What has been the toughest criticism given to you as an author? What has been the best compliment?
LEX
Based on reviews I’ve read on the internet, the toughest criticism for me is that some people find the set-up implausible. It bothers me that’s a stumbling block for some readers and it prevents them from enjoying the rest of the story. I wonder if we could have remedied those issues with time, but I also think some of those people’s opinions might evolve with the sequels. What’s always excited us most about the idea was being trapped in a world where social cliques battled like armies to rule high school. In the sequels, we’ll be focusing more on how the world within McKinley grows to be its own epic landscape.
As far as compliments go, it’s pretty simple. We’ve gotten fan letters that talk about how thrilling and entertaining the story is. Really, it’s the opposite of the criticism above. A lot of people have been completely swept away by our story, and that’s all we ever hoped for in writing it. Just that it works the way we wanted it to is an enormous gift.
THOMAS
We get some criticism for the amount of violence in the book, and the severity of it. I get that it’s not some people’s cup of tea, that’s fine. We knew if we wrote a story about teens sinking to acts of savagery to survive, that some people would be turned off right away. But if you don’t mind violence, read away!
My favorite compliments come in the form of fan emails with lots of ALL CAPS!!!
What is easier to write: The first line or the last line?
THOMAS
The last. When you write the first, you are forced to guess as to what it should be. You might have the story plotted out, but when you sit down to write on day one, you realize you have nothing. There is an endless void of white paper ahead of you. You don’t know what your book is yet because you haven’t written it.
When you get to the last line, however, you know what you’ve got, you’ve already created it all. The last line is really important and needs to be chosen carefully, but you have hundreds of pages of story to help tell you decide what it should be.
LEX
The first line. It’s a springboard. It’s the starting pistol. I love our first line. It’s a doozy. But a final line has to do so much. It not only has to be apropos of everything that came before it, but also propel you onward. It has to give you a sense of completion, a sense of satisfaction, while keeping your mind still percolating after you’ve put down the book. For me, starting something is easy. Finishing it is the hard part.
What one YA novel do you wish you had when you were a teen?
LEX
Rotters by Daniel Kraus. Kraus is the real deal. He’s an immensely talented writer who is genuinely fascinated by the horrors he’s writing about. He’s not selling you something, or packaging a story that’s teen-bait, the way the worst of YA can be. I mean, let’s face it… When the premise is graverobbing, you’re either in or you’re out. And I was in from the second I heard about it. Rotters revels in the dark side and the sloppy mess that pubescence can feel like. If I’d had it as a kid, my copy would have probably been pretty ragged with a lot of dog-eared, highlighted pages.
THOMAS
When I think about what I would’ve liked back then I can’t help but think of what I did like. The first book that really got me reading when I was around 12 was Twilight Eyes by Dean Koontz. It’s a coming of age story about a kid on the run with a traveling carnival. He had purple eyes and he could see that half the people around were horrible pig/lizard beasts in disguise, and of course he had to kill them in gruesome fashion, when he wasn’t losing his virginity or learning how to be a carny. After that book, I read every Dean Koontz paperback I could find.
Quarantine was recently optioned by Kami Garcia and Mark Morgan. What was it like to get the phone call saying your book has been optioned? What do you hope for in a film?
THOMAS
That was a great phone call to get. At first I thought it was some joker claiming to be a producer, but then as I looked into it, I saw he had been a producer on Twilight. I got really excited, ‘call your parents and tell them it finally happened’ excited, to be exact. But, then our reps told me to get unexcited until they looked into it, told me it was probably nothing, and then I called my parents back and had to tell them it hadn’t finally happened. Lovely feeling. That was only a momentary slump, though. As of now, the movie is going well, all parties are completely on board, and things are moving forward. Still, I don’t think I’m going to believe it’s really happening until it really happens.
LEX
Usually, you hear from your reps first about interests in your project, but since they’re telling you second-hand, it’s hard to gauge how serious those interested parties are until someone actually pulls the trigger and says “yes.” What happened with Mark, calling out of the blue, before the book even came out, is sort of the writer’s Hollywood dream call. Kami tells the story of how, from the moment he finished the book, Mark couldn’t stop talking about Quarantine and specific battle scenes and how they blew his mind. He was an instant super-fan. So, imagine getting a call from that guy, plus he’s produced all these big movies. I think I was at dinner, and I look down and there’s all these psyched texts from Tom about a Quarantine movie. And I’m like, what?! Uh… ‘scuse me a second, I’m just going to go in the other room and freak out.
We’ve been through a lot of ups and downs as screenwriters, so we’re acutely aware of how much it takes to actually get a movie to the big screen. It seems to be a series of good decisions, perfect timing and a little bit of luck. I think the best we can hope for is a smart team behind it. We’ve definitely got that with Kami and Mark, whose wheelhouse is YA film adaptations, and we’re hoping for the support of a studio that sees the huge potential in Quarantine that we all do. We’ve packed it full of exciting visuals and crazy story, and because of that we hope to inspire the right director, one that will know exactly how to translate that to the screen.
More about Lex Thomas
Lex received a BA in Drama and English from the University of Virginia and has worked as an actor, director and writer. Thomas graduated with a Bachelors of Fine Arts from the Rhode Island School of Design, and now writes and exhibits his realist oil paintings in Los Angeles.
Lex and Thomas met in a writers’ group in Los Angeles. Their friendship developed as they tried to blow each other’s minds with clips from bizarre movies. In 2005, they became a screenwriting team, and found that writing with a friend is much more fun than doing it alone. Visit them at www.lex-thomas.com.
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