New Veronica Roth Interview: WBEZ 91.5

Today, WBEZ 91.5 released an interview between Claire Zulkey & Veronica Roth!

They talked about Insurgent, touring, tea, and a whole lot more.

Here’s a little taste:

Between writing, editing, promoting and all the other parts that have come so far from Insurgent and Divergent, what have been the most difficult moments for you? Have there been any hurdles where you thought, “I’m not sure I can do this, or do this right”?

I think every writer has a little voice in his or her head that critiques them as they write, stifling their creativity, so the most difficult part is writing the next book while people are reacting to the last one. I don’t read reviews, but I still hear a lot of feedback. Most people only approach me with good feedback, which is better for my sanity, but still tricky! And that can be difficult, because each piece of feedback creates another voice. It was hard enough for me to suppress that one voice of my internal editor, let alone the many that have cropped up since Divergent came out. I still haven’t figured out how to make them all shut up and let me write, dammit! I am hopefully getting better at that as I go.

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What are some of the most useful lessons you’ve ever learned from your writing teachers?

Oh man, so many. “A story is like a backpack” is one of my favorites– meaning, if you are hiking, you only pack as much as you need to get to the top of the mountain (and back down). In a similar way, in a story, you should only include what you need to get to the end. That piece of advice does a LOT for my pacing. I also like “write sh*tty first drafts,” “murder your darlings,” “don’t compare yourself to other writers,” and “the ending is somewhere in there, you just have to find it.” One of my teachers also made me realize, probably without knowing it, that my best writing happens when I’m not trying too hard—it happens sort of by accident. And I think that’s true of most writers

To read the rest of the interview, click here.

Tags: Interview, Veronica Roth, Veronica Roth Interview, WBEZ 91.5