Ryan Elizabeth Penske

Ryan Elizabeth Penske is a mix of a Midwest and Southern California upbringing, where she discovered her love for snowy Halloweens in Michigan and the everlasting California sun, but most importantly her love for reading in her early teens. Now, after writing her debut YA novel The Dreamers, she looks forward to completing her MA in English Literature from Chapman University where she received her BA in English Literature, Rhetoric, and Cultural Studies. Between moments of writing and her academic pursuits, Penske spends her days with her best buddy Indy, her Australian Shepherd. Together they enjoy hiking, going to bookstores, traveling, spending exuberant amounts of time of “BookTok,” and of course dreaming.

My Q&A with Penske:

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

The title of my novel, The Dreamers, relates directly to a specific element of the story. Not only are the characters constantly dealing with the notion of dreams, thinking about dreams and what they mean, but they are also actively dreaming and in a dream state quite a lot throughout the novel. The characters who are able to dream figments of the future are also called “Dreamers” by staff that work in The Dreamers main setting of the novel, The Manor de Reves.

I write a lot of stuff, whether that be for my masters program or creative work, and I always find the title to be the last thing I think of or come up with. I think the “meat” of the work has to come first to then inform the author on what a piece should be called. I think if you title something first, very rarely will the title from the very beginning stay the same. With my novel The Dreamers however, I had enough of the premise and concept of the actual Dreamers in my story figured out, that from opening the first word document I ever began writing the story in, I titled it The Dreamers. Luckily for me it stuck, and everyone who read it including my editor and publisher liked it.

In general, I think a title should reflect the most important part of your story. It doesn’t have to be something blaringly obvious or spoiler-y, but I think what is the most cool is when a story has a title that allows for the readers to have an “ah-hah” moment and connect/understand the title once they get to a certain point in the story. I recently had this experience with Corelli’s Mandolin, and I loved the way the title related to something not quite so obvious in the book at first, but very significant to the storyline the further you read and uncovered.

What's in a name?

For me so far, the naming of characters and places goes by a case-by-case situation. Sometimes a character’s name is simply chosen because I like it, or sometimes it holds significance to something in my life. For example, the main love interest in The Dreamers name is Charlie. Charlie is the name of the boy I had a major crush on in middle school, so I thought it would be funny to pay homage to that first personal crush I had back when I was young. Another example would be Clear Water High, which is the high school my main character Stella goes to. The street I grew up on is called Clear Water, so again I enjoyed pulling in an element from my real life and using it as inspiration and fun easter-egg nods towards in the novel.

I think names can both hold great weight, but also not. I would argue that it's up to the author to decide whether a name should be something meaningful and special or if a name can just simply be one they like or think sounds nice. I definitely think if you want to have a strong character that is memorable and makes a great impression, then I would spend a bit longer thinking of what you should name them than simply choosing a random name from a list. Almost everything that has a name in The Dreamers, whether that be a person or place, relates to something from some point in my life, so I do think that naturally authors will default to naming something that has a fun relation to themselves or their lives, but I’m sure that changes with the more you write and maybe run out of names!

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

I don’t think my teenage reader self would be surprised by my novel at all, but more so elated and over the moon that I am a published author! This has been a lifelong dream of mine, so I think my teenage self would be jumping up and down. It makes sense that my first novel is a YA book, because the YA blockbuster series that came out and were massive hits when I was a teenager, such as The Hunger Games, Divergent, City of Bones, all of those type series, are what made me a big reader and ultimately inspired me to start writing The Dreamers.

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

This is a great question because funny enough, I think beginnings are way harder to write than endings, but the ending to The Dreamers changed at least three times! Beginning a piece, whether it's an academic paper or a creative piece, I always find writing an intro or that first paragraph to be the hardest. It's the story in the middle and at the end that I always have the clearest vision for, so once I get to those parts it's always so much easier. My ending idea however, was changed greatly from my first draft of The Dreamers, and that is due to different eyes reading the story and helping me mold it to have a different outcome for the better. That’s what great editors are for!

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

When writing my first every main character, Stella in The Dreamers, I leaned on personality traits of my own to help shape her. I think I did this because it was an easy way to begin molding a character and give her personality that I felt comfortable with writing because I naturally knew how she would then go about responding to or handling a situation. I wouldn’t say she is a carbon copy of myself, as there are certain traits I also have, but I think she naturally became her own character very separate from myself as she is faced with circumstances, people, and situations that are worlds different from anything I have faced. I think if you are able to write great characters, they naturally take up a life of their own as the story unfolds even if you have something different originally intended for them.

What non-literary inspirations have influenced your writing?

Any and all stories across page, screen, stage, etc. that I have enjoyed or felt connected to inspire and influence my writing. The most significant answer I can give to this question would be all creative works I was exposed to while attending the 2019 Sundance Film Festival. I was at the festival and attending cast, writer, and director interviews, including film premieres, and the creativity was so electric that it inspired me to begin writing The Dreamers. Specifically, I remember viewing Emma Roberts' film premiere for Paradise Hills (2019) and finding a lot of influence for the setting and vibe of The Dreamers. Other than this specific instance, this answer might feel cliché, but it's a testament to how influential this story has been to so many people, would be the Harry Potter series. I guiltily will admit that I have never read the book series in full, but the movies have always had a permanent presence in my life. The strong sense of characters, relationships, and iconic setting that the stories hold influenced the way emphasis and efforts I put into writing stand out characters and memorable settings.

Visit Ryan Elizabeth Penske's website.

--Marshal Zeringue