48 | The Writer • October 2019
HOW I WRITE
BY ALLISON FUTTERMAN
N
ovelist Shaun David
Hutchinson’s compelling
(and award-winning) YA
novels combine specula-
tive elements with LGBT characters
and themes. Now he tackles nonfic-
tion for the first time with his mem-
oir, Brave Face. He recounts his
tumultuous life during his teenage
years as he struggled to understand
his sexuality, his depression, and the
suicide attempt
that led to a
search for self-
acceptance.
Hopeful and cou-
rageous, Brave
Face is every bit
as poignant and
gripping as
Hutchinson’s fic-
tion. Next up is his first non-specula-
tive novel, The State of Us. The story
of two opposing presidential candi-
dates’ sons who fall in love will be out
next year.
Writing memoir vs. fiction
Usually, I’m a “write by the seat of your
pants” kind of person when it comes to
fiction. I have a vague idea and a char-
acter voice, and then I’ll jump in and
explore. With memoir, I already knew
what happened. I had to create an out-
line of events and decide how I wanted
to tell my story. Having an outline and
supporting materials, such as journals
and emails, is not something I nor-
mally have [with fiction]. I experi-
mented with time jumps or linear
order and picking events that best told
the story. It was a challenge trying to
find the honesty that’s necessary when
telling a story in the first person. In
fiction, I need to find the core honesty
of the character, but this time the char-
acter was me.Honesty on the page
I’m a private person by nature. With
the memoir, when I sat down with my
editor to work on it, I realized it was all
or nothing. I was either going to let
people into that part of my life during
that time, or not. I wasn’t a particularly
wonderful teenager. I had my faults,
and I thought it was important to show
those faults – and to show that the way
I saw the world wasn’t necessarily theway the world actually was. But it was
the way I interpreted things. It was the
truth to me in that moment.Crafting YA/teenage dialogue
It boils down to honesty. I try to stay
away from slang because that immedi-
ately dates things. There’s a thing I see
a lot in beginning writers when work-
ing on dialogue. They try to transcribe
exactly how people talk, but dialogue is
looking for the soul of the conversa-
tion. It’s about making every word
count. I think teens are far more open
when they speak than people think
they are. I don’t dumb them down.Starting point
Generally, I just start writing and find-
ing the character’s voice and let them
tell the story. Sometimes I’m dead in
the water, and sometimes there are
false starts. I have ADHD, and if I
know too much about the story, I get
bored. Part of the fun is figuring out
what’s going to happen. It typically
takes me three to six weeks to write a
first draft, and it’s usually terrible. I’m a
fan of throw it away and start over. I’ll
outline a draft I’ve rewritten and make
changes I need to, and then rewrite it.
Some are easier than others.Writing for an audience
I’m only writing for two people – the
high school version of me and my best
friend, Rachel. She’s the first person
who reads my work. When you start
thinking about “who is my audience”
and “how to broaden my appeal,” then
you’re writing for committee. And that
doesn’t work out well for me.Allison Futterman is a freelance writer based
in Charlotte, North Carolina.Shaun David Hutchinson
In fiction, I need to
find the core honesty
of the character,
but this time the
character was me.Chris Piedra