These Vicious Masks: A Swoon Novel(89)
TS: You made a scarf. You made lots of scarves.
KZ: I did. And they were very, very bad.
“The Writing Life”
HW: When did you first realize you wanted to be a writer?
TS: Probably tenth grade when I took a film class in high school. I was always movie-obsessed, but it kind of made me think, “Oh, I can actually do this seriously. And people will actually take me seriously.” So I was reviewing movies, and then when that got annoying, I realized I should try writing myself, and that’s just kind of turned from screenplays to novels.
KZ: Mine was much, much later. Tarun and I went to school together and we were in college, and he was talking to me about writing a young adult novel because he knew I loved young adult novels, and it was something he thought he might want to try his hand at. And I did not consider myself a writer of any kind, but I was a voracious reader and definitely knew the YA world and markets and things like that, so I said I would totally help. At first it was more like he would write, or we came up with the concepts together, but then he was writing and I was kind of more editing. And then somewhere along the way it just started kind of evolving into us both writing and kind of writing over each other and over each other so we don’t even know who wrote what. Although we do like to argue about who wrote what sometimes.
TS: Yeah, because I like to keep in my head what amazing lines I came up with.
KZ: The other day I said, “This sounds like a great line that I wrote,” and he said, “No, that was me.”
HW: What’s it like working so closely with each other writing the same book?
KZ: Great.
TS: When I write by myself now it feels like something’s missing. Every time I write something it’s like Kelly isn’t here to tell me this is stupid or that this is a good idea. So just having the extra support is really good.
KZ: We both trust each other as writers, so it’s not like you hate everything the other person’s doing and just can’t say it.
HW: So what’s your process? Do you outline things or start at the beginning and make it up as you go bouncing back and forth?
KZ: Well, we did just start a new document in Google Docs right now entitled “These Vicious Masks Book 2 Very Stupid Ideas.” So we outline, because Tarun makes us outline, and we should.
TS: Yeah, I kind of go crazy.
HW: Do you have any writing rituals, like a certain place you are when you write, or anything like that?
TS: I’m literally sitting in the place that I write. It’s just my dining table, and I always have tea or coffee. Actually, half the time that I’m writing, I’m not even sitting in front of the keyboard, I’m just pacing around my apartment thinking up how to phrase the sentences, and then I just stop off at my keyboard and put it down and then start walking around again. It’s weird, but it works.
KZ: I write everywhere. This last round of edits, Tarun would be finishing something on L.A. time, and then the next morning on the subway I would edit it. So I’ll write anywhere, anytime, any place that I have a moment to.
TS: Yeah, I don’t know how you do that. I can only write at home now.
KZ: I’m very impressive is how.
HW: So how does the revision process work?
TS: I feel like we had to go through this process a couple times before Swoon Reads, because when we were querying, a couple times they gave us a big structural change or a few smaller changes, and I think we figured out a pattern at that point. We always just focus on the biggest issues we have in the back of our mind, and even if we can’t solve it, we’re thinking about it while we jump around and deal with other things. And I guess it’s assigning specific subjects, like you handle all the Mr. Kent stuff, or anything thematically related.
KZ: Or chapters. It’s like picking a dodgeball team with that stuff. We each get to pick favorites until we’re down to whatever one we don’t want to do, but someone has to. Also, I write faster and worse, and Tarun writes more detailed and better, so sometimes depending on how many changes we need, if it’s a lot of things, I might do the first draft of that and then he’ll go in and make it better. Sometimes we do it that way, too. Especially if there’s a time crunch.
HW: One last question: What’s the best writing advice you’ve ever heard?
KZ: This is from an author, Chuck Wendig, and he says, “Writing is when we make the words. Editing is when we make the words not shitty.” And that’s my favorite thing I’ve ever heard.
TS: For me, I don’t think it was as much advice as process. I took a screenwriting course at NYU where I had this teacher who his way of giving feedback was just like, after the kids talk about your script, he just bombards you with questions. Like, what-ifs. What if this happens? What if that happens? And they don’t all go together at all. He doesn’t have a cohesive vision. He’s just throwing so many questions at you. It changed my way of thinking in terms of I shouldn’t be so beholden to anything I have in my script. You can always think of some what-if that makes it better. It just made me think of feedback differently. You just kind of accept everything for a little while and see how it makes you feel. Then you just go with the suggestions you like or not.
These Vicious Masks
Discussion Questions
1. The title of the book is These Vicious Masks. Why do you think the authors chose that title? What roles do masks play in the novel?