Sara Shepard Teases "Nowhere Like Home" And Explains What Went Into Creating "Pretty Little Liars"
Sara Shepard is an author who knows how to keep readers on their toes. With many novels under her belt, including pop culture phenomenon, Pretty Little Liars, her latest book, Nowhere Like Home steps away from teen drama and focuses on the stories of socially anxious young adults. However, the themes of female friendship, in whatever form they may take, still remain at the forefront of her latest work. However, this time, motherhood also participates in the overall journey that these characters will undergo. Nowhere Like Home includes several exciting thrills, and Sara Shepard discusses what goes into building up plot twists and where she starts in writing her stories.
Culturess: What inspired your novel, Nowhere Like Home, to take place on a "Mommune?"
Sara Shepard: I always talk with friends who are also moms, and we would always talk back and forth about how wouldn't it be so much fun to raise our kids together on a big farm or something like that. Just moms, and we could all take care of our kids together, so it a little bit came out of that where it seems like the utopia, the dream. In my book, obviously, it's not the dream. Things go wrong. But it just came out of conversations with friends, and I thought, oh, that would be interesting, and an interesting setting, and what does that actually look like if it actually happened, but people weren't so honest with each other, and things started to go wrong. So it came out of that.
Culturess: Why did you decide to turn social anxiety and introvert behavior into a major theme?
Sara Shepard: I feel like it wasn't something I was reading about as a theme in other books. I'm sure there are books that I've read where it does come up. But it's certainly something that I've seen all over. I don't know if I get targeted on Instagram and social media about being an introvert or social anxiety and stuff like that because I am, and the more I click on it, the more I see, oh I'm getting fed that content more, but, I think people who have social anxiety, sometimes their actions can be misinterpreted. Sometimes you're awkward, or you keep to yourself, or you don't wanna go out, and that can get in the way of friendships, and how much does it affect friendships, and how much can you get away with as an introvert, as someone with social anxiety too. I just thought it was an interesting subject to explore, and something that hits close to home with a lot of people, and something that I deal with myself, and I think a few of the characters in the novel deal with. There's sort of this main character who's a little bit of the villain, or she is set up to sort of be the villain, although that's questionable. But, I think even the main character, Lenna, has a bit of social anxiety as well and trouble making friends and not sure if her friendships are valid or if she's a good enough friend and stuff like that. So, I always like talking about friendships in all of my books. It's always something I like exploring because friendships are as interesting as romantic relationships.
Culturess: How long into crafting and planning out the storyline for the book, did you land on the big plot twists?
Sara Shepard: I think my editor and I went back and forth a lot as far as getting those twists to make sense. I mean, I knew a few things going into the novel, but I didn't quite know how I was going to get there. I knew who was kind of pulling the strings and what was kind of happening behind the scenes. But there were definitely some adjustments, and I think the book started out a little bit more about Lenna and her relationship with her husband, and the backstory was a little bit different, and I moved away from that and definitely came back to just being more about friendships between women and keeping it away from the men in the equation. So, my goodness, it feels like a year, a year and a half. It was a lot of plotting. A lot of plotting and revising and then revising again and doing a lot just to get it right, and it definitely came kind of gradually.
Culturess: The novel offers perspectives for multiple main characters. What went into making sure each of them was unique?
Sara Shepard: I thought about who they all were as friends and what sort of friends they were to one another and they were all sort of different types of friends. There was a friend who needs a lot. There was the sort of toxic friend. There was the friend who gives too much. There's a friend who, she could take it or leave it almost. In a way, she keeps a lot secret and doesn't really give all of herself. So, thinking about those qualities as friends, you can sort of expand into, well, if they're like that as friends, what plays into that as what is their backstory, what is the secrets they're keeping. I went in that direction. It was an interesting way to develop characters, to start with their love languages where you're the person where your love language is touch, or you're love language is acts of service or gifts or whatever, and that sort of informs what sort of person you are in your history and your backstory and all that. But it was interesting to have friend languages and figure out why they are that way, so that's what I tried to do.
Culturess: How do you feel about how Pretty Little Liars: Original Sin has adapted your novels and leaned into horror?
Sara Shepard: I think it's fun. I watched the first season. I'm definitely gonna watch the second season. The show does not have a lot to do with the books; I mean, really, the only thing that it shares with the books is there's an "A," and it seems that everybody has a secret and there's a friendship. There's a core friendship the girls in the first season weren't friends to start out and sort of come together against what's her name; I don't remember her name at this moment, the mean girl. But, I think it's really fun that they moved it into a horror place because there were seven seasons of the first show and if they would have done something just like the first show it wouldn't have been interesting and I think this is an interesting new twist on it. And it's been fun to watch. It's definitely scarier. I think the original show had its scary moments, but it was also kind of campy and kind of, you know, you didn't take it totally seriously, but this show has a lot more serious, really scary moments, heart-pounding moments, but, I have liked it.
Culturess: What do you think it is about the mystery of "A" that through the first show and through Original Sin, has captivated audiences still?
Sara Shepard: I don't know. When I originally thought of the concept for "Pretty Little Liars," it was really before there was a lot of social media, you know, the internet. Chatting on the internet was just becoming possible, and I think it's just sort of that anonymous watcher. The idea that someone is watching you is what I started with. The idea that somebody is watching you and you don't know who it is and they know things about you. Now, at that time, it was not somebody tracking your phone or having all these super techy capabilities to do that or bullying you online or doing all the things that "A" could now do, well scary "A", I don't know what Original Sin "A" is up to, but, I think it's just that idea that somebody you have chosen not to share your secrets with knows your secrets anyway and you're more visible in the world than you think you are. And, I think, teenagers especially, going through so many big changes and not knowing who you are and feeling like everything you do is so embarrassing and humiliating and you have so many secrets, and the idea of that to me starting out writing the series was really terrifying. I just wanted to sink in the background and didn't want anybody to see me. I certainly didn't want my secrets to be visible. So, the idea that somebody knew that and was threatening to tell, or even just knew it, was really, really scary to me, and I don't think that's changed for anybody. I don't think anybody wants anyone to know, and I think it's even more of a threat these days because of what the mistake of putting online or in an e-mail, or photo or any of the that, just the idea of that getting leaked, so, I think it's that. The idea that somebody knows and somebody's gonna tell continues to be a very scary idea for people.
Culturess: Is there any storyline from your Pretty Little Liars books that you would like to see play out in Original Sin season 2?
Sara Shepard: Oh my gosh, I feel like so much got used in the first show. I did write a, because the girls are now, it's a new set of girls, and they're in high school, and you can imagine the "Pretty Little Liars" original girls have grown up, and they're older now. I wrote an Audible novel just for Audible, it's not in print, it's just an audiobook called, "The Liars," where the original Pretty Little Liars have grown. They're a little older now, and they're adults, and they're doing adult things, and it would be fun if they looked at that, and this is in an ideal world if they returned to Rosewood for a little bit and just a peak of what Hanna, Spencer, Aria, and Emily are doing and used some of the plot lines from that story. That would be really fun. I mean, I would love it if they go to Rosewood at all this season. I think the fans of the original show would lose their minds if we saw anybody, any of the actors from, and the characters from the original show that would be so much fun.
Culturess: When you craft a thriller where do you start?
Sara Shepard: I usually start with what is the big scary thing that's happened and then I start with what the lie is or what the twist is. I don't even often know who has done the thing. For "Pretty Little Liars," for example, I didn't know who the characters were, but it was that somebody was watching them. For "Nowhere Like Home," it was there is this Mommune, and two people end up being there who one is keeping a huge secret from the other. It's like you show up at a Mommune, and the very last person that you want to be there is there because you keep a huge secret from them. So it's like an overarching concept. I wrote a novel called "Reputation," and there's a hack, and everybody's secrets are exposed, and then it's like, what would happen if that...so I think the big, kind of, exciting first and then I say next is what is the twist or the lie and it will all kind of...But I do a lot of thinking before even writing of kind of does this idea even kinda make sense. Can I actually write this into a book? Can this play out? But I would say that's what I start out with.
Culturess: In Nowhere Like Home, you are teasing that something has happened but you're simultaneously not giving away the ending. What goes into that?
Sara Shepard: I think that's just a lot of editing. I think there are probably times where, in those early chapters where it seems like I'm teasing, probably in early drafts, I will have written out the entire thing I'm hinting at, but then I'll just take it away and be like, okay this is enough for readers to be interested and intrigued but not enough so that they don't know everything yet. And it's kind of like what you imagine a real person would share with you. They might share, depending on how well you know them, they might share in the beginning, well in the very beginning they won't share anything with you, but like a little farther in they'll share a bit more, you know, something terrible happened to me, or whatever, but maybe they won't say the details. As you get to know them more, and as you read more, you get a little bit more and more, so it's a little like that.
Culturess: When you write a thriller series, how do you decide which revelations will happen in each book?
Sara Shepard: That is definitely a lot of outlining, and for "Pretty Little Liars," for example, the series was only four books to start out with. So it was very much like I knew who the original "A" was gonna be, I knew that was gonna be revealed at the end of book four, but it was like, what are the really big moments that are gonna help us get there but not give away everything? I had to think of some really big things, and often, it was getting rid of really big red herrings in each book to kind of slowly reveal who "A" could be. But it's just a lot of really careful outlining and plotting. I would say it is really hard to do a thriller series. Now that I have written stand-alone thrillers where things are wrapped up in one book, there's part of me that's like, I don't even know how I did that because it was really hard to keep that pace going and keep the mystery of "A" moving along without it being too obvious about who "A" was or too repetitive. But I think a big thing for each book was to set up somebody who you thought was "A," and then at the end of the book, you find out there's no way it could be them. So it's kinda like the way it is in a stand-alone mystery where you set up a red herring and the character goes through the process of eliminating them, it was just on a larger scale. And then you throw in all of the "A" messages and romance and bad things that the girls are doing. But that was a lot. Those books took a lot of plotting.
Next. Interview: L.C. Rosen discusses Emmett, Emma, and what he has coming next. Interview: L.C. Rosen discusses Emmett, Emma, and what he has coming next. dark