Jason Sheehan

Jason Sheehan is an award-winning freelance journalist and author. In addition to being a book and video game critic for NPR, he has published three books for adults.

Sheehan's new novel is Children of the Flying City, his first book for young readers.

My Q&A with the author:

How much work does your title do to take readers into the story?

I think Children of the Flying City does a lot of heavy lifting right there on the cover. It tells you, straight off, that this is a story about children (which it is), and something in the cadence of it implies adventure and action. Then there's the whole Flying City thing with its pulp vibes and blunt promise of impossibility and strangeness. It lets you know, in no uncertain terms, that you're going somewhere when you pick up this book, and that it's gonna be weird.

Originally, the book was called Quick--named for the main character, Milo Quick--and while that was a great working title (because it was a constant reminder that this was a story about motion, taking place over just three days as Milo and his friends, Jules and Dagda, evaded kidnappers, war and the truth about their pasts), but it didn't work on the final. While single-word titles can be powerful, this one was too broad, too easily forgotten, and didn't do enough of that necessary set-up that a title like Children of the Flying City does.

What's in a name?

For me, a lot. My first step in considering any new story is choosing names. It's a little bit of magic I do. Something like divination. Because, to me, the name (of a person, a place, of anything) will suggest its qualities.

Here's the thing, though... Almost none of those names survive to the final draft. In Children of the Flying City, the three main characters--Milo, Jules and Dagda--kept the names they were given in the first draft, but I don't think a single other character did. At a certain point, the name just becomes a label. The characters are what they are no matter what they're called.

How surprised would your teenage reader self be by your new novel?

I wrote it as the book a younger me would've dreamed of finding on the shelf at the library--all dark and strange, full of big ideas, sweeping action and airships. Something that didn't talk down to me, or treat me like I needed training wheels on my spaceship, you know? I grew up on Star Wars and Logan's Run, Heavy Metal and Roger Zelazny. I wanted the heavy stuff.

Granted, give that kid a couple years and he'd be mortified that his older self was writing MG books. 19-year-old me really thought he was going to grow up to be the next William Gibson.

Do you find it harder to write beginnings or endings? Which do you change more?

Beginnings are a cinch. Endings are a nightmare. I have the first 50 pages of 500 novels sitting around in my notes. I've written the endings for precisely four.

Do you see much of yourself in your characters? Do they have any connection to your personality, or are they a world apart?

My connection to the kids in Children of the Flying City is that, somehow, I'm still capable of seeing the world through their eyes. That I can invent a world and look out at it as a 14-year-old would. Though I have never robbed a pneumatic mail system, survived a war in a flying city, or been kidnapped by gun-runners in the employ of a rebel army, I'm comfortable in their heads, which is an absolute gift.

That said, one thing we do have in common is a bone-deep distrust of the adult world. Milo, Jules and Dagda inherited a bit of my GenX cynicism, I think. They know there are no heroes in their world. No good guys and bad guys. They understand that winning often just means surviving to fight again tomorrow.

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My Book, The Movie: Children of the Flying City.

--Marshal Zeringue