Recently I got to interview Lucienne Diver about her her book with the awesome new cover, Fangdemonium AND was gifted an excerpt. So fun and exciting. Read on…
1. How is writing for YA different than writing for adults? 
It’s not all that different, really. I go where the voice takes me. I think the important thing is to sink so deeply into your character’s mind and heart (which can be a frightening thing when it comes to Gina!) that what pours out onto the page is them, purely them. If your character is young adult with concerns based on that phase of life, your narrative will be young adult. That’s not to say there aren’t plenty of wonderful adult novels with protagonist who start off or stay young. The difference is in the concerns, themes, and overall storyline.
For me, the biggest difference in writing for the young adult market is my heat level. Each author and each publishing line has a certain level they’re comfortable with when it comes to younger characters, and it’s partly informed by the needs of the story and the background of those characters. My hero and heroine are pretty hot and heavy for each other, but they close the door on things before I get to the point of learning what they have or haven’t done. I’m good with this. My family has made denial into an art form. I might have taken it to the next level.
2. How does your work as an agent affect your writing? Are you ever satisfied?
I write first thing in the morning before the critical, agent-y side of my brain wakes up. Once it does, I second guess myself; I get into rather than out of my own way. For my creative side to shine, I need to have the freedom to fail. I need to be able to get it wrong to get it down on the page. I can always fix things in revisions.
Am I ever satisfied? Well, not exactly. There will be stages of writing where I think, “Hey, I don’t hate this. I think this novel might be pretty good. Maybe the best I’ve ever written.” Then other stages where I think, “This is dreck. Why do I think I can write?” The confidence and doubt come in waves. Luckily, I have an amazing husband who reminds me that I go through this each time and live to tell the tale. He says that at the moment I hate it, I’m too close, like looking at a bare rockface and not realizing it’s part of a big, beautiful mountain. (His analogy. See why I love him?)
I know that my clients go through this as well, and that’s comforting. I’ve had authors tell me they’re sure they should scrap the novel they’ve just written only to have it become an award-winner and their biggest seller. Sometimes the novels that cost us the most, that wring us out and leave us sucking air, are the most rewarding in the end.
3. What is it you like most about this particular book?
I really adore how much Gina has grown over the course of the series and how much, I think, I’ve grown as a writer. Both Gina and Fangdemonium have more depth than in the earlier Vamped books, and that’s very satisfying to me. I’ve always had so much fun writing this series, but now I feel like something deeper has developed as well.
But that’s not the fun answer! The fun answer is that I absolutely love being back with Gina and her fanged and fabulous band of misfits. Most of all, I love having the freaky/deadly/dangerous Alistaire back to play with. Or to play with us, really, as I have no control over him whatsoever.
4. If you asked any character, “What is it you want most in the world, what would he or she say?”
Gina just wants the world to be beautiful. Not only in the physical sense, but overall. People should love and accept each other. Without power struggles, bigotry and bias there’d be so much more time for shopping. (And far fewer fashion disasters caused by stakes, beheadings and bullet holes.)
EXCERPT:
“You okay?” Bobby asked, squeezing my hand. “I mean, that’s good, right? Your parents—”
“Never cared about a thing in their lives,” I cut in.
“It’s easy to take for granted what’s right in front of you, but once it’s gone—”
“So, like, distance makes the heart grow fonder and all that? That’s what you’re saying?” It came out a little hostile. Well, I felt a little hostile. Not at Bobby, but he was there and my parents weren’t. Like always. If they cared so much, why weren’t they there to greet me. If they knew I was alive . . .
“I’m saying that maybe they didn’t realize what they had until they lost it. Lost you.”
“Give me a minute,” I said, taking my hand back and turning away so that whether he was there or not, he couldn’t see my momentary pity party. Weren’t we vamps supposed to be soulless? Shouldn’t that mean less pain and torment?
Bobby touched my hair, just lightly, and a blood tear started to form in the corner of my eyes. Then he was gone and I was left in the van alone. Like I’d always been. Really. At heart.
My parents had always been too busy with their own thing. And I was never interesting enough to draw them away from all that. Nothing but a pretty little doll to dress up and show off and then banish out of sight, out of mind. Once in a while to take down off the shelf and play with in beachy pictures meant to present the image of a happy family or for a day at the spa so Mom wouldn’t have to eat her lunch alone. It wasn’t like I’d been brilliant or intriguing or . . .
Except maybe now. Maybe that’s what this was all about. Now I was a curiosity. Not unique, as far as the undead went, but certainly a talking point. Something to set them apart from their friends. Your daughter is a neurosurgeon. So funny, mine has conquered death. Oh, you don’t know? Eternal youth and beauty, an all blood diet. It’s quite the thing now. They did a whole segment on her on Ghouligans. She’s famous!
ABOUT FANGDEMONIUM:
Fanged and fabulous…and hunted.
Gina Covella, fashionista of the fanged, and her entourage are primed to reveal the existence of vampires on the popular Ghouligans television show, when their former federal handlers swoop in to shut them down and imprison the vamps in one of their super secret testing facilities. Or not so secret, as the gang knows all about the horror hospitals and has sworn to take them down.
Their daring escape runs them right into the arms of “the resistance”—a group of humans and vampires who’ve joined together to stop the fighting that’s made Gina and her boy Bobby’s hometown a bloody battlefield. Going home brings them back to old nemeses as well, including the psycho psychic who declared Gina “chaos” and Bobby “the key”. They hope he’ll unlock the secret of stopping the Feds’s freakshow experiments for good, because they’re building up to something big. Huge. And they’re consolidating their power in the Big Easy, aka New Orleans, where what’s cooking is nothing less than the final showdown.
Publisher: Lore Seekers Press
Price: $6.99
Release date: July 17th, 2017
ASIN: B073BMFDJ8
Purchase Link:
Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Fangdemonium-Vamped-Book-Lucienne-Diver-ebook/
About LUCIENNE DIVER
Lucienne Diver is the author of Vamped young adult series (think Clueless meets Buffy) and the Latter-Day Olympians urban fantasy series from Samhain, which Long and Short Reviews called “a clever mix of Janet Evanovich and Rick Riordan”. Her short stories have appeared in the KICKING IT anthology edited by Faith Hunter and Kalayna Price (Roc Books), the STRIP-MAULED and FANGS FOR THE MAMMARIES anthologies edited by Esther Friesner (Baen Books) and her essay “Abuse” was published in DEAR BULLY: 70 Authors Tell Their Stories (HarperCollins). More information can be found on her website: www.luciennediver.com
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