Megan Abbott

Megan Abbott's latest novel is Dare Me.

From her Q & A with Caroline Leavitt:

What I so deeply admire about your work is the lean, mean and fiercely gorgeous prose you employ. So, what kind of writer are you? Do you plot things out or fly by the seat of your pen? Do you write every day or when the muse’s whispers begin to turn into shouts? What’s your writing life like?

Thank you for your kind words! I force myself to be rigorously disciplined because I find writing it infinitely hard and isolating and would like to be doing almost anything else. (At the same time, however, I only feel truly happy when I’ve written, so there’s the rub.) Because I’m slow I have to block out the day and even though I don’t write the whole time, I need to live in the world of the book all day, writing it fits and starts off and on from early morning through the afternoon. Which makes me pretty unpleasant to be around in the daylight hours!

You tunneled into the dark heart of girls in Dare Me so expertly that it felt as if you were chaneling them. What kind of research did you do for this novel, and what was that like? And why do you think the territory of adolescent girls is so rich--and such a minefield for events?

About half of it was compulsive online eavesdropping, primarily through chatrooms and message boards focused on cheerleading. The other half was my own vivid memories of being a teenager. The intensity of feeling at that age, the yearning, the passionate friendships—filled with highs and lows, betrayals, breakups. It’s your practice for adult (or young adult) relationships. And it’s thrilling and devastating. I thought I’d forgotten all that until I started writing the book. It all came flooding back, all the heartbreak, exhilaration and humiliation. That stuff is ageless, and leaves it marks.

So Dare Me is headed for the Silver Screen and you’re writing the script. Is it hard to re-envision your novel as a film?

I tend to be...[read on]

Visit Megan Abbott's website.

The Page 69 Test: Bury Me Deep.

The Page 69 Test: The End of Everything.

--Marshal Zeringue