Write What You Know, a guest post by MADE OF STARS author Jenna Voris

I was working at a summer drama camp and reconnecting with my Theatre Kid roots when I decided to write a book. Well, another book. I had just spent the last three years writing, editing, polishing, editing again, and, finally, querying a YA fantasy that was going absolutely nowhere. I knew I wanted to tell stories, I was annoyed that the on-trend book I wrote for so long wasn’t getting the response I hoped, and I wasn’t quite sure where to go from there. I had spent so much time thinking about what other people might want that I didn’t even know what I liked writing. So, armed with a new notebook and a healthy does of spite, I started listing things that interested me, everything from favorite tropes, to movies, to songs.

Like I said, I was a big theatre kid in high school and if you were a theatre kid in the year 2012, you were probably obsessed with Jeremy Jordan. It was basically a prerequisite to joining drama club. At the time, he was everywhere—Newsies, SMASH, an absolutely iconic movie with Dolly Parton where they remixed gospel songs for their church choir competition—but before getting nominated for Tonys, he had been in the original Broadway cast of Bonnie and Clyde. Naturally, as a theatre kid who loved Jeremy Jordan, I had listened to the cast recording and was familiar with the show.

There’s this great song right before the second act where Jeremy Jordan as Clyde is locked in prison. He’s just killed someone for the first time and is processing what that means before deciding to become the criminal everyone believes him to be. That has always been the most interesting part of the show for me and I remember wishing the creative team had opened with that song, so we could see the consequences of those actions play out over the rest of the production. That’s how Made of Stars started for me—with the image of a boy locked in a dark prison cell, dealing with the aftermath of this terrible crime, and wondering how he could possibly move forward.

When people say “write what you know” I don’t think they’re usually referring to extremely niche references to a short-lived 2011 Broadway musical, but here we are. I checked out every Bonnie and Clyde biography my local library had in stock, made an extremely detailed Spotify playlist called What if we Kissed in Space? and started brainstorming.

At the time, I was mostly writing that book for me, to prove I could write something else. I had every intention of letting this extremely self-indulgent project run its course before returning to something more marketable but the more I wrote, the more I didn’t want to stop. I researched politics and economics in Depression-era Texas, read oral histories of the American prison system, and combed through old newspapers in Dallas to find headlines I could use. Made of Stars isn’t a strict retelling. Ava and Shane are not Bonnie and Clyde and the enemy they’re facing isn’t the same as it was in 1930s America, but I don’t think I could have told the story properly if I didn’t have that background knowledge to understand how those events came to be in our world.

Made of Stars is about two teenage outlaws trying to save their home planet from an oppressive military government and the enemy pilot who is sent to hunt them down. It’s a story of crime and passion and betrayal, yes, but it’s also about relationships. It’s about doing (sometimes) terrible things to protect the people you love and how each choice you make today has profound impacts on the world you leave behind.

It’s no secret that teenagers are some of the most powerful people on the planet. I’m constantly inspired by their tenacity and grit and their ability to fearlessly stand up for the things they believe in. I’m also incredibly sad they have to do that at all, that the people in power have, more often than not, decided not to protect them when it mattered most. A lot of my teenage frustrations found their way into this book—how it felt to be overlooked and unheard by people who assumed they knew better because they were older. I know now that isn’t always the case. Sometimes the people who are supposed to protect you lie. Sometimes they don’t care. Sometimes you can do everything right and still lose.

I always felt like being a teenager was a weird combination of hopeful despair. So much of the world felt stacked against me, created specifically to make me feel small. And yet, every time I felt like things were too far out of my reach, I would look around and see someone else fighting for the same, impossible goal. There’s strength in numbers. There’s power in knowing you’re not alone and I hope that’s what readers ultimately find in Made of Stars—the spark of hope that exists in the most unlikely places even when no one is looking.

ABOUT MADE OF STARS

MADE OF STARS was inspired by the lawless love story of Bonnie and Clyde. It is a character-driven adventure full of snark, daring chases, and enough romance to keep any sci-fi—or intrigued fantasy—reader happy. Voris’s prose has been hailed as “bustling” (Publishers Weekly), “stellar” (Allison Saft, New York Times bestselling author), and “sharp and cinematic” (Lora Beth Johnson), and MADE OF STARS has landed on most anticipated lists at BuzzFeed, Goodreads, SheReads, among others!

“A thrill ride of the highest caliber. Made of Stars is an explosion of space warfare with beautifully violent criminals you’ll love to accompany.” —Chloe Gong, #1 New York Times bestselling author of These Violent Delights

Shane and Ava are a team. He steals the aircraft, she charms their mark, and together they take what they need. Not even their distracting chemistry could get in the way. Until Shane was caught and left to rot on a prison moon. Now, freshly escaped from confinement and simmering with anger, he has his sights set on their biggest job yet.

Cyrus just graduated from the flight academy with a shiny new position lined up reporting to a well-respected general. On his very first assignment, he stops the outlaws in their tracks—or he would have, if his annoyingly handsome copilot, Lark, hadn’t fallen for Ava’s deception.

But when Shane uncovers a top-secret plot that would leave his and Ava’s home world at the mercy of Cyrus’s military leaders, he makes it his mission to thwart them at all costs. It isn’t long before the two of them make interstellar headlines with each new heist. And thanks to a chance run-in with the rebels, Cyrus is caught between two versions of the truth. He must pick a side—and fast. Because Shane and Ava will bring the planet to its knees . . . or die trying.SEE LESS

Jenna Voris writes books about ambitious girls and galaxy traversing adventures. She was born and raised in Indiana—where she learned to love roundabouts and the art of college basketball—and now calls Washington D.C. home. When she’s not writing, she can be found perfecting her road trip playlists and desperately trying to keep her houseplants alive. Made of Stars is her debut.

Follow her online @JennaVoris and at jennamvoris.com.

Filed under: Guest Post