Shaun David Hutchinson is the editor of this incredible book and he also wrote a chapter entitled “The Perfect Shot,” which is a double entendre. I’m featuring his questions and answers below. We cover his chapter and the process for writing a book with seventeen authors.
The Perfect Shot—Shaun David Hutchinson
A clever and disturbing double entendre, this is the only chapter from the POV of a character who Kirby kills. Why?
Killing characters helps me channel my inner Joss Whedon. I feel like I haven’t fully completed a book if I haven’t killed someone off.
Seriously, though. When I pitched the idea to the writers I was hoping would sign on, the idea was that each story would be from the point of view of a victim. Someone Kirby had wounded or killed. I’d already written an early draft of my story by the time we finished all the paperwork and the other writers started throwing their ideas out there. It became clear pretty quickly that my idea of what constituted a victim was too narrow. The authors came up with brilliant ideas, and I didn’t want to hold them back.
But I was happy with Billie’s story. It felt complete to me, so even though we’d broadened the scope of the stories, I still felt like Billie’s story worked in the overall context of the book.
As the editor of this book, why did you want to explore so many secrets, many of them horrible? We have a book full of suffering. Transgender issues, eating disorders, child abuse. The book paints a scary picture of high school. Is this really what it is like now?
Well, I mean, high school is a scary place; I think it always has been. Going back to my Joss Whedon influence, Buffy the Vampire Slayer is an entire show based around the idea that school is quite literally hell, and that show worked because people could relate to that central idea. But it’s also awesome. I had a difficult time in high school because I thought everyone else was living a life of ponies and rainbows while I slogged through a pit of suffering. But they were dealing with their own shit too, and now that I can look back on those years, I recognize that they were also filled with some amazing times.
I don’t enjoy writing about people suffering, but people do suffer, and I won’t ever shy away from showing that. I think if people can see and understand that they’re not the only ones suffering and that they don’t have to suffer alone, maybe the world will seem a little less horrible.
How did you all work together to weave the characters into each other’s stories?
We used an online collaboration tool called Trello. It allowed us to share characters and places as we built the world, feeding off of each other’s ideas. We also made a lot of connections during the editing process. If I saw a way to connect a person or idea in one story with another, I’d suggest it to the authors to get their input, and they were always game.
We also shared early versions of our stories when possible. I have this crazy flowchart mapping the connections between the stories. It’s a web of awesome. I was blown away by how well the collaboration worked. The authors exceeded my wildest dreams.
I’d like you to comment on what I see as the central theme of the book: the masks we wear. This entire book is about how we don’t know what is really going on in someone else’s life and mind. Did you discuss this as a group? Do agree with what I see as the central theme?
I do think it’s one of the themes, and definitely an important one. We didn’t discuss it beforehand though. When we began, it was with only the most necessary details. I didn’t want to do anything that might limit the writers’ imaginations.
But I do think it grew naturally out of the subject matter. I’d probably distrust anyone who says they don’t have anything to hide. Especially in high school. And with each writer exploring who Kirby was through the lens of their own narrator, I’m not surprised many created characters with secrets of their own.
And that is definitely something I wanted people to take away from the book. The need to understand why someone could commit such a horrific act leads us to want to slap labels on the shooter. To stuff him into a neat little box. He was this or he was that. But nobody is ever just one thing. We’re all microcosms of pain and happiness and insecurity and hilarious contradictions. When a school shooting occurs, people look for the “why.” They want to blame it on violent video games or guns or mental illness so that they can profile students and stop the next potential shooter. But those profiles don’t work. My personal belief is that the only way to prevent school shootings is to stop trying to find school shooters based on some flavor-of-the-week profile, and start treating teens like real people with real problems. Get to know them. Try to help them. You never know what mask they’re wearing or what secret pain they might be using it to hide.
I’m sad that Kirby kills Billie without knowing how she felt about him. I think she would have been someone he liked and saved like Jenny.
I wish Kirby had gotten to know Billie, too. I think in the same way Billie recognizes some part of herself in Kirby, he would have recognized some part of himself in her. I knew that her death would be polarizing, especially since she’s the only transgender character in the book. She’s also the first transgender character I’ve ever written, so I felt the pressure to do my best to write her well. That’s why I made the decision for Kirby to shoot her before she has the opportunity to speak to him. Billie dies because she’s in the wrong place at the wrong time, not because she’s transgender. It’s an important distinction to me, and one I wanted to make certain was very clear.
In another story written by me in a parallel universe, I think if Billie had reached Kirby a day earlier, maybe he wouldn’t have brought the gun to school that day.
