Teen Readers' Diary: Book Signing Recap: #ELockhartinPH

Tuesday, March 31, 2015

Book Signing Recap: #ELockhartinPH

It has been far too long since we did a recap on the amazing signings we've been to, when in fact a couple of authors have visited Manila for events and whatnot since November (you can check out the photos here and here). Our reasons have been the same and now that school's out (for most of us), we wanted to share with you the wonderful event that is the book signing tour of E. Lockhart in the Philippines.

The Manila leg of the tour and Q&A/forum with the bloggers were held on the 22nd, which Mary Ann, our friend Jello, and I attended. We arrived about fifteen minutes before the event started to chat a little bit and take pictures with some blogger friends.

Emily arrived almost exactly as the forum was scheduled to begin–which was awesome because we were super excited to meet the person behind the powerful and heart-wrenching but totally amazing We Were Liars. The entire Q&A session was very insightful and you can tell that she gives the questions a lot of thought before answering them. Read on to know what we learned about E. Lockhart, her books, and her writing process during the fun and informative Q&A!

Emily Lockhart said that in all her books, her favorite is “The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks ” because the character of Frankie is in lots of way better than her.

There are elements of fairy tale in WWL, would you consider writing another book with this kind of format? Emily like to experiment with formats, and each of the subsequent books in the series of boyfriend list has some kind of instructional device that was a challenge for her. She also said that she always set herself some kind of structural challenge because that’s kind what keeps her writing.

In we were liars how hard was it to tackle with unreliable narrator, what are some difficulties you encounter while writing and what kind of considerations did you make? Emily said that for the first time in WWL. she used different word processor. She the used one called Scrivener which was often used by people who were writing big multi-book fantasy series and because the book poses an amnesia story she had to know where the pieces of the book were. The other thing she did was to share the book with her writing colleagues. Emily also said that she was usually fairly confident in what she have written but with we were liars she was not so confident because she didn't know when people would begin to suspect, whether they would have misleading suspicions that she want them to have and whether they would actually figure it all out.

Of all reading your books one can’t help but notice and appreciate your distinctive and beautiful writing style. How did you grow into it and what advice could you give to aspiring writers who are wanted to develop their own writing style? A breakthrough for her in finding her voice as a storyteller was trying to write like she would talk to a friend. She doesn't make sure that everything is perfectly in order and she doesn't have to be invisible, she could just try to talk on the page.

Who is Emily Lockhart in her younger years? Emily then proceeds to tell us that she went to 2 different HS. The first HS she went to, she was so excited because there was drama and dance and visual arts, though she was completely miserable in this HS. Emily could not get in to any drama productions and she wanted to love these classes which were not fun. In her junior year Emily transferred to a prep school and her parents’ think that these preppies would eat her alive and but she was still the same Emily after going to this school and had friends, boyfriends and got parts in the drama productions. Because she changes schools, had this radically different experience, Emily think it was one of the reasons she keep writing about HS is because she had this radically experiences both culturally and socially.

If there’s one scene that you could change in we were liars what would that be? Emily said that she actually doesn't re read We Were Liars, she made the best book that she knew she had to make and she stop thinking about it. Emily also said that she would probably write some new scenes and change something’s but she’s just thinking all the things she’s changing for her next book.

How did you come up with the unforgettable twist in WWL? Emily told us that she already had this idea; she had the setting and the family in her mind but could not figure out what the story was. So she went to her 2 YA adult’s editor, Donna and Beverly. She told them about her idea on writing about real estate but both her editors suggest for her to add something in the book. One even said about adding dirty and bad things. Emily then went to this worst coffee shop which is right across from her daughter’s school when she was about to pick her up, where she brainstorm for the book and take the whole plot in 10 mins. Those ideas from her editors were staying in the back of Emily’s head for a long time and finally found a way to put them all together.

If you could write about something else, something not quite young adult or HS what would it be and why? A con artist which is going to be her next book set in international jet setting with a little bit of murder.

Which aspects of the family would you like to see exposed in the screen (reality TV show)? Emily said that she kind of like a cooking show, she love their food and she want to know what’s in their food. The Sinclair’s TV Show would be “ The secrets of the Sinclair family kitchen”

What brought you the idea of writing we were liars? When Emily’s looking an idea for a story, where the universal emotions in this, are because she like to write unusual characters that have an unusual voice and way of thinking. In we were liars one of the things Emily wanted to write about is families fighting over property, grown children fighting over parental love and approval and younger kids hearing people fight and that’s an experience that she had and that she think most young people have had.

If you were Cadence and if you have a choice would you actually let them go? Emily said that she don’t think Cadence has a choice. Emily also said that she would let them go because you can’t stay on an island forever you have to go back to the rest of the world.

Your previous books have a comedic element to it compared to WWL, can you tell us the secret on making a suspense novel? Emily said that the truism of mystery writing as opposed to suspense, but in mystery there are 3 or 4 suspects and all of them are lying. If your suspect in a mystery is completely open and telling the truth you figure it out quite quickly that they’re seems to be a suspect, if they’re definitely lying and you just don’t know what’s the lie and what’s the truth then the story is much more interesting. She try to hold that idea in writing WWL even if it’s not really a mystery that all of them would have some truth to them and false to them.

What inspired you to add these fairy tales stories? E Lockhart parents were divorced when she was very little and she and her mother lived in a communal household. They switch houses quite often. They don’t have furniture and just had a bed or any stuff really. One thing that they moved from house to house was a cardboard box full of beautiful late 90th and early 20th century fairy tale collections and was allowed to look these collections under supervision and with clean hands and her mother would watch her very carefully. Much later she found out that these books had been given by her father to her mother during their courtship, a box of marital baggage and were endowed with memories of the courtship. Emily was interested in WWL in writing a story in which objects were endowed with a lot of family baggage and meaning and the fairy tales came naturally because of these collections.

How emotional do you get when you’re writing your stories and what challenges have you had that you incorporating the feels into your works? Emily said that she usually have to push herself in rewrites to put emotions into the book because she’s scared of that and she avoid it on her first draft of novel.

After the Q&A, we lined up to have our books signed and interact with her one-on-one. Emily's such a cool and nice person and we truly enjoyed the time that we got to know her.

Mary Ann and Dea with Emily

Bloggers wearing their awesome We Were Liars shirt

And finally, a picture with all the bloggers at the event. We have no idea what was so funny when the picture on the right was taken. :)

We headed to the public signing and checked out the crowd at the venue after the forum. There, almost three hundred excited fans showed up and were patiently waiting to finally meet E. Lockhart! Check out these pictures from the book signing event below (you can find more here).