Veronica Roth's Blog, page 4

[image error] NEW BOOKS ARE COMING. TWO OF THEM.

Earlier this week I announced two new projects coming out: 
 

A NOVEL: called Poster Girl, "a dystopian mystery about the search for a missing girl and the ill effects of mass surveillance on society." Out in FALL 2022 from William Morrow Books.

A NOVELLA: called Arch-Conspirator, which is a science fiction retelling of Antigone. Out in WINTER 2023 from Tor. (Which means early 2023.)

Find out more about the latter in the announcement post, here. Find out more about the former...later. I promise I'll give more details eventually. But the important thing is: NEW BOOKS! I am currently polishing them both, and very excited for you to read them.

If you're thinking to yourself "Fall 2022? That's so far off, though, V," I have good news for you:

A couple months ago I had a short story published by Catapult that is a letter from a mother to her unborn child...with a sci-fi twist: Become of Me.

This year I was the guest editor of the Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy anthology, a selection of the best short stories published last year in science fiction and fantasy. I had to whittle down a list of 80 stories to a mere 20, and it was quite a task. If you're interested in exploring short fiction (I recommend it) or want a sampling of some of the best SFF has to offer right now, you should give it a read.

I also did a podcast conversation with John Joseph Adams, the series editor of the Best American SFF anthologies, and Yohanca Delgado, one of the authors included (twice, in this case!) in the anthology, hosted by science fiction author David Barr Kirtley, on Geek's Guide to the Galaxy. We had a great time. I described one of the stories' world-building as "repulsive...but I loved it," AND I MEANT IT. Listen here.

I hope you're all well and enjoying the slow descent into winter. (I actually am-- the article that helped me shift my attitude toward Chicago winters is here, if you're interested.) 

-V

 

Most writers—and I count myself among them—agree that the best way to learn about writing is by reading…not just the kind of reading that involves passive absorption (though you can also learn a lot that way), but by active analysis of books. Yes. Affirmative. That is mostly how I’ve learned how to write.

But! I often learn about writing through other means. By watching television and movies; by studying science and psychology; in conversation with friends; in hearing about the challenges of other kinds of work; by looking at art and listening to music—all sorts of places have taught me meaningful lessons about what I am doing and how I might do it better.

In an effort to share this learning with you, I want to start doing case studies: a more detailed analysis of a particular thing, be it a television show or a movie or a song, and what it taught me about writing. This will be my first attempt, but hopefully there will be more.

The topic of this case study is ANSWERING THE RIGHT QUESTIONS. What the heck do I mean by that? Well, in order to answer that, I want to tell you about two very different TV shows. The first is one that I don’t love, but that I think succeeds on a very important level. The second is one that I do love, but that does not succeed on the same level.

Enough suspense. Here we go!
 

Manifest is an NBC show that originally aired in 2018. It has three seasons, and I have watched one and a half of them. (I stopped when the characters were using the word “calling” so much that I started to develop a drinking game in my head instead of paying attention.) The basic premise of the show is that a plane full of people took off and experienced some turbulence…and when they landed, it was five years later. OoOoOoOoOo.

BUT HOW? AND WHY?

This show is super fun and sucked me in immediately. I powered through the first season in a few days. But it’s one of those shows that’s sort of hard to recommend unless the person you’re recommending it to is A. highly tolerant of network TV dialogue where everyone says EXACTLY what they mean at all times and B. very much in the mood for some fun escapism. When I watched it, I was both A and B when I started, and then as I worked my way into the second season I became less and less A, alas and RIP to me. But before I got Dialogue Fatigue, I noticed something interesting:

Where the show succeeds most is in answering the most important questions that its premise raises. What I mean is, this is a concept-based show—you don’t need to tell someone about the plot or the characters in order for them to get an idea of whether they want to watch it or not. (As you can tell from my summary above.) But it also does an excellent idea of first identifying the questions that the viewer most wants answered and then constructing the plot (both the greater arc and the smaller arcs of the episodes) to answer those questions.

In the first episode, we basically want to know what the setup is. What did the flight feel like to the people on it, and how does that differ from what their families and friends back at home experienced? And then we want to know: what happened while these people were gone? If you disappeared for five years and were presumed dead, would your spouse remarry? Would people have died in your absence? Would your siblings have aged past you? Would there be a job waiting for you when you got back? Would they have developed better treatments for your chronic illness? Etc. That’s basically what episodes 1-6 explore.

This is what I call the “backward” plot of the show—the exploration of the past. There’s also a “forward” plot that involves the passengers of the plane hearing mysterious voices telling them to do things—the “callings” I mentioned earlier—but I’m going to breeze past that part of the show, as it’s not really relevant here.

The plot of the first season takes us down a few avenues. We find out how the government reacts to the mysterious return of the passengers (sketchily). We get to see the reaction of the public to this “miracle” in two ways—through the formation of a cult that worships “the returned” as saints, basically, and also through a group of extremists who thinks “the returned” are subhuman, with each group serving as the end of a spectrum of reactions. There are spouses who move on, and spouses who don’t. There’s a pair of twin siblings who are now five years apart in age, and the weirdness that creates. There are people who died in the interim, people who went back to work and people who didn’t. Basically, every question that I found myself asking about how a gap like this would be handled was addressed in some way, even if it wasn’t “answered” completely. (I still remember when I found myself asking “wait, what about the pilot of the plane?” and was then immediately rewarded by an episode focused on…the pilot of the plane.) It was very satisfying.

You would think this is something that all TV shows, movies, and books do reasonably well, but it isn’t. All too often the creator of a thing doesn’t really understand what the most pertinent questions their premise raises are, or they prioritize them in a strange way. It always strikes me as the creator of a thing not understanding just what is interesting about that thing. (I probably am guilty of this myself, in my own writing, on some level!)

For example: the Star Wars prequels offered us an explanation for why some people are stronger in the Force than others: a high level of midichlorians in the blood. The thing is, though, that I never actually wondered about that. It’s a normal part of life that some people have talents that others don’t have, so the movies went to some lengths to answer a question I never asked. I also didn’t really care about the origin of the clone army, to be honest. It’s a clone army, George. It doesn’t have to be a subplot.

The answers I DID want—what led Anakin Skywalker to become Darth Vader, what happened to Padme—were not answered in a very…satisfying way. (Padme dies of…grief? Anakin is so in love with Padme that he…murders a bunch of children? What?) The focus of the movies felt wrong. It’s like George Lucas was taking a family portrait and focused his lens on a tree in the background, leaving the family blurry in the foreground. See what I mean? The movies are not preoccupied with the same questions that the viewer is preoccupied with. We are misaligned.

My second case study is actually an example of where this doesn’t quite come together, too. So let’s move on to…

That trailer? Not even half as funny as the actual show.

The premise is basically that a regular gal, Jessie, goes to a New Years bash and ends up having a one night stand with a guy, Tom, who she doesn’t realize is a famous movie star. For some reason (psst: the reason is that she is a DELIGHT), he seems to actually like her and wants to see her again. BAM. Hijinks ensue.

When I finished it—and I watched the entire show in one day—I had one criticism, and it was that I never got to actually see my biggest questions played out on screen. I wanted to know things like: what would happen if the media found out? How would she react to suddenly being thrust in the spotlight like that? How would his celeb BFFs react to her? How would she react to them? What would happen if he took her to a movie premiere? If his management tried to interfere in their relationship? Etc.

I would argue these are some of the most central questions that the premise naturally provokes. But the show kind of steers around them. At one point, Jessie is almost caught by the media, and manages to pass herself off as household staff—a funny moment, but I kept waiting for her second attempt at this to fail, and it just…never became an issue. She does encounter one of Tom’s co-stars…but the co-star never finds out that she dated him, so that’s also left unexplored. Tom does spend time in Jessie’s world, but we never see her in his, and that was the part of the premise that I was most interested in. We know what “normal” is like. We don’t know what it would be like to, as a “normal” person, find yourself in “celeb land.”

The show I got instead of that, though, was a delightful series of episodes where, for various reasons, these two people keep missing each other—they can’t quite get the seasons of their lives to line up. And I was interested in watching that show, because of the chemistry between the characters, the dialogue, the charm—they all more than carried it. But if you removed the celebrity element entirely, you could still have basically the same show.

And therein lies the issue with not answering the biggest questions your premise raises—you render it inessential.

Imagine, for example, if the show Manifest never explored what happened in the five years that the passengers were disappeared, if they just made the whole show about the mysterious “callings” and about the forward motion of the plot. Would you still have a show? Sure! But there would be no reason for them to be missing for five years instead of, say, five weeks, or five days, or even one day. It’s not that there’s nothing interesting left when you take away part of the premise, but what’s there changes.

In your own writing, well, it’s all your show—you can make your story’s premise everything you want it to be, and nothing you don’t want it to be. You just have to know what those things are. And you have to be willing to let go of the things that aren’t naturally integrating into your plot.

The two steps here, as I see them, are: 1. Figure out the most important questions that your premise raises and 2. Shape your plot so that you can at least give those questions a poke. You don’t have to answer everything or explain everything…but if you find that you aren’t really interested in exploring the biggest questions that your premise raises, you should maybe reconsider what your story is really about. This is about making sure that what’s interesting to you, the writer, and what’s interesting to the reader, are also complementary to each other, even if they aren’t perfectly aligned. (And when are they?)

One way to do this, by the way? Write up your premise, a paragraph summarizing your story, and give it to a friend who likes the kind of thing you’re writing. (As in: maybe don’t give your sci fi premise to your friend who only likes contemporary stories.) Ask your friend what they expect the story to explore, what answers they want most, what scenes they imagine seeing. See if the things that interest them align with your plans for your story. Doing that can be pretty illuminating.

And please, give Starstruck a watch. 😊

<4,

V

There is a period of time before I start each rough draft where I believe that somehow I have ascended to a new level of writing skill and this time, this time, I did all the outlining right, I thought everything through, and now I’m just going to slide from beginning to end like an Olympic bobsledding team.

It lasts about 20,000 words.

And then, inevitably, there’s this little voice that pipes up out of nowhere and says, okay, but what about this? You know what “this” is. It’s that Jenga piece that looks wobbly enough to pull loose but turns out to be essential to the structure of the whole tower. Wham.

Here’s the stupid, frustrating truth: in order to write a good book, you must make a big damn mess. I’m usually wary of making those kinds of generalizations, but I feel pretty confident about this one. Good stories are complex, entertaining, and nuanced, and if you want all three of those things, you’re going to have to completely wreck everything at some point. If you’re me, it happens once in the outlining stage, once in the rough draft stage, and once in the revision stage. At least.

But as I was angstily throwing things at my draft to see what stuck last weekend, I realized something else: so much of being a writer is just relentless problem-solving. And your ability to make progress as a writer will in large part depend on how pouty you are about constant failure. If you can learn to just sigh heavily and start putting the stupid Jenga tower back together again, you will be just fine. If you cry when the Jenga tower falls down, rend your garments, and refuse to play Jenga ever again, I have concerns about your suitability for this work. That doesn’t mean you can’t be frustrated. It just means that you gotta be willing to come up with half a dozen solutions to any given problem, some better than others, and consider that your draft might look different than you thought it would. Consider that your entire book is actually about something other than you thought. Consider that you are starting in the wrong place, writing from the wrong POV, ending the wrong way, and that your book is the wrong genre. (Or all of those at once—I don’t know your life.) Consider it, and be willing to change everything because of it. I can assure you that I have, at one time, realized every single one of those things about a draft. Each one straight up ruined my life for awhile. The books are better for it.

(One time I had to change TENSES, guys. It was. So goddamn annoying.)

So this is my writing advice to close out 2020: don’t panic when you make a big, horrible mess. The mess means something is working.

Not sure I can say the same for 2020-- this year was a big bag of crap for most people, and I don’t like pretending there’s something inherently redemptive about struggle. Life isn’t an after school special; there’s not always a lesson at the end of a given challenge. Sometimes it was just hard and then one day, it stops being as hard. I do hope you found growth in all the difficulty.  But if you didn’t, and it was just bad, I hope it gets less bad for you in 2021.

If you’re looking for things to do during the holidays, might I recommend listening to the Divergent movie commentary track? If you want to listen along with the movie, just start the movie at the same time Margot Wood and I say to in the recording. There’s a big BEEP, you can’t miss it. Recording it was such a fun walk down memory lane.

How 2020 Began

How 2020 Ended

Also, here are some groups of five things I liked this year:

Books

First of all, did I mention that my newest book, CHOSEN ONES, came out this year? It’s about what happens ten years after you save the world from a being of incredible evil and become one of the most famous people in the history of time. It’s good, and you will like it. I feel pretty confident about that generalization, too. But here are some others:

Court of Lions by Somaiya Daud 

Blue Ticket by Sophie Mackintosh

Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro

Harrow the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir

The Left-Handed Booksellers of London by Garth Nix

PODS

First Draft by Sarah Enni – this year, Sarah did a special series called Track Changes where she talked to a wide array of people about the business of publishing books. It’s a great resource if you want to understand the publishing industry on a practical, realistic level. I’m so glad it exists!

Comedy Bang Bang - just listen to all the Andy Daly episodes if you need a place to start

Criminal

Limetown - I know, I’m late

You’re Wrong About - the episodes about famously maligned women are so great

TV/MOVIES

Listen, this year I was like a delicate little flower that needed to be gently cradled by television and movies, so I didn’t watch…most of the stuff that came out. But I did occasionally take a break from endlessly looping Bob’s Burgers (which is also great).

The Vast of Night (movie)

Elementary (the TV show) – if you like a light-hearted but not empty-headed procedural, which I do, this one is great. I never watched it when it was on, but I am enjoying the binge watch.

Babysitter’s Club - I used to think I was a Mary Anne, but actually I am a Kristy.

Only Lovers Left Alive (movie)

The Old Guard (movie) – god this movie was fun

SONGS

I’m on Spotify, and I put my book playlists up there if you want to give them a listen! Right now there’s one for Chosen Ones, The End and Other Beginnings, both Cyra and Akos from Carve the Mark, and one specifically for Inertia (a short story in The End and Other Beginnings). 

See you in 2021!

V

I write to you from sunny Los Angeles, where I have finally arrived after quarantine-RVing across the country so that my husband and I can live with some family for a couple months for a nice change of pace. I am here to answer some of the questions you submitted via this form, as I will do semi-regularly in this newsletter. Thank you to those who asked questions! Even if I didn’t answer yours here, I did keep the questions so that I might be able to answer them later. Please keep ‘em coming! And I hope you are all well and reading good books.
 
And now, to the Q&A! 
 
Jeremy: Height-wise, did Theo and Jai Courtney measure up to each other? 
 
First, I appreciate that this question appeals to my knowing-heights obsession, which has recently transferred to tennis players. (Rafa Nadal, recent French Open champion, is 6’1”. His opponent, Novak Djokovic, is 6’2”. The more you know dot gif.) Anyway, to answer your question, yes, Theo James and Jai Courtney are roughly the same height.
 
Ashlynne: Where did you get inspiration for both Four and Tris?

When I was writing the rough draft of Divergent, I’d just had a significant writing revelation, courtesy of one of my professors. She had circled a particularly crisp, simple passage in one of my assignments and said, “this is the best writing in this piece.” I had previously been struggling to write in more florid, poetic prose—and the results were not great. That was not my natural voice at all. So Divergent was a bit of an experiment with what felt more natural. The character of Tris came from (among other places) that straightforward, no-frills, crisp voice. An assertive, bold person trapped in a life she needed to escape.
 
Four, on the other hand, I came up with a few years earlier. I had written an extremely early draft of what would later become Divergent—just a couple scenes, no real world-building except the vague idea of factions. The character first appeared much the same way Tris does in the book: he was getting his hair cut. But there was this tension in him as he sat for it, this interesting restraint—he didn’t want anything about the life he was in, but he knew better than to let it show. I obviously didn’t use that draft in the final book, but I included the character anyway.
 
Evelyn: I enjoyed the Divergent Commentary so much. So cool that Neil decided to pitch it as “16 candles but in the future.” From your experience on the set of Divergent, was Neil very hands on with every aspect of the film, as far as lighting, costumes, etc. or was he primarily focused on the actors? As someone who's pursuing a career in the film industry, its interesting to see and know about the director’s approach. I am grateful that you let us in on his secrets to such an amazing adaptation.
 
My impression of Neil Burger was that he was hands-on with every aspect of the film, yes. I mean, one time he called me to ask me how important it is that the aptitude test involve cheese. (He wanted to use meat, which is what’s in the film. This change was perfectly fine with me.) On my first day on set, he came over to talk to me about the Dauntless fighting stance (which I teased with great affection in the commentary) with the stunt coordinator. I could tell you a dozen stories like those—moments when he communicated extraordinary thoughtfulness to me. I’m a fan.
 
Diego: Hey Veronica! My name is Diego, I’m a huge fan of all of your books (I’ve just picked up “Chosen Ones”, and I can’t wait to dig into it!). I’ve been admitted to and will be attending your alma mater, Northwestern University, as a part of the Class of 2024. My primary major is theatre; however, given the huge impact that reading/writing has had on my life, I’m considering taking a couple of creative writing courses and potentially double majoring. My question is the following: is there any piece of advice you could give me in regards to creative writing at NU, any tips an incoming freshman, such as myself, should know before starting? Thank you so much for your time, and I can’t wait to read about your next projects!
 
Hey, congratulations! I’ll try not to make this answer too insider-y—but you can definitely double major, most of the other creative writing majors in my year were double majoring, since the creative writing major is somewhat smaller than others, credit-wise. The good thing about the writing program at NU is that you have to take a few introductory writing courses before you can submit an application, and you’ll therefore get a sense of whether you enjoy it or not before you apply. Best of luck!
 
My advice for anyone in college is to find out, to the best of your ability, which professors are amazing—and take their classes whether the subject matter interests you or not. A good teacher can make anything rewarding and interesting. Also, take classes just because you want to. Know that a good writer is a curious, creative person—that knowing more about the world will help you more with your work than a writing class (though I certainly benefited a lot from my writing classes!). And please, for the love of God, have some fun. 😊
 
Elisa: I wanted to ask that, do you ever have writer's block? If yes, how do you cope up with it?
 
Every writer does! But there are different kinds. The first is fatigue-based—you’ve worked yourself too hard and you need a break. Bet you can’t guess how I address that one.

The other is that you’ve hit a sticking point in your draft. Whatever you just wrote, it’s not right, it’s not working for you in some deeper way. OR maybe it’s not that—maybe you’re teetering on the edge of a decision that you’re not sure about. Maybe you don’t know where you’re going. The trick with writer’s block is to recognize where you are and what you’re up against. Then you have to problem solve. I can’t give advice here because every story and every problem is different. Only you can find the solution. But it’s helpful to identify the exact, specific problem you’re having. Ask yourself: what did I just do? Is it right for the story? Or: what am I about to do? Do I know what my options are? Have I picked one, or am I avoiding making a decision at all? Remember: you can always try something out to see if it works. You can always go back to an earlier draft.
 
Tori: Did you enjoy being in the movie? Also I really appreciate you making the books it helped me through really hard times.
 
To address the second part of your question: I’m so glad the books were helpful to you. I hope times are a little less hard now (though I guess during this pandemic, we’re all having a bit of a hard time!).

As for the movie: yes and no. Yes, I was so thrilled to have the experience of getting made up and costumed and being on the set in that capacity. It was a once-in-a-lifetime thing and I wouldn’t trade it for anything. But on the set that day, the crew kept joking around that I would get the acting bug, and my answer to that was an emphatic NO. No, I will not. I am not a performer. I am not an actor. I do not enjoy it. I was stressed out of my damn mind for the two hours I spent as an extra. I prefer to be, not just BEHIND the camera, but AWAY from the camera entirely, preferably at a laptop with a word document open.

Me on set (with appallingly bad posture)!

Take care everyone,
 
V

image credit: Summit Entertainment

Earlier this month, I announced that I would be recording a Divergent movie commentary track with Margot Wood, writer and publishing professional formerly of Epic Reads (you might remember her from Tea Time). She and I have known each other since Insurgent came out, so almost ten years, and we have had a LOT of fun together throughout the years. Margot also visited the Insurgent movie set and attended the Chicago Divergent movie premiere, so together we have a bunch of behind-the-scenes knowledge that we discussed on the commentary track, as well as voicing our special appreciation for the set design and LIGHTING! (That almost sounds like a joke, but guys, the lighting in that movie is GOOD.)
 
So how is this supposed to work? Well, here’s the idea:
 

Open the commentary track (you can find it here) and cue up the Divergent movie wherever you want to watch it.

Start playing the commentary track—there are a couple minutes of intro before we start the movie. Listen for the CHIME, which will signal that it’s time for you to press play. It will be very obvious. (The movie begins playing just before the Lionsgate logo appears, in case your version of it is slightly different from mine.)

Watch the movie with us!

 
You can also listen to the track separately, if you feel like you remember the movie really well—Margot and I had plenty to talk about, so there isn’t too much silence!
 
If you want to talk about this experience on social media, may I recommend that you tag me on IG at @vrothbooks (and Margot at @margotmwood), and/or use the hashtag #DivergentCommentary.
 

If you end up with questions (such as: just how tall ARE all the actors, Veronica, Captain of the Celebrity Heights Committee?), you can submit them at THIS FORM. (It will ask you for your contact info, but that’s just for accountability reasons—I won’t share your email address with anyone.)
 
Actually, you can submit any of your questions about any of my books and/or writing at that form—I’m going to keep it open from here on out so that I can answer your questions more regularly in THIS VERY NEWSLETTER. So keep your eyes peeled for that.

I hope you enjoy the movie commentary track as much as we enjoyed recording it!
 
<4,
 
V

"From Dauntless to Shotet" : Alternate Scenes from Carve the Mark



One of my favorite things to hear is how much readers love Tris and Four’s relationship. I’m so grateful that people connected to them as much as I did. So when I set out to write Carve the Mark, I knew Cyra and Akos had big shoes to fill. Like most new relationships, it was slow going at first, but it wasn’t long before I fell in love with them, too.

Cyra is a heroine unlike any you’ve ever met - hard, relentless, and brave, even amidst constant pain. She maintains a complicated relationship to both her family and herself, and struggles for kindness in a world that seems to reward only cruelty.

Akos is a child of tragedy, fated to die in service to his sworn enemy. His physical gift isolates him, but it also provides temporary respite to Cyra—his touch is quite literally the only thing that can take away her pain.

Like Four and Tris, these two must walk a complicated path. They are at turns combative and passionate, but always intense. Two alternate scenes that didn’t make the final book – versions of their first meeting and first kiss – exemplify exactly what I love about this couple: Her unflinching ferocity. His quiet intensity. Their shared need.

This book is about how our pasts mark us. How we carry those scars. And how we choose our futures in spite of our fates.

—Veronica

Cyra Meets Akos - early draft

I marched through the foyer toward the training room, my skin stained with tar-black tendrils. The guards milling around (a sign of Ryzek’s presence in the house—where he was, guards were also) all pulled away from me, creating a clear path. They were grown men and women with armor and currentblades and years of military training, yet they recoiled from even the possibility of contact with my skin. (Cowards.)

Their shoes had marked the polished floors with dusty footprints from the streets outside, and though they wore uniforms of dark armor, I saw faint distinctions among them, a blue tassel hanging here, an embroidered emblem on a collar there, buttons covered in bright foil so they shone, scavenged fasteners from Othyr that glittered like gems. They were gathered around the screen on the close wall to watch the news feed, which now blared in Zoldan with Shotet subtitles, and showed something about famine on the galaxy’s fringe.

Our people had always been suspicious of outsiders, because they had preyed on us when we were just wanderers, not warriors. My father had taken advantage of that suspicion, prohibiting the teaching of other languages in classrooms, citing a desire to preserve Shotet purity. But when the fates were released to the public, when I was young, he had still released countless reports about the Assembly and its falsehood, explaining that we would no longer subject our people to its lies about my father’s successor—just in case the older ones, the ones who were still multilingual, were listening and repeating. Ryzek had taken my father’s measures a step farther, introducing the control of information through “creative translation” (more often, outright lies) in feed subtitles. Most of the people (and there were few) who knew how different the Shotet characters were from the words actually being said on the news feed were already in Ryzek’s service, favored and high-ranking. Information, Ryzek said, was powerful. It should be measured carefully. (My books on military strategy agreed.)

The training room, down the hall from my bedroom, was bright and spacious, a wall of windows on one side, a wall of mirrors on the other. A gilded chandelier dangled from the ceiling, its delicate beauty contrasting with the black synthetic floor and the stacks of pads and practice weapons along the far wall. It was the only room in the house my mother had allowed to be modernized; she had otherwise insisted on preserving the house’s “historical integrity,” down to the pipes that sometimes smelled like rot and the tarnished doorknobs. Ryzek in particular encouraged her to allow the training room to be built; he always wanted me to become a stronger fighter, convinced that the more deadly I was, the more fear I could provoke on his behalf—to the Shotet, I was just an extension of Ryzek’s power.

Luckily, I liked to practice—not because it made me a stronger fighter, though that was a welcome side benefit, but because I liked how it felt. The heat building, the pounding heart, the productive ache of tired muscles. The pain I chose, instead of the pain that had chosen me.

I once tried to spar against the training soldiers, like Ryzek had as he was learning, but the current’s ink, coursing through every part of my body, caused them too much pain, so after that there were holographic figures in my training room, programmed with different strengths and weaknesses and weapons.

After I warmed up, I turned on my holographic opponent, and attached the simulator to the back of my neck. I winced as I felt the painful squeeze; it was sending fine tendrils into my body to wrap around my spine. They would burrow harmlessly down to my spinal cord, and send signals to imitate the pain of an actual fight.

The hologram flickered into being in the middle of the floor, which was made of a synthetic material taken from the planet Pitha, springy enough to protect my joints but durable enough to protect the equipment beneath it that produced the image.

This hologram was a slight, quick woman made of orange light (my height, designed to mimic me). I bounced on my toes. She wouldn’t move until I was close to her bright form, so I had some time to form my strategy. I had been reading Shotet texts about our long-forgotten form of combat, the school of the mind. Elmetahak. Like so many things in our culture, it was scavenged, taking some of Ogran ferocity and Othyrian logic and our own resourcefulness and melding them until they were inextricable.

Today the words sounding in my head were: once the fighter has deemed the physical conflict both necessary and unavoidable, she must ask herself, not “what am I able to do?” but rather “what is my opponent able to do?” And the answer was easy: my opponent was a computer generated image, programmed to mimic experiences of pain and injury. She would be consistent, but predictable, incapable of moments of true revelation.

I approached her, and she lurched into motion, swinging a fist at my head. I was caught off-guard; the blow landed on my cheek, and the simulator sent a jolt of pain down my spine. I winced, and backed up.

She advanced, fast, and this time I was ready; I spun away from her first kick, and blocked her next punch with my forearm. Then I ran at her, high-kicking at her head (dodged), punching her stomach (successful, but not enough to disable her), and sweep-kicking her knees (useless).

Pummeling different body parts clearly wasn’t working; I straightened, and punched her, fast, again and again, forcing her to focus on blocking instead of footwork. Then I drove my knee into her gut, and she stumbled back, hunched over.

I bent and charged toward her, ramming my shoulder into her chest. We both fell, and when she was flat on her back, I put my knee against her throat, my arm up to block her kicks, which flailed wildly in my direction. After a few seconds she stopped struggling, and the light faded into the floor.

Someone was clapping for me, slowly, from the doorway. Ryzek, his spindly body barely fitting in the door frame. Vas slouched in the hallway behind him. And standing between them, right under the light fixture that cast shifting light over the dark floorboards, was someone I recognized distantly, as if from a dream.

He was tall. He stood like a soldier, straight-backed, like he knew the boundaries of his body and how to move it. Despite that soldiers’ posture, he was thin (gaunt, really, little shadows pooling under his cheekbones), and his face was dappled with bruises and cuts (again?). There was a white bandage wrapped around his right arm—a fresh kill mark, if I had to guess, still healing.

He lifted his eyes to mine (dark gray). It was their wariness—his wariness—that made me remember who he was. Akos Kereseth, third son of the fourth family, now almost a grown man.

All the pain that had been building in my head came rushing back at once, and I seized my head with both hands, stifling a cry. I could hardly see my brother through the haze of tears, but I tried to focus on his face (pale like a corpse).

“Particularly bad today,” I said, through gritted teeth.

“I am glad you were in here for that display,” Ryzek replied. “We can’t have my soldiers knowing how weak you are.”

I absorbed the insult like I was absorbing the agony, coaxing my muscles into relaxing, surrendering to pain.

There were rumors about me all throughout Shotet and Thuvhe, encouraged by Ryzek—maybe those rumors had traveled all throughout the galaxy, since all mouths loved to chatter about the favored lines. They spoke of me killing a man with a touch, of the agony my hands could bring, of an arm littered with kill marks from wrist to shoulder and back again. I was feared and loathed and respected, all at once. But this version of me—this collapsing, whimpering girl who needed to be held up to stay standing—was not that person of rumor. (No one could know.)

“You did well against that hologram,” he added. “We will have to increase its difficulty.”

“I welcome the challenge,” I said, dragging my hands down my face. I tried to straighten, but my very bones ached.

“Let’s not delay this,” Ryzek said, and he beckoned to Akos (wide-eyed now) to follow him into the room. They both drew closer, Akos’s right arm pulled close to his body, like he was trying to stay as far away from Ryzek as possible without disobeying him. Vas followed them in, lurking like a shadow.

“This is Akos Kereseth,” Ryzek said to me, gesturing to the boy. “Third child of the fourth family.”

I heard his fate immediately after his name, like two lines in a childhood rhyme. The third child of the fourth family will die in service to the second family.

“Our faithful servant,” Ryzek added, with a smirk. Judging by the sour twist of Akos’s mouth, he was anything but. Still, I knew how this worked: Eijeh was still our prisoner, and that meant Akos would obey to keep his brother safe.

I had seen Eijeh only once since his arrival. It had been in passing, in a corridor near Ryzek’s office. He had been half-starved, bloodied, dead in the eyes. As Vas muscled him past me, I stared at the hollows above his collarbone, deep trenches now empty of flesh. Either Eijeh Kereseth had an iron will, or he really didn’t know how to wield his currentgift (if I had to bet on one or the other, it would be the latter).

“Akos has a peculiar currentgift that I think you might be interested in, Cyra,” Ryzek said. (Again with that mischief.)

He nodded to Akos, who moved closer to me, and then extended his hand, palm up, for me to take.

I stared at it.

“Take his hand,” Vas whispered. “Trust me, you’ll like it.”

I shuddered at the feeling of his breaths against my neck. Vas couldn’t feel pain, which meant he was the only person I had ever encountered who could touch me with bare hands, and he liked to make sure I knew it. When you get older, he liked to say to me, when Ryzek couldn’t hear him, you may see value in my touch, little Cyra. And I always told him I would rather die alone. It was true.

As I reached for Akos, the darkness spread beneath my skin like spilled ink. I touched my hand to his, and waited for him to scream.

Instead, all the currentshadows ran backward and disappeared. And with them went my pain.

I had been in constant pain since I was eight. Diluted hushflower made it easier to bear, and stronger potions made me sleep, but there was no getting rid of it, no matter how many remedies my mother had tried. Nothing had helped…except this. Except Akos’s hand.

(His skin was rough and dry, like a pebble not yet smoothed by the tide. Yet there was some warmth in it.)

I planted my feet, staring at our joined hands and then at him, at his gray eyes (so tired).

“What is this?” I said to him.

“I interrupt the current.” His voice was surprisingly deep, for someone his age, but it crackled like it was supposed to. “No matter what it does.”

“My sister’s gift is substantial, Kereseth,” Ryzek said. “But it incapacitates her, keeps her from being as useful as she could be. It seems to me that this pairing is exactly how you can best fulfill your fate.” He stood behind Akos and bent close to his ear. “But remember…who really runs this house.”

Akos didn’t move.

I had heard the story of Akos’s capture, his father’s death; how they had dragged him screaming across the Mad Plains; how he had disabled the handcuffs with his current-deadening fingers, stolen Kalmev Radix’s blade, and killed him with it, earning his first mark before he even crossed the Divide. But it hadn’t seemed real until he was standing in front of me. That he had killed. (That he had suffered loss.)

“What are we supposed to do, hold hands everywhere we go?” I said. “What will people think?”

“They will think he is a servant,” Ryzek said, “because that is all that you will show them.” Ryzek stepped toward me, lifting his hand to touch me. I recoiled, yanking my hand from Akos’s grasp and flushing with black tendrils all over again. Ryzek lowered his hand.

“Do I detect ingratitude?” Ryzek said. “Do you not appreciate the efforts I have made to ensure your comfort, what I am giving up by offering you our fated servant as a constant companion?”

“I do,” I said, quietly. I had to be careful. Ryzek could touch me now—all he had to do was have Akos touch me first. The last thing I wanted was more of Ryzek’s memories replacing my own. “Thank you, Ryzek.”

“Of course.” Ryzek straightened, and smiled. “Anything to keep my best general in prime condition.”

But he didn’t think of me as a general; I knew that. The soldiers called me “Ryzek’s Scourge,” the instrument of torment in his hand, and indeed, the way he looked at me was the same way he looked at an impressive weapon. I was just a blade to him.

#

I held the pain in like it was a sneeze until Ryzek and Vas left, and then, when Akos and I were alone, I let it come back. I braced myself against the wall with both hands, jaw clenched, trying hard not to scream.

“How long have you been living this way?” he asked me.

“What way?” I said.

“Like this, keeping your suffering a secret.”

“I came into my gift when I had only been through three sojourns. Seven seasons, I suppose you would say,” I said. “To the great delight of my esteemed father and brother. We all agreed that I would keep the painful aspects of my gift private, for the good of the family.” I paused. “For the good of Shotet.”

He snorted a little, and I wheeled around, shoving him hard against the wall. (I had to address small insults early, or they would grow more unwieldy, in time. My father had taught me that.)

“You will not disrespect me,” I said. “I may be in pain, but I am not weak. Your gift is convenient, but it is not necessary. Understand?”

He looked at my arm, where my sleeve had fallen away, showing the sheath of armor I wore around my left arm, from wrist to elbow. It, like the chest armor I had earned when I was young, was made from the skin of an Armored One, and it was scratched in places from the swipes of sharpened blades. I hardly ever took it off.

“You cover them,” he said. “Your kill marks.”

I pushed him harder into the wall.

“What, you’re not proud?” He smirked without humor. “Ryzek’s Scourge, sister of the man who murdered my father, doesn’t want to show off her brutality?”

I couldn’t hurt him with my gift, but that didn’t mean I couldn’t hurt him. I swung my arm, bringing the back of my hand hard against his face. (I regretted it immediately.)

“You know,” I said, breathless. “I didn’t choose the blood that runs in my veins.”

Then I pulled away, marched out of the room, and sprinted down the hallway to my bedroom. When I reached it, I paced back and forth in front of the fireplace, clutching my head. I didn’t want this; I didn’t want this at all.

Cyra and Akos’s First Kiss - early draft

In this scene, you'll see that Cyra's currentgift didn't always manifest as shadows--in early drafts, it was light that crawled over her skin, causing her pain. Ultimately I decided that the shadows were more interesting, given the revelation she has at the end of The Fates Divide about what they really are. But it was hard to let go of the image of Cyra Noavek glowing like a small sun!

“You okay?” I said.

He didn’t look back. “Not really.”

“She loves you,” I said. “Your mother, I mean.”

“Don’t say that to me right now.”

I nodded, though he couldn’t see me.

“Fine,” I said. “Then I say fuck them. Our parents are sadists and liars. Fuck them.”

He pulled his shirt over his head, and I stepped back, pushing the door closed behind me. He turned at the sound. I felt the lights burning in my cheeks like a blush as I looked over his narrow waist. The bruises that had stained his skin the last time I saw him, cowering on the floor in the basement, were faded now, light brown and green. He wore new scars on his left arm and a new weight on his shoulders, invisible to anyone but me. I knew what Akos Kereseth looked like when he was bearing a burden.

I pressed my hands to my cheeks, briefly, willing myself to calm down. “Dammit,” I said. “I’m sorry, I—”

But he was moving toward me—cautiously at first, one step at a time. Frowning, a crease between his eyebrows. The closer he came, the brighter and more frantic the lights became, until I had to bite my tongue so I wouldn’t cry out at the pain. A strange ferocity came into his eyes, and he pressed into the door, framing my face with his forearms. He was so close I could feel his warmth. He was so close I could taste his breaths. He was so close my entire body was bright.

I flinched, and at the first outward sign of my pain, he pressed a hand to my cheek, extinguishing the current lights so all I had left was the pulse in my face and my hands and the deep ache in my stomach, the ache that was just for him.

“Akos,” I said. “What are you—”

He dropped his hand to my waist, to the strip of skin between my pants and my shirt. Then he bent his head and kissed me.

For a moment I was too shocked to do anything but stand there, but then I put my hands on him. He pulled me closer, his arm wrapping around my back, his hand covering my side, beneath my shirt. Everything was warm and close and muddled for a moment, and then he pressed me against the door again, hard, his teeth closing over my lip. He kissed my throat, hungry and searching, and I cursed myself—loudly—as I pressed him away.

“Akos,” I said. “You’re not okay. This is just… proof.”

“I told you,” he said, speaking straight into my mouth. “Everything has changed. Everything changed when you sent me home.”

He kissed me again, lightly this time, and slowly.

Good news - I'm going on tour for the release of the sequel to Carve the Mark, The Fates Divide! I updated my Goodreads page with all the details for each stop (cue flashing arrows pointing down! the! page!) but here is the overview for you:



At each stop, I'll be joined by another author. In Michigan, California, and Washington, that author will be Somaiya Daud, who wrote the upcoming book Mirage (August 28th, everyone! Mark your calendars!), which is beautiful and smart and amazing. We both write about space and have opinions about all kinds of sci fi things, and if you come see us, you will hear them, oh yes, you will hear them.

In Missouri, Texas, and Florida, that author will be Kara Thomas, author of the fantastic YA thrillers The Darkest Corners, Little Monsters, and the upcoming The Cheerleaders (July 31st! Again, calendars, everyone!). Every time she writes something new I basically black out a day, because I know once I start I won't be able to stop. We both write about complicated friendships and equally complicated women, so if you come see us, you will hear about that, and also what it's like to be married to benevolent trolls and have pets with too many Emotions.

There will also be swag and signing and the shameless recommending of various books. Come hang out with us!