These Vicious Masks: A Swoon Novel (37 page)

KZ: I have both fiction in general and young adult. Fiction in general: Beatrice and Benedick from
Much Ado About Nothing
. They are my heart and soul. And at least for
right now I’d say Eleanor and Park. I love them so much. They’re so great and they make me so happy. That book ruined me for weeks. I’m not the same person I was before I read
it.

HW: This one is one of my favorite questions and is also very valid for
These Vicious Masks
. If you were a superhero, what would your superpower
be?

TS: Telekinesis, just because I’ve thought about this way too much and I can do so many things with it. I can make myself fly or freak people out, or, if I really wanted
to throw fire at people, I could just carry fire around, too. It’s all-encompassing.

KZ: I took this one a little differently. Like, not which one would I want, but which one would I have. I think my superpower would be matchmaking. Being able to see who
someone’s soul mate is. I have paired so many people together. I feel like it’s my secret talent. I kind of want to be a matchmaker for a living.

TS: That sounds like a good novel idea. A superhero with that ability.

KZ: Right?! Spinoff.

HW: Do you have any hobbies other than writing? Because writing no longer counts as a hobby. Once you’re being paid for it, it doesn’t count.

KZ: Well, I act as well as write. So I work in New York in a bunch of theater companies. And no one really pays me, so I think it could still be called a hobby. Also I’m
the world’s worst crocheter. Like, truly, truly bad.

TS: You made a scarf. You made lots of scarves.

KZ: I did. And they were very, very bad.

“The Writing Life”

HW: When did you first realize you wanted to be a writer?

TS: Probably tenth grade when I took a film class in high school. I was always movie-obsessed, but it kind of made me think, “Oh, I can actually do this seriously. And
people will actually take me seriously.” So I was reviewing movies, and then when that got annoying, I realized I should try writing myself, and that’s just kind of turned from
screenplays to novels.

KZ: Mine was much, much later. Tarun and I went to school together and we were in college, and he was talking to me about writing a young adult novel because he knew I loved
young adult novels, and it was something he thought he might want to try his hand at. And I did not consider myself a writer of any kind, but I was a voracious reader and definitely knew the YA
world and markets and things like that, so I said I would totally help. At first it was more like he would write, or we came up with the concepts together, but then he was writing and I was kind of
more editing. And then somewhere along the way it just started kind of evolving into us both writing and kind of writing over each other and over each other so we don’t even know who wrote
what. Although we do like to argue about who wrote what sometimes.

TS: Yeah, because I like to keep in my head what amazing lines I came up with.

KZ: The other day I said, “This sounds like a great line that I wrote,” and he said, “No, that was me.”

HW: What’s it like working so closely with each other writing the same book?

KZ: Great.

TS: When I write by myself now it feels like something’s missing. Every time I write something it’s like Kelly isn’t here to tell me this is stupid or that
this is a good idea. So just having the extra support is really good.

KZ: We both trust each other as writers, so it’s not like you hate everything the other person’s doing and just can’t say it.

HW: So what’s your process? Do you outline things or start at the beginning and make it up as you go bouncing back and forth?

KZ: Well, we did just start a new document in Google Docs right now entitled “These Vicious Masks Book 2 Very Stupid Ideas.” So we outline, because Tarun makes us
outline, and we should.

TS: Yeah, I kind of go crazy.

HW: Do you have any writing rituals, like a certain place you are when you write, or anything like that?

TS: I’m literally sitting in the place that I write. It’s just my dining table, and I always have tea or coffee. Actually, half the time that I’m writing,
I’m not even sitting in front of the keyboard, I’m just pacing around my apartment thinking up how to phrase the sentences, and then I just stop off at my keyboard and put it down and
then start walking around again. It’s weird, but it works.

KZ: I write everywhere. This last round of edits, Tarun would be finishing something on L.A. time, and then the next morning on the subway I would edit it. So I’ll write
anywhere, anytime, any place that I have a moment to.

TS: Yeah, I don’t know how you do that. I can only write at home now.

KZ: I’m very impressive is how.

HW: So how does the revision process work?

TS: I feel like we had to go through this process a couple times before Swoon Reads, because when we were querying, a couple times they gave us a big structural change or a few
smaller changes, and I think we figured out a pattern at that point. We always just focus on the biggest issues we have in the back of our mind, and even if we can’t solve it, we’re
thinking about it while we jump around and deal with other things. And I guess it’s assigning specific subjects, like you handle all the Mr. Kent stuff, or anything thematically related.

KZ: Or chapters. It’s like picking a dodgeball team with that stuff. We each get to pick favorites until we’re down to whatever one we don’t want to do, but
someone has to. Also, I write faster and worse, and Tarun writes more detailed and better, so sometimes depending on how many changes we need, if it’s a lot of things, I might do the first
draft of that and then he’ll go in and make it better. Sometimes we do it that way, too. Especially if there’s a time crunch.

HW: One last question: What’s the best writing advice you’ve ever heard?

KZ: This is from an author, Chuck Wendig, and he says, “Writing is when we make the words. Editing is when we make the words not shitty.” And that’s my
favorite thing I’ve ever heard.

TS: For me, I don’t think it was as much advice as process. I took a screenwriting course at NYU where I had this teacher who his way of giving feedback was just like,
after the kids talk about your script, he just bombards you with questions. Like, what-ifs. What if this happens? What if that happens? And they don’t all go together at all. He doesn’t
have a cohesive vision. He’s just throwing so many questions at you. It changed my way of thinking in terms of I shouldn’t be so beholden to anything I have in my script. You can always
think of some what-if that makes it better. It just made me think of feedback differently. You just kind of accept everything for a little while and see how it makes you feel. Then you just go with
the suggestions you like or not.

Discussion Questions

Plans for a season without romance are unapologetically foiled . . .

in this hilarious homage to Jane Austen, when a lady with a penchant for trouble finds a handsome spy
much more than merely tolerable.

APRIL 2016

“
O
H MY
, this is embarrassing,” Miss Juliana Telford said aloud. There was no reason to keep her thoughts to
herself, as she was alone, completely alone. In fact, that was half of the problem. The other half was, of course, that she was hanging off the side of a cliff with the inability to climb either up
or down and in dire need of rescue.

“Another scrape. This will definitely give Aunt apoplexy.”

Juliana hugged the cliff ever closer and tipped her head slightly so that she could glance over her shoulder. Her high-waisted ivory dress was deeply soiled across her right hip, where she had
slid across the earth as she dropped over the edge.

Juliana shifted slowly and glanced over her other shoulder. Fortunately, the left side showed no signs of distress, and her lilac sarcenet spencer could be brushed off easily. She would do it
now were it not for the fact that her hands were engaged, holding tightly to the tangle of roots that kept her from falling off the tiny ledge.

Juliana continued to scrutinize the damage to her wardrobe with regret, not for herself so much as for her aunt, who seemed to deem such matters of great importance. Unfortunately, her eyes
wandered down to her shoes. Just beyond them yawned an abyss. It was all too apparent how far above the crashing waves of the English Channel she was—and how very small the ledge.

Despite squishing her toes into the rock face as tightly as possible, Juliana’s heels were only just barely accommodated by the jutting amalgamate. The occasional skitter and plop of
eroding rocks diving into the depths of the brackish water did nothing to calm her racing heart.

Juliana swallowed convulsively. “Most embarrassing.” She shivered despite a warm April breeze. “I shall be considered completely beyond the pale if I am dashed upon the rocks.
Aunt will be so uncomfortable. Most inconsiderate of me.”

A small shower of sandy pebbles rained down on Juliana’s flowery bonnet. She shook the dust from her eyes and listened. She thought she had heard a voice.

Please, she prayed, let it be a farmer or a tradesman, someone not of the gentry. No one who would feel obligated to report back to Grays Hill Park. No gentlemen, please.

“Hello?” she called out. Juliana craned her neck upward, trying to see beyond the roots and accumulated thatch at the cliff’s edge.

A head appeared. A rather handsome head. He had dark, almost black, hair and clear blue eyes and, if one were to notice such things at a time like this, a friendly, lopsided smile.

“Need some assistance?” the head asked with a hint of sarcasm and the tone of a . . .

“Are you a gentleman?” Juliana inquired politely.

The head looked startled, frowned slightly, and then raised an eyebrow before answering. “Yes, indeed, I am—”

“Please, I do not wish to be rescued by a gentleman. Could you find a farmer or a shopkeep—anyone not of the gentry—and then do me the great favor of forgetting you saw
me?”