I also loved the aspects of the game that were first person (because I love writing from that perspective) and adaptive, given that the game is built around a complex AI. The universe is fairly new, so I got a lot of freedom to be able to discover the characters and their struggles in partnership with the developers. I think I was ridiculously lucky in this scenario because I got to contribute to Hello Neighbor’s canon. I was completely unaware of how this corner of the business worked, and what it would mean working within a world that had already been conceived. West: This opportunity was unlike any I even knew existed. What attracted you to working on this franchise? Yanes: Your next book is Hello Neighbor: Missing Pieces due out on September 11, 2018, and it functions as a prequel to the video game Hello Neighbor. Never be satisfied that you’ve learned the craft fully. After that: write, write, write and read, read, read. The most key ingredient to making a strong writer is the undying and maniacal desire to be a writer, or at least I’ve found that to be so. ![]() They and my writing program shaped me as a writer and taught me the business of writing – a quality that can’t be overlooked if one wants to make a career out of this craziness.īut is it necessary? No. Miller – each award-winning and crazy brilliant – is nearly thirteen years strong and counting. Kathryn Reiss taught me to write YA, and Yiyun Li nominated me for my first award, praise that frankly melted me.) My writing group, made of authors Nina LaCour and Laura Joyce Davis and Teresa K. (Victor LaValle was my very first workshop instructor, and he remains one of my most treasured mentors. I met some of the most important people in my life in that program. I was extraordinarily fortunate to get into Mills, and I wouldn’t take that experience back for anything. I have nothing but praise for my writing program and all I got from it, but there are many, MANY paths to writing, and that sort of expression should not be and IS not limited to the confines of expensive degrees or storied programs. West: I’ll answer the second question first: No. How do you think this experience impacted you as a writer? On this note, do you feel that people need to get an MFA in order to become a professional writer? Yanes: You got an MFA from Mills College. I think it was after my third or so scene submission – each running far too long in the setup – that my professor wrote on the page “Why don’t you just become a novelist instead?” I’m sure it wasn’t meant to be life-changing advice – he’d had enough of me by then. With screenwriting, though, format is critical, and too much encroachment into the scenery, subtext, and atmosphere translates into stepping on the toes of everyone else involved in the production. I was taking a screenwriting class one semester, and I remember being SO EXCITED about this class. I was over halfway through my undergraduate education (and already deep in student loan debt), majoring in broadcast production. West: Yes! I remember it happening at a very inconvenient time. Yanes: When did you know you wanted to build a career as a professional writer? Was there a specific moment in which this goal crystallized for you? I could revisit those a million times, and it would never get old. I guess that’s a long walk to say I loved A Wrinkle in Time and Jackson’s story collection, The Lottery. They were complicated and beautifully flawed characters, and their stories were just as strange and complicated. They weren’t ordinary people caught up in extraordinary circumstances. ![]() Authors like Madeleine L’Engle and Shirley Jackson had a way of conceiving a world in which characters didn’t do the “normal” things. ![]() You can learn more about Carly Anne West by checking out her homepage and following her on Twitter at Yanes: Growing up, what were the novels that you loved reading? Are there any you still enjoy revisiting?Ĭarly Anne West: Ghost stories are a constant favorite, but the stories that unsettled me – the ones a little left of center – always piqued my interest, too. Wanting to learn more about her career and Hello Neighbor: Missing Pieces, I was able to interview her for ScifiPulse. Recently moving from Portland to Seoul, Carly Anne West’s current project is writing the prequel novel to the amazing video game Hello Neighbor, as part of Scholastic’s AFK (Away from Keyboard) initiative.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |