An Interview with Berry Visiting Author K.B. Hoyle

by Cecilia Pagan, Jag Rag Staff Writer

Author K.B. Hoyle will be visiting Berry Middle School this Friday. Hoyle is the author of The Gateway, a fantasy series, which includes the novels The Six, The Oracle, and the White Thread, as well as the dystopian science fiction series The Breeder Cycle. Hoyle was a recipient of the Literary Classics Gold Award for YA Series and Seal of Approval in 2016 for The Gateway series and the recipient of the Bronze Award for YA Science Fiction and a 5-Star Review Seal from Readers' Favorites for The Breeder Cycle in 2016.

What is it like being an author? What are the challenges? What inspires an author? The Jag Rag caught up with Hoyle before her visit to Berry to ask her those questions and more.

Q: What is the most challenging or demanding thing about writing a book?

A: To be honest, what is most challenging about writing a book, and what is most demanding about writing a book are two different things entirely. Most challenging is the process of world-building and making sure I establish effective verisimilitude in the story. Verisimilitude is secondary belief--basically building out the framework of the world I'm creating—the story, and the characters—to a level of truth and believability so that my readers don't "run into the edges," so to speak, of the world while they are immersed in it.

What is most demanding is simply the time it takes to write a book. I tend to get lost in the work and can disappear into my secondary worlds for hours at a time. Have you heard of method actors? I'm a method writer. But I'm a wife first, and a mother, and I have real-life responsibilities that must take priority over my secondary worlds. I can't write for ten or twelve or twenty hours at a time without consequences!

Q: What inspires you the most to write books, and where do you find that inspiration?

A: I'm inspired by the voices in my head! Lol. Not really... But I think every good storyteller has a host of voices inside his or her head begging to get out and speak in the real world. I know that sounds crazy, but when I was a small child reading stories for the first time, the characters in those books were very real to me. I understood they weren't really real—that they were merely facets of the author's voice, but there was something so powerful about the author's ability to speak in a new and powerful way through the mouth of a character, and to communicate truths about Big Things like life and death, love and sadness and heartbreak and joy and longing... If that author had been standing before me in person, trying to talk to me about those things, I doubt I would have listened, or remembered today what they had told me. But stories, and the characters who speak in them, have a much more powerful voice. I remember Aslan telling Lucy, "Courage, dear heart," and Dumbledore telling Harry, "It matters not what someone is born, but what they grow to be." I remember a cheeky little hobbit "thief" who went on an adventure and changed the course of many lives. These are the things that inspired me when I was young and that continue to inspire me now—to speak big truths in simple ways.

Q: What is the best thing about being an author?

A: The best thing about being an author is simply getting to do what I love. That, and if I didn't have an outlet for the stories in my head, I think I would go crazy!

Q: Have you always wanted to be an author? If not what made you want to become one?

A: I have always wanted to be an author. I first remember wanting to write novels when I was six or seven, maybe. Around the time I first read The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe.

Q: What would you tell someone aspiring to be an author?

A: There is so much I would tell someone aspiring to be an author, so I will just mention a few. First, it is not as romantic a prospect as they probably imagine it to be. This is a career that comes with a lot of rejection, a lot of waiting, a lot of criticism, and very little traditional success. In this regard, patience and diligence must be practiced to have any sort of success. Second, learn both the crafts of storytelling and writing and learn both of them well! You may be born with a natural ability to write, but nobody is born ready to write a novel. Third, learn to share your work with others and to accept feedback with humility. A lot of creative writers are shy about their writing, but without feedback, you can't grow and improve. Fourth, accept now that you will have to have some sort of public persona. Gone are the days that authors can be hermits. Authors have to manage social media platforms these days and actively engage with people, including public speaking, festival appearances, book signings and more.

Students have the opportunity to purchase Hoyle's books in the media center and have their books signed by the author on Friday.