Have you ever wondered what inspires your favorite authors to write their stories? We asked author Jennifer Niven to share the inspiration behind When We Were Monsters and she did not disappoint! Read on to hear how a song and a moment from her past inspired this dark academia thriller.
A Song, a Book, and Real-life Inspiration: How I Wrote When We Were Monsters
By Jennifer Niven
Ideas for stories come from the most unexpected places.
When I was an English major in college, the chair of the English department—who was also my advisor—accused me of plagiarism. She was a petty, prickly person, not terribly well liked by colleagues or students, but she had tenure, which meant she was as much a part of my university as the historic stone arch that framed the entrance to campus. In other words, she wasn’t going anywhere.
I’ve always written. Words are my life force. My mother was also a writer, and from the time I could hold a crayon and form letters, she taught me to express myself on paper and to find the story in everything.
The piece I had written for my professor was personal. It was a story about my parents’ divorce and the way in which it turned my world upside down. For the first time since the divorce, I had laid myself bare, and this adult authority figure—a person I was supposed to trust—had accused me of lying. The experience was absolutely devastating.
Ultimately, I was declared innocent by the dean and the university, and my professor was ordered to apologize for the false accusation. She never forgave me, and for the rest of my time there, she punished me in big and small ways, all of them nefarious.
Flash forward to two years ago when I was trying to decide what to write next. My eyes fell upon a book on my shelf—Lois Duncan’s Killing Mr. Griffin. I picked it up. Thumbed through its much-loved, much-worn pages. Reread passages. Remembered the solace it had given me during that hard, sad time in college.
And, like that, I heard the first two lines of the book-to-be . . .
The day before we kill Meredith Graffam is calm and blue. Like Massachusetts in summer after rain.
As many of my readers know, I write to music. I create playlists for my books, my way of storyboarding the plot and the emotions of my characters. This—it was clear—was going to be a dark book. And a dark book called for dark music.
I sat down at my desk one day with a random playlist from Spotify, and on it was a song called “The Unquiet Grave” sung by Karliene. I remained very still until it was over, and then I played it again. And again.
And then I searched Spotify for every chilling, unsettling version of that song—the Penny Dreadful versions are particularly unnerving—and began to create my When We Were Monsters playlist.
As the playlist took form, so did the teacher. The students. The setting. The ending. What started as a way to exorcise the ghosts of my past became so much more—heartfelt characters I fell in love with; a sizzling romance between two stubborn, wounded people; a shadowy, remote setting as real as any place I’ve ever set foot; and a flawed yet human adult figure I learned to feel sympathy for.
My only regret is that my professor, who died years ago, is no longer here to read it. Would she recognize herself? I don’t think so. But still, I wish I could send her a copy.
Oh, and just to be clear, I had nothing to do with her death. 🙂
