The Story is About   +  novel

Brenna Yovanoff

Books:

• The Replacement

  

  (September 1, 2010)

Edward Scissorhands meets The Catcher in the Rye in this wildly imaginative and frighteningly beautiful horror novel about an unusual boy and his search for a place to belong.

The Replacement has a love story, but I really felt like the novel was character driven. What was your favorite character to write and why?

You could ask me this on a different day and get a different answer so don't hold me to it, but my favorite character to write was probably the Morrigan. She was always a lot of fun and I don't recall ever getting stuck when it came to her voice or motivation or temperament—she just knew what she wanted to do and did it.

I've seen The Replacement described as 'horror' or 'creepy' and I read that you were inspired by Shirley Jackson’s short story “The Lottery.” (which I read myself in the seventh grade and it has haunted me since then.) What three words would you use to describe The Replacement?

Eerie, whimsical, grotesque.

As a debut author, what advice would you give to a writer hoping to publish a novel someday?

I know it sounds kind of cliché, but I think the best possible advice I could give someone is to write all the time—whenever you can. Writing takes a lot of practice, and improvement happens over a long timeline. So make sure you do it every day if you can, even if it's just a few lines. Even if it doesn't feel like much, each of those lines is going toward making you a better writer.

What was the most challenging aspect of writing The Replacement?

The most challenging thing was probably just figuring out the right way to tell the story. I'm one of those people who gets hung up on the fact that there are infinite possibilities when it comes to writing, and my drafts varied wildly from each other as a result. After the first couple drafts, the sequence of events stayed pretty much the same, but the actual scenes still changed a lot from draft to draft.

Are there any other genres that you'd like to write? (contemporary fiction, high fantasy, etc.)

I would absolutely love to write contemporary YA. I read a lot of it growing up and when I first started writing in junior high and high school, that's mostly what I wrote. Somewhere down the line, I'd really like to go back to it.

Changelings, fae, etc... have deep roots in folklore. Did you do any research for The Replacement? Did you learn anything interesting in that research? (if, in fact you did research)

I did do some research for The Replacement, but I've found changeling lore really fascinating since I was little, so I already had a pretty solid background in the basics. However, for the book I'm working on now (which deals with Judeo-Christian demons), I had to do lots of research and I know way more about demon hierarchies than I ever thought I would.

If you could ask yourself any interview question, what would it be, and what would be the answer?

Hmm, it would probably be something like, “Brenna, you talk constantly about how much you like zombies, but also about how much you like—say—Pixy Stix. How can you possibly reconcile these two very different natures?”

To which I would say, “I don't know, I just do.”

Thanks so much for having me, Kristi!

I also have a copy of The Replacement up for grabs for one lucky winner!

Official Contest information:

• to enter, please fill out the form below
• entrants must be 13 years of age or older
• contest deadline is Novemberber 20, 2010
• contest open to US Residents Only*
• ONE ENTRY PER PERSON!
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