7 Questions with Avery Bishop
Have you ever have a pseudonym? When I was a child, I aspired to write someday. And, for some reason, I thought that I would certainly need a pseudonym to do so. So I decided on Samantha Weith. I selected Samantha, probably, because of Molly Ringwald’s character in Sixteen Candles – still waiting for Jake Ryan to show up and take me away, BTW – and Weith because it was easy to spell but tricky to pronounce – oddly it always bothered me no one ever messed up the pronunciation of my name (which was, at the time, Erin Best).
I honestly hadn’t thought about this pseudonym for quite some time. But then I picked up Girl Gone Map. This novel is the first by the pseudonym-ious Avery Bishop, but not the first by this author, who has written many other books under his real name.
Though I still don’t know who the man behind the mask – or, in this case, the laptop – is, I did have a chance to learn more about him when he answered our 7 questions.
Get to know this author and check out his newest novel, Girl Gone Mad.
1. What's your favorite drink?
When it comes to alcoholic drinks, I'm pretty boring. I usually go for a Coors Light or maybe a Blue Moon. In terms of mixed drinks, my go-to is Captain and Coke.
2. Where and when do you write?
The easy answer is wherever and whenever. My day job is a typical 9 to 5, and it can get crazy busy, so I usually try to relax in the evening. When my wife goes to bed, I'll try to write a chapter or two if I'm working on a novel, or if I'm doing edits or whatever. Of course, if I'm on deadline, I'll put on some noise-canceling headphones so I can write in my office while my wife watches TV in the next room (our place is open-concept, which has its pros and cons, the con here being that my office doesn't have a door). Of course, pre-COVID, I would oftentimes go to the local library for an hour or two, just to mix things up. I've found that writing at home during the day can be distracting, especially when my dog wants to play.
3. What does your prewriting process look like?
It varies book to book. Often when an idea hits me, I'll think on it for a while and let it gestate. Sometimes, as soon as an idea hits, I can already start running through who the protagonist is and what the setup would be, but I don't outline, at least not on paper. Sometimes I have a pretty good idea what the ending will be, but that often changes a bit the closer I get to the end. Also, I've found that as I write, a character might say or do something that will change the trajectory of the book, and I love it when that happens.
Case in point: In an early draft of Girl Gone Mad, there was a throwaway line that Emily had once hired a private investigator to find Grace Farmer, and it didn't really mean much to me until a few chapters later when I realized that the PI would make an appearance later in the book.
4. What's up next?
Well, that depends. Under my real name, I'm about ready to start a new standalone thriller. As for Avery Bishop, the next standalone suspense novel is called ONE YEAR GONE and it will be out next year — still editing it right now!
5. The flashbacks peppered throughout this book definitely made me think back on my own adolescence. What do you remember most about your teenage years? Did any real experiences seep into this novel?
I went to a small private school so my middle school and high school experience wasn't typical. There were like 30 kids in my graduating class, and we all knew each other pretty well. But one event that has always stayed with me was when a new kid came to school one day in the middle of the year. I forget which class we were in, but the teacher made the kid stand up in front of the entire class and tell everyone about himself. I've always remembered it because the kid had looked so nervous, and I just couldn't believe the teacher had thought that was a good idea. This, of course, seeped into the novel as a teacher makes Grace stand up in front of the class on her very first day.
6. In this novel, you directly mention the frog soup parable - which by the way is my favorite parable (whether it’s accurate, or not). That parable really reflects what this novel felt like. Just like the water in which the frog is sitting would gradually inch up degree by degree, the tension in this novel build slowly, effectively, and surprisingly. How did you go about planning your pacing to allow for this to happen?
Wow, I never really thought about how those two things correlated. Honestly, most of my fiction tends to lean more toward the thriller side of the genre, so I'm usually writing fast, short chapters with a lot of action. This book was very different in that it's more of a slow burn for the first two thirds or so and then things get really crazy in the third act. How I managed it, I can't quite say — I've just written so many books that I've somehow gotten a sense by now how to pace things pretty well. Of course, there are times where there might be a lag here and there, and that's when those scenes or chapters get tightened even more, or nixed.
7. In this novel you explore the concept of clique culture from a lot of different angles. While I do know that you are a novelist and (probably) not a therapist, I do wonder if you have any thoughts as to what might need to happen to prevent the repeat of this exclusionary and often dangerous adolescent behavior.
I'm not a therapist, no, but for several years I worked as a mental health case manager who primarily worked with kids, so I've interacted with my fair share of therapists and have worked with a number of kids who have been bullied. I don't really have a good answer for you, I'm afraid, but I do think it's on schools to try to eliminate as much bullying there as possible. But they can only do so much. The problem, of course, is that kids are only in school so many hours of the day, and then they go home and get on social media where there's no oversight. Honestly, eliminating social media might be the answer — not just for kids, but for everyone. I think the entire world would have better overall mental health if that were to happen.
Check out this read by Avery Bishop:
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