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Q: Are any of the characters or events from your books based on real people or events in your life, or is it mostly fictional?

A: I think most of it is fictional, but I think that all stories start with a little bit of truth. I’ll take something that happened to me, or that happened to one of my friends, and just add on to it and twist it, because I find that if I write about stuff that happens to me, it’s not very interesting. But I definitely have drawn on experiences that happened to me in high school. In Someone Like You, the most popular boy in school is killed, and this happened when I was in 9th grade, and I always thought of it as a real watershed moment for me, where the first time somebody had died that was my age, and that I knew, and I used that in the story, but everything that came after, I made up. 

Q: Are there any characters that you particularly relate to?

A: Well, I think they’re all me in some way, but I think some of them are definitely more like me than others. I would say that Haley from Someone Like You is a lot like I was when I was in high school - a little quieter, had a very big group of dynamic girlfriends, who were loud, and funny, and beautiful…I just kind of trailed along behind them. It was my job to remember everything. I was the one that remembered all the stories and everything that happened to everybody - I was like the oracle. But I think they all are me, …they’ve sort of reflected me, or things that have happened to me. I think with Ruby, in Lock and Key, I was pregnant when I was writing that book, and so much of that book is about family, and what family means, and how you connect with your family, and the families that you make, and the families that you’re born into. And then with Auden, in Along for the Ride, it is so much about a girl who has been pushing herself so hard, that she hasn’t really taken time to enjoy her life, and I sort of felt that way about my career, because I’d been pushing myself so hard that I sort of forgot how to enjoy writing, and that really helped me get back in touch with that. I think the one that I’m the least like is Remy, in This Lullaby. She was really my favorite to write, though, because she was so not like me, and initially I was like I can’t write this character, I was never like this in high school, I wasn’t confident, I didn’t have all the boyfriends. It was great though, it was so much fun to step into her shoes and get to be that kind of girl for a few months. I still love Remy for that reason. I would love to write another character like that. And I’ve always said if I was going to make a sequel, it would probably be for This Lullaby, so I could go back to Remy and Dexter. But I don’t know a bout a sequel. I wouldn’t want to take away from the original book by doing a sequel. 

Q: Is there anywhere in particular from where you get your inspiration, like your family, or things you see?

A: I think just from everything around me; I mean, I tend to keep my eyes open. I definitely get inspiration from high school and the things that happened to me then, and the things that I wished happened to me, or never happened to me but what if they had kind of thing. But I do draw from everywhere, I mean obviously with Along for the Ride, I had just had a baby, so I was interested in writing about that.  I didn’t really want to write about a teenager with a baby because that’s a much different experience, and so I thought it would be fun to work everything that I was going through into the book and the characters. Usually, when a book is building in my head, I say it’s kind of like making a soup - I have a pot on the stove and I just throw things in for a while and I’ll just see something and be like “oh, that’s kinda cool, maybe I’ll want to use that” and I’ll just write it down till I have a big collection and then I sit down and really try to cobble it together. But it comes from all the places, again in Along for the Ride, the reason Auden was up all night was because I was up all night for the first time. It’s a whole different world, in the middle of the night, that I didn’t even know existed, so you sort of draw from all over the place.

Q: Do you not always know where your stories are going or do you have them planned out from the start?

A: I have a general plan. I’ve never been an author who has an outline with a total plan of how everything’s gonna go. I like to have what I call a skeleton - I have my first scene, my last scene, and the climactic scene, and the first line, because that way at least I’m working towards something. I’ve started books without that, and it’s disastrous, I usually get like 400 pages in and nothing’s happened yet, so I need to have a sense of where I’m going.  But I also don’t like to be too hemmed in - then I’ll get maybe 50 pages in and something will happen,  and I’ll be like “oh, there’s the story” and if you’re not open to that, well…. I’m very list prone, and organized, and I know if I did draw out a plan, I’d feel like I’d have to follow it, and I wouldn’t be able to open myself up to whatever else came down the pike. It’s often the unexpected stuff that’s so much fun. It’s kind of scary to just step out there on the blank page and see what’ll happen. I’d much prefer to be the other way, but I just can’t work like that. 

Q: What are your favorite books or authors or genres? 

A: Well, my favorite book of all time is A Prayer for Owen Meany, by John Irving, which is just one of those books I can read over and over again. I love his work. I also love Anne Tyler, who is a southern writer, who basically writes tons of books, and puts out a good book every couple years or so. She’s like my dream person - like people say, “Who would you have dinner with if you could have dinner with anybody?” It would be her. As far as young adult books, I really like John Greene’s books; Laurie Halse Anderson I also really like, but I don’t read as much YA, especially when I’m working, I don’t like to read YA, because I don’t really want to know what everybody else is doing. I do better when I don’t read YA because it just makes me second guess like crazy. I grew up reading a lot of southern literature. I grew up in a very writing-rich area, so I could go to the grocery store and see writers and then go home and read their books. 

Q: In all your books, your protagonists are girls. Would you ever consider a male protagonist? 

A: I think it would be fun, but I don’t know if I could. I’m worried that if I wrote a guy narrator that he would just sound like one of my girls. All we did back in high school with my friends, was sit around and wonder what guys were thinking. That’s all we did, like [a guy] would say something to you in the hallway, and you would sit with your friends and think what does that mean?  So I have no idea if I could write a whole book based on what a guy is thinking. But never say never! I think other people have been able to do it well, and it might be interesting to try. I kinda feel like I need to shake things up a bit, and this next book is going to be my 10th book! So there has to be something different. 

Q: When did you start writing? Was it something that you always did or did it just hit you at one point? 

A: Well, I loved to write when I was a kid. I was a big reader and a big writer, and I had a typewriter in the corner of our t.v. room, and I would sit there and type up my little stories, but I didn’t take it seriously. I did do a little bit in high school, but we didn’t really have good writing classes. When I got to college, I took a creative writing class, just for fun, and the first day of class, I thought, this is what I want to do. I had really good teachers at UNC, who really believed in me, more so than I had ever believed in myself. I wrote one book in college, my first novel, and nobody ever saw it, because it was terrible. And I was like, that’s it. I wrote my book, I’m done, now I’m gonna go get a real job, and be an actual person. But then another story just started to come bubble up in my head, and I thought, oh well, another one, and then it just kept going. But I never really thought I could do it. I still have a really hard time admitting that I’m an author. I’m not the most confident writer. 

Q: Do you have any tips for young writers? 

A: The main thing is to read as much as you can get your hands on, because even if you can take lots of writing classes and go to writing seminars, you really learn by seeing how other people handle their stories. And also, just believe in yourself. People are always going to be tearing you down, so have a good group of supportive friends.

Q: What do you like to do when you’re not writing? Any hobbies? 

A: I hang a lot with my daughter, which is fun, she’s 2. I watch a lot of television, I’m embarrassed to say, but not during the day. I have a rule - no t.v. during the day, but I do love my shows. I just like to hang out with my friends. I used to be a big shopper, but I don’t have as much time to shop anymore. I like going to the movies, reading US Weekly, things like that. I love to read, and be outside in the garden. But right now, my life pretty much consists of grocery shopping, hanging out with my daughter, and trying to work on a book.

Q: Was Owen from Just Listen based off of Heath Ledger from 10 Things I Hate About You? 

A: No! I actually haven’t seen that movie. His name came from A Prayer for Owen Meany and Lance Armstrong because I was really into Lance Armstrong at the time. He was actually a lot of fun to write. Guy characters are getting harder and harder to write. I’m trying to not write the same guy character over and over again.

Sarah Dessen was interviewed by Aditi, Michelle, and Mythili