Michael Grant and Katherine Applegate
9/10/2012 by David Maybury · No Comments
You won't Adam and Eve it... or Eve and Adam it. Or... anyway, you won't believe it. Zac Harding (of My Best Friends are Books Fame) caught up with Michael Grant and Katherine Applegate to talk about working together and their new book Eve and Adam.
Grant and Applegate are no strangers to working together - they've written more than 100 books as a team - inlucing the Animorphs series. This time the pair have come up with a futuristic thriller, Eve and Adam.
How does the collaborative writing process work for the two of you?
MG – Poorly.
KA - Well, in the past. Better this time. It was actually pretty smooth.
MG — I’ve matured.
Did you write a character each for Eve and Adam?
KA - That was one of the approaches we took, but quickly decided it didn’t work. In order to do that we would need to be able to plan things out in advance. Michael doesn’t plan. I plan and then don’t follow my plan.
MG – The real story is that Katherine realized Eve would have a lot more scenes so she’d have to do more of the work.
Does it make it harder or easier writing collaboratively when you live in the same house?
MG – Much easier. The commute is shorter. It’s like three feet.
KA – Being in the same house means we can share a pot of coffee as opposed to writers who aren’t married who probably have to make twice as many pots.
MG – The horror.
The first sentence of Eve and Adam is explosive and totally hooks you. Are the opening scenes of a book the hardest thing to write?
MG – We are very different on this. I barely think about it because I know I’ll go back later and write something different.
KA – I need to have the opening right, even if it takes days. Or weeks.
MG – Months. Years.
Eve and Adam is so shocking because the story could be happening somewhere in the world right now. Was it a story that you did lots of research for before you started writing or is it purely from your imaginations?
MG – We both went out and got PhD’s.
KA – It really took a lot of commitment from Michael since he’s a high school drop-out.
MG – We attended the University of Google.
KA – College of Wikipedia.
If you could create the perfect version of yourself what would you change?
MG - There was a time when I’d have said hair. But that’s no longer an issue. Honestly? I’d be one of those people who can eat without gaining weight.
KA - I have weak ankles.
MG – That is pathetic. That’s all you’d change? Weak ankles?
KA – There’s plenty of things about you I’d change. I could make a list.
MG – I wouldn’t change anything about you. Hah! There, I trumped you and now people will think I’m the nice one.
Eve and Adam reads like it could be a standalone book or part of a new series. Do you plan to write more about these characters?
KA - There’s rumour of a sequel.
You can find out more over at My Best Friends are Books.
