In today's guest blog, Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl discuss their debut work of fiction, BEAUTIFUL CREATURES, and reflect on the ways in which the book was shaped by the teens in their lives.
In today's guest blog, Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl discuss their debut work of fiction, BEAUTIFUL CREATURES, and reflect on the ways in which the book was shaped by the teens in their lives.
Be sure to check out Little Brown's BEAUTIFUL CREATURES site here, as well as Kami and Margaret's fansite here.
Someone asked us the other day about whether, as writers, we felt responsible for the way a book can shape the way a teen reader thinks. We’ve actually been asked that quite often, since Amazon named BEAUTIFUL CREATURES the Best Teen Book for 2009. The answer to that question is yes, of course we do. We wrote BEAUTIFUL CREATURES for seven specific teens --- daughters, sisters, former students, and friends. There wasn’t a month or a week or sometimes even a day when these teens weren’t reading what we had to say.
So for us, the more interesting question isn’t if our book will shape how someone thinks, but if and how it was shaped by how the teens we know think. The answer to that question is YES. We were affected in every way imaginable. We wanted strong female characters in our book because the teens we know are strong girls. We wanted complex family situations, woven out of love and loyalty and betrayal and loss, because the teens we know struggle to find their way in and out of these same kinds of families.
The teens in BEAUTIFUL CREATURES struggle to make hard choices, and for the right to make those choices. The teens in our lives are no different. They are --- depending on the day --- the bravest, strongest, kindest, most individual, and as Lena would say… “happysaddest” people we know. And they are all different, from each other and sometimes even from themselves on any given day.
We’ve never talked about who these girls are, and we probably never will. That’s up to them. But we can tell you this; they are not sheep. They aren’t popular, and they aren’t perfect. On a good day, they have rescued animals, won medals and contests and elections, had their papers read aloud to the class (in a good way!), seen their favorite band, and fallen in love. On a bad day, they have lost pets and medals and contests and elections, had their papers read aloud to the class (not in a good way!), been grounded from seeing their favorite band, and had their hearts broken.
Just like all the rest of us.
When it comes to teen readers, maybe we need to worry less about how our books are shaping their lives, and more about letting their lives shape our books. We aren’t worried about the places our books are leading teens, because we’re too busy seeing where the teens are leading us. To us, teens are what the very best books are made of. I guess you could say, Teens are Beautiful Creatures.
And Teens Read, Too.
-- Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl
