Author Robyn Schneider (“The Beginning of Everything,” “Extraordinary Means”) is taking advantage of her stay in Asia. After her National Book Store signing, she hopped on a plane to Japan and continued her Asian tour in Beijing.
When we first read “The Beginning of Everything,” a story told from the point of view of a teenage male protagonist, we couldn’t help but make comparisons to John Green. Like Green, Robyn had a captivating writing style and created intelligent characters with heart.
In Inquirer Super’s interview with Robyn, she tells us how “The Fault In Our Stars” created inadvertent pressure for her, how being an A student made her miss out on experiences, and how ditching medical school was the best decision of her life.
How did you, Katie (Cotugno), and Melissa (Kantor) end up touring together?
We have the same publisher and the fans were really excited about our books. You don’t read just one, it’s like a potato chip where you need more so they did a collection of our three books together.
Fans have been asking for a sequel to “The Beginning of Everything.”
I’m not likely to write a continuation of that story but I do think that there is more of the story than what I wrote, definitely the two of them would come home from college at the same time for Christmas break and would likely run into each other but I don’t know what would happen. That’s up to readers to imagine what would happen if they need more closure for the story. I can’t guess. Once I finish with a character, they kind of feel like a real person to me and real people don’t have endings so I can’t imagine their future.
Barnes & Noble did not care for that title. The title was kept in the UK because they had already paid for the cover designer. I was really attracted to the idea of having a pretentious literary title with a comma in the middle, and, really, the story was about severed heads and broken hearts, it was about these two great tragedies. I realized what Barnes & Noble objected to and it wasn’t the title, it was the fact that the title was like an in joke that people will only understand after they read the book and I think it’s very lucky that they caught that.
What was the inspiration for “Extraordinary Means?”
I was in graduate school for bioethics, which was a fancy way of getting a medical degree with extra parts to it, which was great because I didn’t finish the medical degree, just the extra parts. I have now a fancy hat but no head to put it on. I was taking a course called Cinema of Contagion and we were learning about medical narratives, like the tropes most people have humanizing what it is like to be sick.
I started thinking about writing a teenage medical narrative, and then I got really interested in the idea of tuberculosis because all of the stories were told when tuberculosis was in fashion as a storytelling trope—it existed before people knew it was contagious.
You get stories like “Moulin Rouge” where people are kissing this girl who has tuberculosis and nobody is like, “Stop kissing her, you’ll die.” I thought it would be a different story if people knew what the disease was and were afraid of it and I haven’t read anything like that so I wanted to try my hand at it.
What happens if you get something now that’s contagious? We have a lot of stories these days about cancer, where your friends and family sit by your bedside, and hold your hand and say, “You’re so brave.” The idea of somebody having cancer is to fight through it and keep living as much of their life as they are able and to do things like Make A Wish and go on a beautiful trip to Amsterdam. But if you have something contagious, people don’t give you more, they take away what you have. I thought that was the black version of the story, a total opposite of what happens if you have something contagious and nobody wants to root for you anymore.
Getting over my own fears was the hardest part. I was very afraid to write this book.
I started writing it at the same time I started writing “The Beginning…” and I gave both manuscripts to my agent. I had 80 pages of “The Beginning…” and 30 pages of “Extraordinary Means,” and I said, “Which one do I finish first?” And she said “The Beginning of Everything.”
And so “The Beginning…” sold three weeks after “The Fault In Our Stars” was published and “Extraordinary Means” sold along with it. This was a book I had written before the story of two sick teens falling in love became the most popular teenage story in the world and, having to sit there and finish the book, having already sold it and quit school to be a writer, and now watching as the world champions this very awkwardly similar story was terrifying and I kept being afraid to write this one scene because it might feel too similar or to write this one character because it might feel too similar.
I felt there were a lot of pathways that were already taken that I didn’t know would be so crowded when I started writing the book. And I think I was very scared sometimes to keep going but I’m really glad I wrote it. I think it’s a very different story with very different themes. It’s just, man, I wish I had finished writing it three years ago instead.
From bioethics to becoming an author, how did that come about?
I always dreamed of being a novelist, but it didn’t feel very practical to me and I was very into school and into studying. I identified hugely with Hermione from Harry Potter. When you’re good at school, people are not telling you to go out and write novels, they’re telling you to be a doctor, a lawyer, go to business school. It’s hard not to listen and say there’s something different in my heart. I kept writing as a hobby while studying things that were practical and eventually I submitted “The Beginning of Everything” to an agent and she submitted it to publishers and it sold very, very quickly, and there was a bidding war for the book and my next title, too. Suddenly I had this offer to become a full-time writer and I couldn’t turn it down at that point. It was like people had realized what my dream was and there it was right in front of me.
Speaking of Hermione, Harry Potter played a huge role in “Extraordinary Means.”
I really loved the Harry Potter fandom. I think they’re such a cool group of people and I think it’s wonderful that there is a community based on loving a series of books. For me, if I had had access to something like that as a teenager I think I would’ve been so much braver, extroverted and open to living my dream. It would’ve been so wonderful if I had had that so I very selfishly try and give my characters things that I couldn’t have for myself so I can live vicariously through them.
I think what’s so interesting about Harry Potter to the characters in “Extraordinary Means” is the fact that if they squint, they can almost pretend that they have been taken away from the Muggle world and sent off to some boarding school where they’re special and they can sneak around and break the rules and have this great destiny. And even if it isn’t true, it’s like a coping mechanism for Sadie and her friends to think about parallels to something wonderful to somewhere that everybody wishes they could be as opposed to acknowledging they’re somewhere not so great.
Most of your characters are overachievers like you. Do you regret being so focused on your studies when you were a teenager?
It’s important to do well in school and learn things that are interesting to you, not just to try and get the best grades. It’s important to also live your life and experience your moments without having them pass you by and sacrificing your happiness just because you think in the future you’ll have something great. It’s not always the best plan.
I missed out on a lot of experiences. I was studying to get into a top medical school and I missed a lot of things most people do in college because of it and I regret that. I see these people who have best friends from college and these crazy stories, and all I can remember is Friday night in the library.
What are you working on?
I’m involved with early stages of trying to get a movie adaptation off the ground for “Extraordinary Means.” I’m also writing two new books that I’m working on at the same time, which I suspect is how I do it, and then I’ll give my agent both and ask her which one to publish first, except this time I might not choose the one she says just to see what happens. (Laughs) The two books are a little different than the ones I’ve done but they’re both coming-of-age themes and teenagers but a little different than my two previous titles.
All your books have not-so-happy endings. Will we see a happily ever after from you soon?
I’m trying to do that. I think I write hopeful endings to my books. I’m trying to write a hopeful plus happy ending next time just to see if I can. The book I’m writing is not told in chronological order and it definitely begins with somebody who’s dead, so, oops.
Robyn Schneider’s books are available at National Book Store. Buy online from https://nationalbookstore.com.ph. Like on Facebook bit.ly/nationalbookstore and follow on Twitter and Instagram: @nbsalert