Guest Interview with Jennifer Nielsen

Elliot and the Goblin War Trilogy

by Jennifer Nielsen

Most of the hoo-rah surrounding Jennifer right now is about her upcoming release of THE FALSE PRINCE, which we're all eagerly awaiting.  What we haven't heard much about is the upcoming release of the third book in her Underworld trilogy--which is positively AWESOME! Both books are scheduled for release on April 1st. 

After reading Elliot and the Goblin War with my 10-year-old son and laughing like lunatics, I knew I had to contact Jennifer and help get the word out about this series. It is way too much fun! She was kind enough to agree to an interview, and once I got over my fan-girl screeching, I came up with a few questions for her. But first, a little bit about book one.

Elliot and the Goblin War - Booklist Blurb

This opens with a warning: only seven children who have read this book lived to tell about it. In truth, this is more silly than scary, though kids might like that, too. Elliot is out trick-or-treating one Halloween night when he runs into a girl in an elf costume being chased by goblins. As it turns out, she really is an elf—well, actually a brownie—and the goblins are after her. For reasons that involve the delicious taste of brownies, the encounter leads to a war launched by the goblins against the brownies, into which the human Elliot finds himself dragged. In fact, he becomes king of the brownies and thus responsible for their welfare. Oh dear. Funny names (Fudd Fartwick, Tubs Lawless) and unexpected events (almost being scared to death) tumble through the pages, and Nielsen writes about them with tongue in cheek. Elliot and the goblin on the cover should draw ’em in. Grades 3-5. --Ilene Cooper

Does that sound awesome or what? 

And the upcoming finale . . .

Elliot and the Last Underworld War: Underworld #3

Goodreads Blurb:

Being King of the Brownies is no easy job! Elliot outsmarted the Goblins and foiled the Pixie Plot, but now he's being threatened by a giant Yeti. Oh, and there's a mermaid hiding in his bathtub. Elliot might be able to survive some unusual self-defense lessons and a kingnapping plot, but can he withstand the friendship of the neighbor girl--his archnemesis--Cami Wortson?

And now for the interview!!

1. Tell us a little about yourself and your books. 

Thanks so much for having me as a guest on your blog, Shannon! My debut book was ELLIOT AND THE GOBLIN WAR, about an 11-year-old boy who becomes king of the Brownies and accidentally launches an interspecies war. The final book of that trilogy, ELLIOT AND THE LAST UNDERWORLD WAR, is out on April 1.

I’m also the author of THE FALSE PRINCE, which I’ll release with Scholastic on April 1 as well, about a defiant orphan who becomes trapped in a contest where he must either commit treason by impersonating the kingdom’s lost prince, or be killed.

For me personally, I’ve lived in northern Utah throughout my life, love to travel, and have an incurable obsession with dark chocolate. Or, if it is curable, I’m not asking how. 

2. Many of our readers are also writers. What advice would you give to aspiring authors for when we hopefully become debut authors? 

Whatever your writing goal, consider it the summit of a mountain, then know that there are a hundred ways to the top. But I think it’s very important to keep your eye on the summit so that you are not distracted on the climb. It’s so easy in this field to choose smaller day hikes: contests, blogging, social media, magazine articles, etc. Sometimes these are important milestones along your path – sometimes they are even key to you reaching the summit. However, often they are little more than temporary ego boosts, time wasters, and side trips that keep you from the bigger goal you most want. So my advice is definitely to keep your eye fixed on your goal. And then keep on climbing. 

3. In my opinion, one of the strengths of this series is the personality of the narrator and the narrator's comments directed straight at the reader. This is a technique we seldom see in novels (and one I've often seen criticized). How did you decide to use the narrator that way? 

It wasn’t really a matter of me sitting down and debating one technique versus the other. It was just the way the narrative emerged. I think a lot of the style is really just my easily distracted mind thinking of funny side jokes as I was writing and wanting a way to work them in. 

4. My son thinks you are HI-LAR-I-OUS! And so do I. Can you share any advice about creating fun voices and the use of humor? 

Thank you very much for the compliment. I think humor writing is tricky because some things that are funny when spoken aloud don’t necessarily translate to being written on a page. And humor is a personal thing; what is funny to one person might not be to another.

So I think for anyone attempting to write humor, it’s a matter of becoming comfortable with your own style and not trying to please everybody. And take your humor writing very seriously – the one thing nearly all comic characters have in common is that they have no idea how funny they are.

It also helps to really know your audience. In this series, I am definitely writing to middle grade children. One type of humor children tend to enjoy is non sequitur absurdity, such as in GOBLIN WAR, where part of the cause of the war against the Brownies is the Goblins “logically” deciding that this is their best means to get more pickles.

5. The Underworld Chronicles is a trilogy. Did you have the whole series mapped out in your head when you started? Can you share any advice about trilogy writing?

When I wrote ELLIOT AND THE GOBLIN WAR, I had no idea whether it would be a standalone book or a series. If it was picked up as a series, I knew very early on how I wanted it to end, which you’ll read in book 3. But it was fun to explore Elliot’s adventures along the way to the final battle.

I think there are three important things to remember when writing a trilogy. First, be sure that you have a concept that can be carried across the length of the series. So you think of the books as one very long story built on three smaller episodes. Second, that you give each book its own story arc, so each book comes to a resolution. But you also leave enough story for the next book. And third, a trilogy has to escalate. No matter how intense Book 1 is, Book 2 has to be bigger, and Book 3 bigger than that. Readers will also want to see something new from their characters in each book, so they don’t feel that they’re reading recycled words. That can be tricky, but for an author it’s a very exciting challenge.

Thank you so much, Jennifer. I wish you luck with BOTH books. Hopefully, April 1st will rock your socks off!

Jennifer's Goodreads page HERE
Jennifer's website HERE
Jennifer on Twitter: HERE

  

Now, please help me get the word out about Elliot. 

These books are way too much fun to miss!

Winner of the WOLF STORM wolf pack of a giveaway and a surprise 2nd place!

Sorry I missed posting this on Tuesday, but life interferred that day. The winner of the wolf pack giveaway is Nicole Zoltack. Congratulations! I'll be contacting you for an address to mail all the prizes. The winner was selected from my handy dandy prize bucket by my daughter, with attempted help from Collette the kitten.

And because I was trying to do too many things at once, and therefore ordered two of the books a second time after I forgot I already ordered them, my daughter drew a name for a second place winner. It's Mrs. Duff's daughter, who will receive the extra copies of JULIE OF THE WOLVES, WOLVES OF THE BEYOND,  and WOLF STORM, of course. Have I ever mentioned I'm very bad at multitasking?

I hope both winners enjoy!

~ Dee Garretosn

Character Inspiration and a WOLF STORM wolf pack of a giveaway

To celebrate the release of WOLF STORM, and because I think wolves are awesome, I’m giving away a giant wolf pack of books and other wolf-related items. A description of it all is near the bottom of this post.

WOLF STORM is about three kid actors involved in the filming of a space opera-type science fiction movie. They are on location in the mountains of Eastern Europe in wintertime, and since the book is an adventure, things begin to go wrong, very wrong.   There are both trained wolves in the story-I had fun researching the trained wolves they used in filming the Narnia movies-and regular wild wolves. The native wolves are extremely unhappy about the presence of strange canines into their territory.  There is also a pug named Mr. Snuggums who provides a little comic relief. Michael, if you are reading this, maybe you can think of one of the comparisons from the discussion in your last post.

Here's the book trailer:

I thought this would be a good post to talk about inspirations for characters, because the main character in this story was inspired by a specific person. I’ve never wanted to write a character that was like me. I’ve lived so long with me,  I’m bored with my personality. I want to write about other types of personalities.  I think most writers do because it’s fun to dream up characters we aren’t.  When I proposed the idea of the book, I knew I wanted to write a story involving movie-making, because I love movies, especially adventure movies. Here was the problem-I have never had a desire to act, don’t know how to act, and would be a terrible actor.

So, given my lack of knowledge of the sort of personality I wanted to write, I had to find a way to get inside the head of that sort of person. My nephew Matt was the perfect choice.  I tried to find a photo of him at fourteen, the same age as my main character, but since I couldn't, this one works. This kitten supposedly followed him home (actually I think he carried it wrapped in a sweatshirt so it wouldn't escape). He told his parents they had to keep the kitten because it would be a good influence at keeping him and sister from "hanging out on street corners and smoking cigarettes." Actual Matt words. They kept the cat.

Anyway, Matt was very talented at imitating people, including teachers behind their backs, who occasionally caught him at it. He was famous in our family for being able to imitate E.T., and he acted in both community and high school theater productions. All in all, he became the model for Stefan. I needed a kid character from regular small town U.S. suddenly thrown into what he thinks will be a dream situation, only to find it turns into something very different. Matt became the go-to person in my head when I wanted to write Stefan’s reactions to things. Of course, like any character, the MC is not identical to the inspiration. His family is totally different from our own. I don’t have pink hair like Stefan’s aunt, for instance.

Matt is now a responsible adult with an adorable son of his own, though I suspect he still does imitations from time to time.

To enter into the giveaway, just comment after this post. If you would like more than one entry, there are ways to increase your chances. To get an extra entry, tweet a link to this, or post a link on Facebook or on your blog and let me know about it here in the comments. If you do both, you’ll get an extra entry for each. Here's a shortened link you can use: http://bit.ly/qbwXeQ If any bloggers out there would like to do a giveaway of a hardcover of WOLF STORM later in September, I’ll have a few more author copies in a few weeks to do that. Just email me at deegarretson at gmail.com

The giveaway includes:

WOLF STORM by Dee Garretson (signed hardcover)

SECRETS JOURNEYS OF JACK LONDON Christopher Golden & Tim Lebron (hardcover-not in picture)

THE BOY WHO HOWLED Tim Power (hardcover)

LONE WOLF Kathryn Lasky, book 1 Wolves of the Beyond (paperback)

SHADOW WOLF Kathryn Lasky, book 2 Wolves of the Beyond (hardcover)

THE WOLVES OF WILLOUGHBY CHASE by Joan Aiken (paperback)

JULIE OF THE WOLVES by Jean Craighead George (paperback)

TO BE A WOLF by Carol Amato (paperback)

A 2012 Wolves Calendar

A stuffed animal Wolf

4 small wolf figures to decorate a desk

Sorry, this is only open to U.S. residents. Leave a comment up until 8:00 P.M. E.T., Monday, September 12^th. The winner will be announced on Tuesday, September 13^th.

HAPPY BOOK B-DAY, GOSSIP!!! GIVEAWAY!!

I'm writing this while I jump up and down. And screaming a bit. Yes, I can multi-task THAT well. But the reason behind all my excitement is because it's the release day of my book, Gossip From The Girls' Room, A Blogtastic! Novel. 

I am giving away one signed copy of GOSSIP! To enter, leave a comment and tell me your favorite funny book. Ever. Contest ends at midnight.

For chances to win more signed books and swag, join me on my blog at http://www.rose-cooper.com/!

Thank  you for all your support!!

xx,
Rose