Children's Bookshelf Talks to Blake Nelson

This story originally appeared in Children's Bookshelf on Mar. 2, 2006 Sign up now!

by Lynda Brill Comerford, Children's Bookshelf -- Publishers Weekly, 3/2/2006

Nelson, who has two novels out this spring (Gender Blender from Delacorte, and Prom Anonymous from Viking), talks about his preference for writing for teens.

As you proved in The New Rules of High School, Rock Star Superstar and Prom Anonymous, you are a master of adolescent angst. What prompted you to write for a younger crowd in Gender Blender?

Mostly, I just wanted to give it a try to see if I could do it. The idea for Gender Blender came when I was brainstorming with a friend. We started talking about the movie Freaky Friday and what would be a funny way to do a take-off of it.

Were there any unique challenges in writing for a slightly younger audience?

The main thing about being that [in-between] age is that boys and girls dislike each other, whereas in the case of older teens boys and girls are attracted to each other. Writing Gender Blender was like turning around the magnets. It was fun to work with a different type of polarity between characters.

In Prom Anonymous, you go into the lives of three teenage friends who have grown distant over the years. What inspired you to use this theme and experiment with multiple-view points?

It's funny. I've always been known as someone who writes from a single perspective, but when I read Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants, it triggered the idea of using the classic triad format—going into the lives of different characters and showing how they're linked by a common bond. For me, writing Prom Anonymous was like doing a painting with three panels that blend. I loved setting an arty girl [Chloe] against a straight girl [Laura] and showing how, when they talked to each other, there wasn't much difference between them.

You seem to be very in touch with teen concerns. Do your books come from memories of what it was like to be a teen or do you do field research?

I start with memories and add things that I pick up about teens, but I don't try to steal the lingo of modern teens. That wouldn't work for me. I do try to keep in mind that teens and preteens are total people. Their relationships are just as complicated as adult relationships; they are as smart as adults. They are as articulate as adults.

Do you think that the high-school and middle-school scene has changed much since you were a teen?

I think that things have gotten more conservative. There's a weird '50s echo in society today. People are always so sure that teens are different now. You hear all this talk about sex and Internet use and all, but the basic truths about being a teen are the same. The important stuff never changes.

Why do you enjoy writing for teenagers?

For some reason, it's the thing that comes most naturally to me. I started out wanting to become the next John Updike, writing about adult issues, but when I wrote about teens, what I wrote always came out better. I like writing about teenagers because they're so full of potential at that age. There's such a wide spectrum of stuff going on in high school. Situations are more exaggerated. There's more drama.

What are you working on now?

I just finished a book, Paranoid Park [Viking], that will be coming out in September. It's different from anything I've ever written before. It's about a high-school student who accidentally kills someone and faces the ethical dilemma of whether or not to tell. If Prom Anonymous is a take-off of Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants, then this book is a take-off of Crime and Punishment.