"It Had To Be You" Interview with Lizzy Charles
Lizzy Charles writes young adult contemporary romance. She’s a tea fanatic, guacamole expert, and sushi lover. When she’s fixing lunches, dressing kids, or wiping pizza sauce off sticky hands, she escapes to La La Land and imagines all sorts of little love stories. Lizzy loves her daily dose of fitness and is also a RN so she can triage any symptom you send her way. Her best friend from high school is also her husband. Oh and she has a little pup named Professor Lupin who is pretty much the glue to the whole writing operation
Now here's your chance to get to know Lizzy's writing process, her love of YA culture and what gave her the inspiration to write "It Had to Be You"
What inspired you to write this novel? My initial inspiration for It had to be You came from a place and a television show. I’m a die hard Gilmore Girls’ fan (Team Logan pre-Netflix special and now I’m simply Team Rory) and Rory’s elite high school, Chilton, always fascinated me. Pairing that with a nearby gorgeous college that’s nestled in rolling hills, and Brockmore Academy, America’s most elite (and fictional) boarding school, was born. Once I could visualize the school, I knew I had to write a boarding school romance.
Of course, a novel needs characters so the idea simmered in my head while I figured my main characters out. I’m a big fan of Donald Glover (also known as Childish Gambino) and once I fell in love with his work on Community I knew he was my James. Edelweiss is a blond version of Rey (played by Daisy Ridley) from The Force Awakens - Brave, bold, kind, and good to her core.
What is your writing process like?
My writing process has changed so much from book to book, and I’m thankful for the improvements. I used to just write where my characters took me, which was really fun but often I would end up veering off course and having to delete large parts of my manuscript.
It had to be You was written through detailed outlining. Now, I think it’s detailed outlining but there’s no Excel spreadsheets going on or anything like that. I map out my plot points and write about a paragraph down that reflects what each chapter is about before I dive in and start writing the story. How do you select the names of your characters?
Edelweiss is named after the first song my husband and I ever danced to. Yep, we totally slow danced to Edelweiss from the Sound of Music as teenagers. Sounds super lame, but my now husband was like a rockstar in our high school, so he totally swept me off my feet with it. What was your hardest scene to write?
There’s a place in the novel where someone pulls a switcheroo on my main character in terms of setting, but my main character doesn’t realize it’s happening until after the fact. The novel is written in first person present tense, so this was really difficulty to mention odd, out of sort details, while remaining true to what my character knew at the time. Confused my editorial team to no end and this process had to be rewritten over and over until we nailed it. What’s the most difficult thing about writing characters from the opposite sex?
I think there’s a different level of energy my male characters bring to my stories than my females have. Grasping that energy and running with it in the beginning can be difficult. But once I figured out that energetic cadence of my hero’s thoughts, I had so much fun writing his POV. If you could tell your younger writing self anything, what would it be?
Keep going and remember to have fun. What authors did you dislike at first but grew into? Oh, this is a great question. At first I really didn’t like Jane Austen, but now she’s my favourite author.
What’s your favorite under-appreciated novel?
Well, this novel is a middle grade book, but really I will never understand why Indian Captive: the tale of Mary Jemison by Lois Lenski is not required reading for 11 year old girls. What are you writing next?
I’m plotting the sequel to It had to be You right now and I have a creepy little story up my sleeve as well that someday I hope to tell. What would you advice be to any aspiring writers?
Two pieces of advice: 1) Never let the learning curve discourage you. Become friends with it because it will always be there. 2) If you already have an idea and you know what you want to write, don’t wait around for inspiration to strike. Get to work, even when you don’t feel like writing. That’s when the real writing happens.
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