Friday: About the Book Q & A
My first chapter was an assignment for a Novel Writing class. I dashed off a title: Finding Paradise (it couldn’t be Paradise Lost, obviously), never thinking it would be permanent for the next six years. I liked the idea of alluding to a broken family finding happiness again.
Years later, the first time I thought my novel was finished, I hired a developmental editor who (among so many very helpful critiques) said she didn’t think the title fit the story. By then the theme of misunderstandings was clear and everything I brainstormed was about not seeing or saying. The Things They Didn’t See came pretty quickly.
I love that it encapsulates all they didn't physically see: Jill and her dad can't see each other on either side of the boat; Connor disappears from Roger's view in the water; Jill and Matt both in anguish over what they physically didn't see at the accident. And also the emotional turmoil that's all around them but they don't see it in each other.
If you could put yourself as one character, who would you be?
There's a little of me in all the characters. I think that's why I could visualize the scenes and write the dialogue easily. I identify with Jill. I've experienced her desire to have an organized plan for life and family and the belief that if you're organized, everything else will fall into place. Also her belief that parenting perfectly is possible. It's not.
As a teen, I often felt like Jake. I don't think its uncommon for teens to feel unseen. Sometimes I'm Matt and so frustrated when I feel like someone is exerting control over my decisions. And I relate to the feeling that he had to suppress his grief because someone else's was perceived as greater.
And yes, I've fallen into the trap that he did--trying to be the favorite and pretending you're not. We all have human frailties. That's why this story of The Millers is so relatable.
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