Letters from Lauren

Lauren Kate has created characters who’ve inspired a global following, countless pieces of fan art, YouTube tributes and a major motion picture. Here’s some thoughtful and inspiring advice Lauren dished out for would-be authors.

Fill your head with inspiration
I need all the help I can get to finish my stories. Music, other novels, eavesdropping on couples arguing in airports, hikes with my dog – all these things help me when I get blocked. I struggle with first drafts every time, and I’ve learned by now just to push through them, that I can and do always go back and make them better

Think of your characters as real people
One of the reasons that Luce ends up with Daniel is so that I could have Cam. I think of Lucinda and Daniel as puzzle pieces. I got to know Lucinda first, then crafted Daniel to ‘fit’ her. Every time she evolved, which was all the time, I had to rethink Daniel so that he would continue to fit her perfectly

Plan your story . . . but don’t always stick to that plan
I had a plan for some of the lives I wanted Luce and Daniel to visit, but once I started writing, I learned new things about them and had to adjust to visit new places I knew they needed to go. I thought I knew the ending of Rapture and of Waterfall – and in both cases, what I thought was the climax did happen, but it wasn’t the climax. I had to go so much deeper and darker than I initially thought to reach the right ending for the series. It shocked me.

Your first draft will be very different to the published book
If my first draft is 350 pages, it shrinks down to 275 in the second draft, then blows up to 350 again by the end – but it’s a completely different story. I love to revise and do it on a big scale with every book.

Background is key
For Teardrop and Waterfall, I spent several months reading up on the mythology of Atlantis. For Fallen, I was lucky to have a renowned divinity scholar to consult when I started writing it. She walked me through every angelic reference in the Bible as well as many extra biblical texts. I loved getting versed in angelology; it was one of the most fulfilling parts of writing the series. I love if I can get three months to read and research before a book. It takes that long to immerse myself in the atmosphere and history of the world.

Use your own life as material
In college, my Professor had suggested that maybe the angels in mythology fell from heaven because they were attracted to mortal women. I thought this was a huge, strange sacrifice to make for love and I wanted to write the story of the girl who’d make such a sacrifice worth it. I started writing the prologue of Fallen the day my husband proposed to me, so my own romance has been infused in the story from the beginning. In Teardrop, the opening scene between Ander and Eureka (when he catches her tear) is taken from my own life.