Student-Author Interview 10: Dianne Salerni

Here it is—student-author interview number 10! I’m really excited to bring you this interview with Dianne Salerni, author of two YA novels and a smart, fun, imaginative, and suspenseful middle grade fantasy series. The Eighth Day, the first book in the MG series, introduces Jax Aubrey, a thirteen-year-old boy who has been sent to live with a very unlikely guardian: eighteen-year-old Riley Pendare. Jax is not impressed with his new life with Riley…until he wakes up one morning to a world without any people.
It turns out that Jax is in the eighth day, an extra day between Wednesday and Thursday that is linked back to Arthurian legend. Jax and Riley are Transitioners, which means they have connections to clans from Arthurian days and can live in all eight days. But there are other people, like a mysterious girl named Evangeline, who can only live on the eighth day. With Riley’s help, Jax suddenly has to deal with greedy people who want to use him to access the eighth day and dangerous people who want to use the magical Evangeline to destroy the regular, seven-day world and everyone in it.  

The Eighth Day is a fantastic book. I devoured it, and so did several of my students. And lucky for us, The Inquisitor’s Mark, the second book in the series, is out on January 27^th, and it’s just as terrific! (And a third book is forthcoming, too!)

Two seventh grade students, Silas and Jonah, and two fifth graders, Abby and Miles, interviewed Dianne about The Eighth Day and The Inquisitor’s Mark. I hope you enjoy the interview! When you’re finished reading it, you can find out more about Dianne and her other books at diannesalerni.com.

First, here’s what the students especially liked:

Silas: I really like the idea of an eighth day that only certain people can get to.

Jonah: I like the concept of an eighth day, too. I really like how it doesn’t seem like any time has gone by for the kin who are only in the eighth day, but really a number of days have gone by for everyone else.

Abby: I really liked how Jax had to get a tattoo to represent his clan and make his magical abilities stronger.

Miles: I liked how The Eighth Day connects the legends of King Arthur to the present time. I also liked how the book was told from both Jax and Evangeline’s perspectives but more from Jax’s, and I liked the descriptions of the characters because I could really picture them.

And now for the students’ questions about the books, and about writing in general:

Silas: How did you come up with the idea of an eighth day?

The idea came from a family joke. Whenever my daughters asked my husband when they could do something (like go to Hershey Park, or the beach, or ice skating) and he didn’t have a specific answer for them, he’d say, “We’ll do it on Grunsday!” And they would groan because that wasn’t a real day. Once, while they were making the usual joke, I thought to myself, “What if there really was a Grunsday, but not everyone knew about it?” And that’s how it all started!

Jonah: How did you come up with the name for Grunsday? We know that some other days are named after Norse gods–does this name have any meaning like that?

Grunsday is often used as a joke name for a day that doesn’t exist. As far as I can tell, it comes from an old Beetle Bailey comic strip. In one episode, Army private Beetle Bailey is on kitchen duty all week. In each frame, he eagerly crosses off days on his calendar. When he gets to Saturday, he says, “I’m glad there are no more days in this week!” Then he looks at the calendar, sees another day, and exclaims, “GRUNSDAY?!?!” I assume cartoonist Mort Walker made it up.

Abby: I really like Evangeline. How did you come up with her character?

After I got the idea for a secret day, I had to figure out a story to go along with it. Jax was the first character who came to me, then Riley. I knew Jax would be an orphan who discovered the secret day by accident and Riley would seem pretty clueless and not a good guardian at first — then turn out to be more important than Jax thought. (And a good guy.) I started planning out different events and characters. The bank robber and the twins were planned early on. Believe it or not, Evangeline was the last (important) character who came to me. I had an idea about Jax finding a girl who lived only on Grunsday – then started wondering who she was, why she was trapped in that day, where she came from … Once I invented Evangeline, the whole story came together, and I was ready to start the first draft. She was the key to the whole book!

Silas and Jonah: We read both The Eighth Day and The Inquisitor’s Mark, and we know that there is going to be a third book, too. How long did it take you to write the first book versus the second and third book? Did you write them all at once, or did you take a break between the books?

I started writing The Eighth Day (which I originally called Grunsday) in April of 2012. I finished the first draft in July of that year, then started revisions. That August, I went to Mexico to climb the Pyramid of the Sun so I could make sure I had that scene right. I shared the story with my agent in September, and by October, we had a deal with HarperCollins. (3 books, with a possible 4^th and 5^th if the series is popular)

I started writing The Inquisitor’s Mark not very long after signing the contract. It took me 11 weeks, the fastest I’ve ever written a first draft! By contrast, the third book took me about 7 months. I got interrupted a lot while working on it because of things I had to do for the other two books, like revisions and proof-reading. I didn’t take too long a break between writing each one because I had a pretty tight schedule for deadlines.

Miles: I like to write and my teacher tells me I’m a good writer, but I don’t know how you can just sit and write a whole novel with hundreds of pages. How do you do that? Are there any tricks?

When I was your age, I couldn’t write stories that long either. My stories gradually grew in length the more I wrote and the older I got. I don’t think there are any tricks I can recommend except to keep writing AND reading to learn everything you can about story-telling. More complex stories will come to you with experience. Writing short stories is a good way to begin!

Jonah: How did you come up with all of the names for the different families in the books? I noticed that some of the present-day families are named after ancient families’ last names, but then it seems like other families like the Morgans are named after the first names of the ancient people they’re descended from. How did you decide to do that?

I figured names would change over 1500 years, and some families might change their names to make them modern-sounding. For example, Sir Owain’s name was changed to Owens (although I gave Owens a first name that could also be a last name just so you wouldn’t know who he was when you met him.) As for Morgan LeFay, “le fay” means “the one with witch powers” so it was more of a nickname than a family name. Some legends say Morgan was Arthur’s half-sister; others say she wasn’t. None really give her a definite family name. Morgan made a good last name for a modern family, so I decided that Morgan LeFay’s line decided to use Morgan as their surname somewhere between Arthurian time and now.

Silas: Why did you switch from alternating Evangeline’s perspective with Jax’s in the first book to alternating another character named Dorian’s perspective with Jax’s in the second book? Will it be a different character’s perspective alternating with Jax’s perspective in the third book?

Such a great question! No adult reviewer has ever asked me why there is an alternate POV, let alone how I decide who it will be!

In each case, the alternate POV has to be someone who can provide the reader with information Jax doesn’t have – otherwise, there’s no reason to give them POV. In The Eighth Day, Evangeline gives the reader a glimpse of what life is like trapped in the eighth day. She shares the history of her family and her race, the Kin. Evangeline is the major focus in that book, because everything Riley and Jax do revolves around her.

In The Inquisitor’s Mark, Evangeline is still important, but her perspective doesn’t add anything to the story that Jax doesn’t already know. (FYI — One of my editors really loved Tegan and asked if I could make her the alternate POV character in Book 2, but like Evangeline, Tegan doesn’t have information to share that Jax doesn’t already know.) On the other hand, Dorian, as a member of Jax’s long-lost family and the Dulac clan, is full of information Jax doesn’t have but the reader needs. It was weird writing from his perspective at first, but the more I got to know him, the more I liked him. One of my favorite scenes in the book is the one with Dorian and Billy and the garbage chute!

Yes, in the third book, there will be a new alternate POV character who’ll give readers a perspective Jax doesn’t have. Based on the end of Book 2, you might be able to guess who it is, but rather than post a spoiler in this interview, I’ll tell your teacher who it is, and you can ask her if you want to know if you guessed right!

Miles: What does it feel like to spend a really long time working on a book and then wait to see if other people like it and if they think it’s a success or not?

It’s nerve-wracking!!! Since the popularity of the books will determine whether HarperCollins lets me write Books 4 and 5 (or if I have to end with Book 3), it’s scary, too. Also, because the books are written so far in advance of publication, I’m a walking, talking spoiler machine. I have to be careful what I say to people. The first draft of Book 3 was written before Book 1 even came out, but I can’t talk about it much. I can’t even share the title, because it hasn’t been officially approved yet!

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

Jonah: We heard that you were a teacher for a long time. When you were in middle school, did you want to teach, write, or do something else? 

When I was growing up, the only two jobs I ever wanted to have were teaching or being an author. I am really lucky that I got to live both dreams!

Abby: What was your favorite book when you were in middle school?

I loved fantasy, science fiction, and mystery. (Still do, actually.) I read the novelized version of Star Wars a thousand times. (Yes, I was in middle school in 1977 when the first Star Wars came out.) I also loved mysteries written by Mary Stewart and Agatha Christie. Katherine Kurtz and Piers Anthony were my favorite fantasy authors.

Miles: How long were your fiction stories when you were in middle school? I want to know if you taught yourself to write for a really long time or if you could just do it even when you were a lot younger.

I’m so glad you asked that! I went digging in the back of a closet and found a story I wrote in 8^th grade that won a creative writing contest at my school. Personal computers were only just getting invented back then, and I didn’t own a typewriter until I was in high school, so all my stories were handwritten. The Andromeda Treaty was a science fiction story, and it’s 37 notebook pages long, written in cursive.

If that was typed out, it wouldn’t be very many pages. So, as you see, I had to work up to writing novel-length works, just like you will some day!

Thank you so much for answering our questions, Dianne, and for showing us a glimpse of your middle school writing!

Dianne lives near Philadelphia and will be visiting our school for a Local Author Day this spring, which we’re very excited about. We highly recommend both THE EIGHTH DAY and THE INQUISITOR’S MARK! (And this is a great time to get and read THE EIGHTH DAY if you haven’t already, since you’ll be able to get your hands on THE INQUISITOR’S MARK at the end of this month!)