what had been missing from that book, and I dove back in (this time as middle-grade). The rest of that story is for another time. Suffice it to say that for the past couple years, I’ve been working on a book that is kind of “X-Files” fanfiction in its own right and a book in which the main character loves an “X-Files”-ish TV show and writes her own stories about it.
They’re super-different, I swear.
We writers tend to have stories that we like to tell, in some form or fashion, over and over and over. We have themes we keep exploring. We’re asking ourselves questions and using our own manuscripts to find the answers.
For example, I like to send my characters on journeys of self-discovery, often by throwing them (kicking and screaming) out of their comfort zones. Whether I’m getting characters hopelessly lost in the mountains or making them deal with uncomfortable emotions at therapy summer camp or magically transforming them into animals for a day, I want to see how their journey changes them—or helps them become even more themselves.
I’m also interested in the stories my characters tell themselves about themselves. Every protagonist I’ve written holds a story they believe to be true about themselves that they must interrogate as the plot pulls them forward. (This is even true of my young reader books! Think about seven-year-old Madison Morris, who is determined to be a leader one day but decides, after a single instance of failure, that she’ll never achieve her goals!)
Taking all of this into account, it was clearly only a matter of time before I wrote a character who was an aspiring storyteller, as the protagonist is in the manuscript I just finished revising. In this latest version, she still writes fanfiction, but it’s not as central to her journey as I’d originally envisioned it to be. Instead, she finds herself trying to write her way through a real-life mystery, using her intuition (and some things she’s learned from her beloved TV show) to help a friend solve a big personal problem. She learns that truth is messier than fiction—and that the story she’s been telling herself about herself may not be entirely true.
I wanted to talk about this book alongside The Thirteenth Circle to show how a similar point of inspiration can take you in two very different creative directions. The Thirteenth Circle is a sci-fi mystery in which two girls who don’t think they have anything in common discover that they’re “sisters in science.” (They also, ahem, solve a mystery that has captivated their town for generations!) This other book is a lightly magical contemporary novel about a girl who decides that she’s destined to help a friend through a moment of crisis; it’s also about the relationship between the main character and her chronically ill mother.
Both of these books are a direct result of writing I did about a television show when I was seventeen. Like I said up top, the creative process is wild!
This is one reason I tell aspiring writers of all ages not to disparage their early attempts. You truly never know where your creative journey will take you. Some ideas emerge quickly, almost fully formed. Others take years or even decades to gestate. And the things that preoccupy you as a person and as a creator—those things matter! You can explore them, over and over, in constantly new and different ways. You can use parts of yourself you feel to be innate and true as well as parts of yourself you thought you left behind. All of that can become your story.
The story you tell yourself, and the story you share with others.
~Kathryn
Hanukkah is over, but Christmas is just around the corner, so here’s your final (maybe?) reminder that you can give the kids in your life signed copies of my books as gifts! Order from my local indie, Terrace Books, for signed and personalized title pages, or email me to request a signed bookplate to stick in a copy purchased elsewhere. Thank you in advance for the support!!