Author Interview with Ingrid Sundberg

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Today I’m delighted to be interviewing YA contemporary author, Ingrid Sundberg.

Ingrid Sundberg holds an MFA in writing for children from the Vermont College of Fine Arts and an MFA in screenwriting from Chapman University. She grew up in Maine, but now lives in sunny California, where she misses the colors of autumn. She loves polka dots, baking, and dying her hair every color of the rainbow. All We Left Behind is her first novel. Find her online at: www.ingridsundberg.com

Hi Ingrid! Please introduce yourself! Tell us a little about you and your books. What do you write?

ingrid-sundberg_author-photo1_squareHi Madeline! I’m a contemporary YA author with purple hair (sometimes it’s also pink or blue). I write romantic and gritty stories about real teenagers with real-life issues. I’m a character-based writer and I’m known for digging deep into who my characters are and what makes them tic. I love stories that move past the surface and ask what it really is to be human. I don’t shy away from the tough questions and I’m a huge advocate for telling authentic stories. I also love romance, so most of my work has a romantic bent to it.

What is it that draws you to the YA contemporary genre? Has it always been this way?

I’ve always been a fan of “smaller stories.” What I mean by that is stories that really dig into the complexity and lives of one or two characters … rather than a large crisis or saving the world. I’m interested in what our secrets are and how those secrets affect our day-to-day lives. I’m interested in how relationships develop and fall apart. I’m interested in the power of a small moment to change a person’s life. There’s a lot of fantastical work out there and fiction that lets us escape. I love those stories, but I also think it’s important to have novels about real lives and the real world we live in.

However, I haven’t always written contemporary fiction. In fact, I’m working on a big fantasy novel now. I find that I’m interested in characters and their particular situations … regardless of what world they live in, be it real or fantastic. It’s the people – the beating hearts of the story – that excite me.

Your first book, ALL WE LEFT BEHIND, has received some great reviews! What’s it about?

book-cover_all-we-left-behindMy debut novel ALL WE LEFT BEHIND is a story about growing up too quickly and the power of vulnerability to heal one’s past. The story is a romance at its core, but it’s not a light and fluffy one. It’s written in dual point-of-view, so you get to read both the boy (Kurt) and the girl (Marion)’s perspective as they explore difficult questions like: Can you have a relationship after sexual assault? How do past trauma and our culture of silence put strain on a relationship? And how does one learn to share their secrets and deal with all their broken pieces?

What inspired you to start writing this book?

The character Marion has been with me for a long time. I’ve spent years trying to tell her story and she’s haunted me. I wrote both a screenplay and a whole other novel with Marion at its core before I found the story/plot of ALL WE LEFT BEHIND. Sexual awakening in American culture is a complicated thing all on its own, but when you add assault into the mix you have a story that needs to be handled delicately and authentically. I knew this character had a secret she needed to tell and I just kept writing until I found her words.

How do you go about writing a novel? Do you do loads of planning first? Or just dive right in?

I think every novel is different. I come from a screenwriting background, so I’m used to elaborate outlines. However, I couldn’t write ALL WE LEFT BEHIND this way. In fact, I had to write out of order in small vignettes to force myself to forget the plot and focus on the characters and what they needed. It was a long process where I wrote over 300 pages of “emotional stuff,” before I sat back and looked at how this “stuff” could be structured into a plot. This seems like a rather inefficient way to write, but it ended up being a real breakthrough in my writing process. I don’t think I’d write every novel this way, but I do often spend a lot of time early on in a project writing emotional scenes to get to know my characters better.

What’s your favourite part of writing?

I love getting lost in the head space and world of another person. It really forces you to be empathetic and ask yourself what it would be like to live in another person’s shoes. I love digging into a character’s “darkness” to see what scares them, what makes them act, what holds them back. I guess I’m fascinated with our contradictory nature … how we dream so vibrantly and fear so deeply. It’s pretty fun to explore those places.

And the worst?

The hardest part for me isn’t writing, it’s the business part. It’s marketing and contracts and turning writing into a job. I love writing. I don’t think I’ll ever stop. It’s the business half that I struggle with.

What’s next for you in the writing world?

I’m currently working on a few projects…

First, I’m developing some online classes on writing craft. I love talking about craft and helping others. In particular, I’m working on some courses about tapping into the emotional center of your character, as well as demystifying story structure. If people want to learn more about these courses they can sign up for my Writing Craft Newsletter Ingrid’s Notes here: http://bit.ly/ingridsnotes

Second, I’m working on a fantasy novel called THE NEVERS that started out as a retelling of Peter Pan but has developed into its own weird and wonderful story. It’s a fantastical world that mixes graffiti culture and steampunk, while following several characters of two rival gangs that sell a hallucinogenic drug called “Fairy Dust.”

And lastly, I’m creating a poster version of my Color Thesaurus (Color Thesaurus Link: http://ingridsundberg.com/2014/02/04/the-color-thesaurus/) , which is a tool for writers and artists to help them use more vibrant and exciting color words than red, blue, or green. If anyone’s interested in knowing when the poster will be available, please sign up here: www.bit.ly/colorgroup

If you couldn’t be an author, what would you be?

If I’m fantasizing, I’d love to be a physicist. I’m fascinated by the science of physics. However, I don’t know if I have the brain and temperament to do it. So in all honesty, I’d probably be a teacher. I’ve been one before (I taught art and drawing to college students) and I’ve always adored the relationship between teacher and student.

What’s your advice for aspiring writers?

There so much advice one could give it’s so hard to decide which little bit would be helpful. So, here’s three…

  • Your voice matters. What you have to say and the stories you have to tell are important. And only YOU can tell them.
  • Stop trying to please everyone. Write for the people who understand and love your work. Forget everyone else.
  • Finish your book. The #1 reason you aren’t published is because you don’t have a finished book. Get it done!

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