Lauren Kate: Teardrop

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 ofTeardropbecoming 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 inTeardrop: 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.