Teardrop

A Q & A WITH LAUREN KATE

What inspired you to write Eureka’s story?

When I lived in rural Northern California, the nearby lake was a flooded valley that had once been the site of a small village. Imagined ghosts of this underwater town haunted me, leading to an obsession with flood narratives, from Noah’s Ark to Plato’s Atlantis to the Epic of Gilgamesh.

I was especially drawn to the legend of Atlantis: a glorious and advanced ancient civilization that disappeared so completely under the ocean it slipped into the realm of myth. For several years I knew I wanted to write about Atlantis, but I didn’t know whose voice would tell this story—and isn’t that always the most important question?

Inspiration struck one day when I was crying. My husband was listening to my sob story, never mind what it was about. He couldn’t reach me; I was trapped under the flood of my emotions, as tear shedders often are. But then he extended his hand, touched the corner of my eye with his finger, and captured the tear welling up. I watched as he brought my tear to his face, as he blinked it into his own eye. Suddenly we were bound by this tear. Suddenly I wasn’t alone. And suddenly I had the first scene between my hero and the boy she loved.

That tear unlocked this story. Instead of an angry god generating the deluge, a single tear incites Teardrop’s apocalypse. And in the tale I wanted to tell, I knew that a tear capable of flooding the world could only be shed over a mighty heart broken.

FALLEN fans are a very passionate and vocal bunch. Did you write Teardrop anticipating what they’d want, and if so, do you think they’ll be pleased?

Fallen fans are so phenomenal it would be impossible for me to write a new book without them in mind. When I first started studying writing and taking workshops, the general consensus among my teachers and classmates seemed to be that it was wrong to write for anyone but yourself. I believe in the idea that writers must only write the stories they want to tell (as opposed to, maybe, the stories they feel they should tell), but I also believe that knowing and considering your audience can make your writing stronger. My readers push me to be a better, more detailed and conscientious writer all the time. Their questions inspire me and allow me to take risks. Because I have been lucky enough to interact with so many of my readers, they stay with me when I write. I’ll finish a scene and hope the girl in Memphis, the boy in Sydney, or the book club in Bogotá will like it.

Where do you do your best thinking?

There’s a secret trail behind my neighborhood that is almost always empty. I’ve always taken my dog—and now, my daughter—up for a hike in the hills every morning before I write. It requires some trespassing, but that’s half the fun, and on a clear day, you can see snow in the mountains to the east and a shimmering ocean to the west. It’s L.A. at its finest. The setting is stunning, but equally important is the intention of this simple ritual. Thinking through story is just as important as writing story. Staring into space is as important as typing words, as long as the staring leads to typing.

My goal each morning is to compose the first paragraph of that day’s chapter before I get to the top of the hill. The first paragraph has to do the hard work of establishing the emotional pitch of the chapter. Usually I know what my characters have to do in that day’s scene, but I don’t know how they feel about it—and emotion determines everything about the way the story is told. So I ask myself questions like … how much sleep Eureka got the night before, why she’s chosen the clothes she’s wearing and whether she feels comfortable in them, what her biggest fear is on that particular day, and what she’d rather be doing than what I’m going to subject her to. By the time I come down the hill and return to my computer, my mind is deep in the emotional world of the story, and—on a good day, anyway—the rest of the chapter flows out of the first paragraph.

Opening Teardrop from Ander’s point of view gives the reader a unique perspective when approaching the rest of the narrative. Was this always where you wanted to start the book—if so, why? If not, can you share an alternate beginning?

I really value the space a prologue opens between its pages and the first chapter, the way it comments on something essential that can’t be said directly in the body of the novel. At first I thought I’d open Teardrop with the flashback scene of Eureka crying as a young child, being warned by her mother to never cry again (which ultimately became chapter 3). That scene feels like the answer to so much—even though it gives very little away.

But when I started writing, I was having trouble finding Eureka’s voice. I had been writing in Luce-person for a couple thousand pages, and the shift was difficult. But I remembered one of the ways I used to unlock Luce’s voice when I felt distant from her: I would write the same scene from Daniel’s point of view. Daniel’s love for Luce often let him see things about her that I couldn’t see at first. If I could get inside Daniel’s mind, I could access Luce. So I tried something similar with Teardrop. I wrote Ander’s voice to find Eureka’s. I fell in love with Eureka through his eyes.

Adult women don’t fare very well in Teardrop! Is this intentional? Should we read anything into this?

I hope not! I like writing about teens because they take the kinds of risks that allow me to write exciting narratives. What’s interesting about the women in Teardrop is that they perish taking what I think are big, admirable risks: Rhoda dies defending her children. Blavatsky dies standing by her promise to Eureka. Diana lived her life as a risk taker. The difference, I suppose, is that the adults in the story are not invincible in the same way the teen characters are allowed to be. Eureka, Cat, Brooks, and Ander take as many risks as the adults, and somehow they manage to scrape by. This invincibility is born out of fearlessness, something I think adults lose more and more of every day. I imagine there’s something subconscious going on regarding the ill-fated ladies in Teardrop. I might be grappling with my own mortality.

Eureka is faced with some incredible choices as her story develops. Is there a decision you’ve made in your life that you’d change? How hard is it for you to make choices?

I make a lot of decisions based on instinct. About five years ago, I traded in my career in publishing and a life that I loved in New York for a spot at a graduate writers’ workshop in Yolo County, California. My friends and family thought I was crazy for leaving everything behind to move somewhere I’d never been before on a whim—but I had been writing for ten years and was tired of having nothing to show for myself but two mediocre attempts at novels and enough rejection letters to furnish a minor ticker-tape parade. I needed to explode everything and devote myself to writing. So I left New York and drove across the country—terrified, elated, terrified.

A few weeks later, I met the guy I would eventually marry. A few months later, I took the literature course about the Bible that inspired me to write Fallen. By the end of my graduate program, I had a book contract with my publisher. I’m writing this paragraph holding my daughter, looking at my bookshelf full of Fallen editions from around the world, remembering the moment I drove through the Lincoln Tunnel on my way out of New York thinking I am making the biggest mistake of my life.

What’s on your must-read list at the moment?

Son by Lois Lowry

Passenger by Andrew Smith

The Girl Who Fell Beneath Fairyland and Led the Revels There

by Cathrynne M. Valente

Paper Valentine by Brenna Yovanoff

The film rights for Fallen have been acquired—how does it feel knowing that your books will one day hit the big screen? Does the thought of Teardrop becoming a major motion picture influence the decisions you make as a content creator?

When I was writing Fallen I was too close to the story to really let in anyone else’s conception of the world. I remember seeing the book cover for the first time—which is perfectly mysterious—and thinking, That’s what they think Luce’s arm looks like? That’s not what her arm looks like! I certainly wasn’t prepared to conceive of a movie that would pin down the characters to a single look and feel for all time. But then a few things happened: I finished the books and got some perspective. I also met so many readers who shared their views and opinions on the characters and the story—and I found beauty in how different their conceptions could be from my own. My readers opened the door to allow me to welcome the Fallen film. At this point, I’m excited and can’t wait to see what the director does with the series.

As for how I approached writing Teardrop, books and film are such different genres that I wouldn’t know how to think about a potential film while I was writing a first draft of a novel. That comes later. Writing goes inside characters’ minds; film can only show us what they do.

There are two worlds in Teardrop: the present-day high school world that Eureka operates in, and the watery, imagery-soaked world of Atlantis that Ander is part of. As we move deeper into the series, how do you see these worlds blending, and is one more interesting to write than the other?

The Atlantean world parallels Eureka’s contemporary world, and each of the characters in the series will have his or her own mirroring counterpart in the other world. At first glance, they have little in common—even the language I use to tell the Atlantean sections of the story is different from the language of Eureka’s world. In Teardrop, the two worlds are discrete, with no means of accessing one another (except for the strange story Eureka finds in The Book of Love). But later in the series, the separation between worlds gets hazy. I can’t wait to write the scenes where the worlds collide.

What’s the best advice you can give to aspiring writers?

Read—but you already know that.

Never push ideas away. Give them space and time to grow up into stories. Live curiously, ask questions, understand that writers can find even boredom fascinating. Hold on to your mystery. Make writing friends. Keep the good ones. Finish your stories. Finish your stories. Finish your stories.