Today on Skiffy and Fanty, Betsy Dornbusch, author of the Books of the Seven Eyes trilogy and the soon-to-be-released The Silver Scar, talks to us about the books that influence us and how writers have to find their own stories.
“Stay gold, Ponyboy. Stay gold.”
Most American readers will recognize that as a climactic line from The Outsiders by SE Hinton, which happens to be my favorite book. I met SE Hinton when she came to Oak Park Elementary in fourth grade. My recollection was that we talked about that book a lot and that she was nice enough, but also that her books were about teenagers, so they had nothing to do with me. My brothers were teenagers, and they were WAY older. Never mind that Nancy Drew was a teenager, and the Hardy Boys, and the older Pevensies, and really, when you get down to it, Frodo in his way. But as life goes, I didn’t actually read The Outsiders until 7th grade.
Reading it changed me into a writer.
Oh, I had been writing. Play-scripts with my bff Sheri (who is now a writer and professor of writing) and stories to accompany my drawings since before Hinton came to visit my school (mostly horses and the girls that love them). But Hinton, Ponyboy, Johnny and Sodapop — they all turned me into a novelist. I wrote my first novel late into the summer nights the year I read it. I still have the book, too.
Writers have books like my thing for The Outsiders; we cling to them more than maybe other readers do. We revere them on so many levels. They do more than speak to us. They speak to our own writing and expression, which many of us liken with self. But it was only recently that I started understanding how deep The Outsiders went for me. At first I thought it was about the “gang,” the makeshift family. I construct makeshift families a lot in my stories. But when an old hero/crush of mine made fun of me on Twitter about that theme, I realized the resonance of The Outsiders went deeper for me. I since gave up on the hero/crush (heroes mostly die and all that) but I did examine why he was somewhat right.
It’s not revelatory to mention that writers revisit our questions over and over. We write stories in different ways and with different characters, always trying to sneak up on the same answers from a different angle. When I wrote that first novel in seventh grade, I might have been focused on family, as mine was due to break up soon. I might have created wonderful friendships between my characters because in sixth grade I lost my best friend Sheri when we both moved away — me to a school where I was unmercifully tormented by the school bully.
Now that I have friends, a wonderful family, stability both socially and emotionally, my exploration of family has not subsided. All my characters seem to lead troubled family lives and to not fit in socially. (It me, at least the social bit). But it somehow didn’t seem enough anymore when I finished Enemy, the finale to my trilogy. My thinking deepened into the study of symbols that reappear in my work over and over: Graveyards. Tattoos. Mirrors. Rooms. Ritual. Faith. Smoking. Drinking. Swords. Armor. Horses. Silver. Buildings.
Because I tend to be late even to my own parties, I recently realized I’ve always been fascinated by class structure, feudalism, authoritarianism, loyalty, and protection — ever since I was a little kid. At first it had to do with cliques in school, most of which were nonsensical to me. Later it moved to how and why we set ourselves apart. Now my examination might be a little more sophisticated, but I’m still pretty confused if the list of symbols above are any indication. Most of the things above are methods to classify ourselves, even into death.
For years I wrote obliviously, not really focused on theme. I’m a fantasy writer, for crissake. I like action, quests, mysteries, swords. I like fights and blood, damn it.
But bridging my symbols to my questions has changed how I think about my own writing. I’ve realized have to stay with my own story. Take it deeper, not wider. I think that’s why I found it so taxing to write a historical character this summer. I was writing outside my wheelhouse, yeah, but in more ways than just genre and setting. Symbols and the stories we love help us stay true to our own story. They help us stay gold.
— Betsy Dornbusch
Betsy Dornbusch is the author of several fantasy short stories, novellas, and five novels, including the BOOKS OF THE SEVEN EYES trilogy and the upcoming THE SILVER SCAR. She likes writing, reading, snowboarding, punk rock, and the Denver Broncos. Betsy and her family split their time between Boulder and Grand Lake, Colorado. You can find her at her website at http://www.betsydornbusch.com/ and her books wherever fine books are sold. THE SILVER SCAR comes out on October 23rd.
