Before I Fall

LAUREN OLIVER

1. Which book would you pick to curl up with in front of a fire on a winter day?

A stack of them! Matilda by Roald Dahl, the book I used to reread religiously every time I was sick; Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen, another book I have read about a dozen times; anything by Dickens, particularly The Pickwick Papers if you want to giggle or David Copperfield if you plan on being snowed in for a looong time; His Dark Materials by Philip Pullman; The Tale of Despereaux, by Kate DiCamillo; an Agatha Christie mystery; Vanity Fair, by Thackeray (again, more for a week long blizzard than a snow day).

2. Would you want to know which day would be your last?

Oof! That’s a tough one. On the one hand, there’s the danger that if you don’t know, you might frivol away your final day worrying about minutiae—or going out to dinner with a particularly annoying relative you only see once every few years, or just sitting at home watching reruns of Glee on Hulu and noshing on frozen pizza (not that that would be so terrible. . . )

On the other hand, there’s the danger that if you do know, you’ll spend your last day worrying about how little time remains to you, rather than just really embracing your final moments and enjoying yourself fully.

But yes, I think ultimately I would want to know, because I would want to assemble all of my closest family and friends at a big, yummy Italian restaurant, where I would eat bread and pasta and flourless chocolate cake to my heart’s content, and tell every single person in my life how much he/she means to me, and laugh and cry and hug and just bask in feeling loved and connected.

3. Is Cupid Day based on something that happened in your own life?

Definitely. My high school actually had a Cupid Day every year (as far as I know, they still do), although my friends have pointed out that we exchanged carnations, not roses as they do in the book. Otherwise, the principle was essentially the same: About a week before Cupid Day (which was scheduled to fall as close to Valentine’s Day as possible), students would purchase “valograms” for their friends (notes that would be delivered along with a colored carnation). Just as they do in the book, people totally freaked out about how many flowers they could expect. Every year before Cupid Day, people extracted frantic promises from their semi-friends and quasi-boyfriends, an immense school wide barter: If you send me a flower, I’ll send you a flower, etc. For one day, people’s social currency—in essence, their popularity—would be proudly on display in the form of a large bouquet of cheap carnations.

If a student did not receive a single valogram—I assume all valogram requests were vetted or processed through the administration somehow—the principal’s office would actually send one to that student. Receiving a valogram from the administration was widely regarded as a fate worse than death.

4. Did you have a core group of girlfriends in high school? How did they influence your life?

Wow, that’s another tough one. The first part is easy; yes, I did have a core group of girlfriends from high school, and there are four of us (Jackie, Laura, Lauren, Deirdre) who are still best friends. Recently we were all reunited for my birthday party—Deirdre even drove down from Maine to attend! I know that by saying there are four of us, I invite comparisons to the group of best friends in Before I Fall, so I have to quickly clarify that my friends and I are much, much nicer than Sam and her three BFFs! Although certain details of the main characters were, of course, influenced by my real-life best friends (my friend Deirdre loves the color green, just like Elody in Before I Fall, and my friend Laura used to pick me up for school every day and take me to Dunkin’ Donuts, where we would both get a large hazelnut, no sugar, extra cream, just like the girls do in the book), Sam, Elody, Ally, and Lindsay are otherwise fictitious.

What is truthful to my experience, however, is the way that the girls feel about one another. My best friends are the core and the center of my life; my sense of self and place and purpose is built around them, to a large degree, just like a tree grows concentric layers, or rings, outward as it ages. My best friends are my inner rings, I guess you would say. They have influenced my life in every way because they have influenced who I am, and how I relate to the world. They have known me and been there for all the major events of my life—through temper tantrums and broken hearts, through my parents’ divorce, through college, through more broken hearts, through the death of my deepest, deepest love, through fights with my family and reconciliations and deep uncertainties about my career, myself, my future—and throughout everything, miraculously, they have brought me continuous joy.

I believe that fundamentally, everyone looks to be recognized and seen for his or her “real” self. Everyone wants to be truly known; it is impossible to feel loved without simultaneously feeling known. My friends have allowed me to feel known and, as a result, loved.

It’s funny. The four of us are very different, but in many ways we complement one another perfectly. A long time ago we each assigned ourselves one of the elements: I’m Fire, Deirdre is Earth, Jackie is Air, Laura is Water. This summer, Deirdre and I got matching Earth, Air, Fire, Water tattoos on our backs. (Jackie and Laura have always been tat-free, so we didn’t force them to go in on it.) I have ten tattoos, but I think that might be my favorite.

5. What suggestions do you have for aspiring writers?

The best advice is really the simplest: write! Write every single day, without exception, even if you just manage to get down a few hundred words. Writing is difficult and not writing is easy—but the best writers really are, I think, the most disciplined. Writing is just like every other pursuit on the planet, from piano playing to Sudoku to cooking: the only way to get better at it is to practice.

I also think it helps to read widely and voraciously. Even books you hate will teach you something (even if the something is a long list of What Never to Do When You Write). Writing is, essentially, problem solving. How can I get Carrie to meet Ryan in a realistic way? How can I write dialogue that’s believable? Would Megan ever slap her older sister in the face? Everything I’ve ever read has helped me solve at least one problem.

The last piece of advice I have is to try and suspend the critical voices—whether they come from external sources (parents, teachers), or from the inner critic in all of us—that would tell you writing is unfeasible, overly competitive, a dying industry, blah blah blah. Yawn. Negative people are so boring! Avoid them at all costs. I recently found a quote I really responded to: Judgment is the enemy of invention. So true. So write without allowing yourself or anyone else to judge the merits of your work. There will be plenty of time for that later, when you’re published and the reviews start rolling in!