Student-Author Interview 09: Caroline Tung Richmond

Welcome to the ninth student-author interview! I’m very excited to feature debut author Caroline Tung Richmond and her fabulous novel The Only Thing to Fear. The Only Thing to Fear takes place in an alternate reality in which the Nazis won World War II, thanks to their genetically engineered “Anomaly” super soldiers. Sixteen-year-old Zara, a stubborn girl of mixed heritage, longs to live in a free America and is eager to join the rebel group that is plotting to overthrow the Nazi leadership. She just might have the power to help bring down the Führer, if she’s allowed to join the rebels and if she can manage to survive.

I tore through the novel this summer and knew it would be a hit with students who like fantasy and dystopian novels as well as students who love history…and it certainly has been! It’s also been a pleasure connecting with Caroline since I read her book because she is such a friendly and generous writer! In addition to her great first novel, Caroline also has a wonderful blog with a very helpful “After the Call” series for agented writers; you can check it out here: http://carolineinspace.blogspot.com/

Now let’s get to the interview! Four eighth grade students–Geno, Casey, Jack, and Rudyard–read The Only Thing to Fear and had some terrific questions for Caroline.

First, here’s what the students wanted to tell Caroline about what they liked most about THE ONLY THING TO FEAR, with Caroline’s response:

Geno: I liked the fantasy part and how some characters had special powers. It was unexpected but cool. 

Jack: I liked how there were so many plot twists, especially related to Zara’s character. I also liked that Zara is a powerful girl and that females in the book have positions of power. 

Rudyard: I liked how the book was new and fresh. There were places where I thought I could predict what was going to happen or what a character (like Bastian) was going to turn out to be, but then there was a surprising plot twist instead.

Casey: I liked the alternate history. I loved how you thought about what if the Nazis had won WWII because it’s not something that many people would think about. I also liked how you made Zara really powerful, but she wasn’t too powerful and her powers couldn’t magically fix everything because it’s no fun when the main character is too powerful.

Thank you so much, you guys! This makes me so happy to hear, and I’m so glad that you enjoyed the book!

Now for some questions about the book, and about writing in general: 

Casey: What inspired you to write the book? 

Hi Casey! Thank you so much for reading my novel! To answer your question, I’m a big history geek and so I’ve always been interested in alternate histories and asking myself ‘What if?’—like what if Lincoln had lived and was able to oversee Reconstruction? Or what if Franz Ferdinand had never been assassinated before the start of WWI?

Then, back in 2010, I was looking for a new book to read and my husband recommended The Aquariums of Pyongyang, a memoir written by a North Korean refugee. I read the book in one sitting, and afterward I couldn’t stop thinking about it. What would it be like to live under such a cruel regime? How could someone fight against all of that oppression? I started imagining a girl living in such a place—and wanting so badly to fight back against her government. My imagination sort of went wild from there, and that is how Zara and The Only Thing to Fear were born!

Jack: How long did it take you to write the book?

Hi Jack! Thank you for reading my book too! Gosh, this novel has a strange backstory. I’m usually a very slow writer—my husband’s nickname for me is ‘the baby sloth’!—but I hammered out the first draft of The Only Thing to Fear (back then it was called Revolutionary) in about two months. This was really fast for me. But then it took me a LONG time to revise the novel—over a year!

Geno: How did you think of including Anomalies with special powers in the book? Did the book always have Anomalies with special powers, or did you add that part in later on in your writing process?

Hi there Geno! Thank you for your question! I’m a big fan of X-Men, and ever since I was in elementary school I’ve dreamt about having a super power. (I’d pick telekinesis! How about you?) And so, I’ve always envisioned having Anomalies in this book because I thought it’d be fun to write about people with super powers.

Rudyard: What process did you use to design the alternate history? Did you go back and make a chart of all the things that would have happened if the Nazis had won and then make a timeline for everything, or did you do something else to figure out the alternate history setup? I create alternate histories myself, and I use charts and timelines.

Wow, if I write another alternate history, maybe you can give me some advice on using charts and timelines, Rudyard! 🙂

To answer your question, I’m far less organized than you are! I wish I had created a cool chart but mostly I just jotted down notes in a Word document to keep track of dates and events. When I was revising the book with my editor at Scholastic, we also created a timeline to make sure that everything made sense and that the events fell in a logical pattern.

Jack: We don’t remember much about the concentration camps in the book. In your vision of this alternate history, what happened with the concentration camps?

In an earlier draft of the book, there were a few mentions of a “work camp” where people were sent if they did something that the Nazis didn’t like. But as for concentration camps specifically, I’ve envisioned that they existed very much in the same way in Zara’s world as they did in our own—with the Germans setting up camps like Auschwitz and Dachau where they killed so many innocent lives. Ultimately though, I ended up deleting the mentions of the camps to streamline the story, but now that you bring it up, I wish that I had kept them in because it’s an important point to address.

Casey: Did the book always have a romance element, or did you figure out that you wanted to add some romance partway through writing the book? Have you thought about what happens with Zara and Bastian after the ending, and would you ever write an epilogue or a second book to tell about what happens? 

Yes, I always wanted there to be some sort of romantic element in the book! I had a lot of fun writing the kissing scene between Zara and Bastian—and my editor made sure that it wasn’t too mushy. Haha.

I’ve actually thought quite a lot about what happens to Zara and Bastian after the story ends! Originally, I had envisioned this book as the first in a trilogy. The second book would center around Zara and the Alliance pushing the Nazis out of the Eastern American Territories; and the third book would focus on Zara traveling to Germany to help Bastian stamp out the Nazis for good. So yes, the two of them do meet again, at least in my brain! There aren’t any plans to write a sequel for now since my publisher only bought The Only Thing to Fear, but maybe one day I will finish Zara’s and Bastian’s story!

Jack and Geno: Was Zara based on you in any way? Were any of the events in the book based on anything that happened to you?

Ah, that’s such a great question! I’ve never thought about Zara in that way before. I would say that I didn’t purposely base Zara on me—for one thing, I think she’s much braver than I ever could be!—but I do think we’re similar because we’re both stubborn and we don’t like people telling us what to do. 🙂

As for the second part of the question, I didn’t base any events in the book on my life either but I wouldn’t mind having a cool super power and using it to fight evil.

And finally, some questions about when Caroline was in middle school:

Casey: When you were in middle school, were you part of a writing club or anything like that?

Unfortunately, my middle schools (I attended two middle schools because my family moved between my sixth and seventh grade years) didn’t have a writing club, but I think I would’ve joined one if it had been available to me! My mom did send me to a writing camp one summer though. Does that count? 🙂

Jack: Were you ever bullied?

I was teased and made fun of at times from elementary school to high school, but I consider myself lucky because it didn’t happen to me too often. I think bullying has gotten worse since I was in school, maybe because cyber bullying is becoming a bigger and bigger problem. Have you ever felt bullied? Do you have any advice on how to counteract bullying? I have a nine-month-old baby daughter, and I’ve already started worrying about sending her to school because I know bullying can be a big problem! Maybe you can give me some pointers to give her when she’s older?

Casey and Rudyard: Did you like history class when you were in middle school? Did you like WWII history, specifically?

Yes, I’ve always loved learning about history! One of my favorite classes in high school was Ancient History because I loved learning about people who lived thousands of years ago. I’ve always been interested in WWII history too, because it’s one of those rarer instances in history where there definitely was a Good Guy versus a Bad Guy. I also admired the courage and bravery of the men and women who fought against the Axis powers—from soldiers to nurses to everyday people who fought however they could.

My new book is set in Occupied France (when the Nazis overtook a part of France during WWII) and it focuses on a group of spies who uncover a top-secret German operation that can turn the tide of the war. It was very much inspired by the courageous men and women I learned about in my history classes!

Thank you so much for answering our questions, Caroline! Your new book sounds fabulous and we can’t wait to read it! For anyone looking for holiday gifts for readers who are history buffs or who enjoy action-packed fantasy novels with fascinating premises and great characters, we definitely recommendTHE ONLY THING TO FEAR!