Widely-published YA Author to Speak to Local Teens

When Kieran Scott took a creative writing class in high school, she tried a little bit of everything. She wrote poetry, a short story and a play, but when she got to “general fiction” she realized she found her true writing love.

Not that she imagined she would write more than a hundred books for teenagers before she even hit age 40.

“I never really thought that I was going to do it for a living,” said Scott, 37. “It seemed like an impossible dream.”

Scott had no idea that her first job after college as an assistant editor for a book packaging company would provide the perfect start for a future writer. Helping to edit other people’s works was how Scott learned the importance of thinking like an editor in revising her own. The job also gave Scott her first lucky break. One of Scott’s editor friends was putting together a series of romances. In order to find promising writers for the series, the editor held writer “auditions.”

“You had to write two chapters and an outline, and that’s what I did,” Scott said.

The opportunity led Scott to publishing her very first book, "Trust Me," at the age of 24.

But it took more than luck to fill two crowded shelves with published manuscripts. It took hard work and motivation.

“Working my way up to an editor at the book packager, I had to edit five books at a time at one point, which was a ridiculous amount of work,” Scott said. “Working there really trained me to work quickly.”

Nowadays, Scott pushes herself hard, writing roughly one novel a year, and sometimes more.

“If I don’t feel like writing, I just sort of push myself to put something down on paper anyway,” she said. “I try not to indulge in writer’s block.”

Scott writes of teen heartbreak and hope, twisting feelings and complicated relationships with peers and parents. Her books include “I was
A Non-Blond Cheerleader” and the cheerleader trilogy, “Geek Magnet,” “Jingle Boy” and dozens upon dozens of others, including some non-fiction and movie tie-ins, but also about 15 hardcover novels and 20 paperbacks, some written under various pen names.

Scott set her latest books, the “So” trilogy (“She’s So Dead To Us,” “He’s So Not Worth It” and “This is So Not Happening”) in an imaginary North Jersey town of Orchard Hill, which is divided along sharp geographical and cultural lines, between the rich and the poor. She said Orchard Hill isn’t exactly like any other town she knows, though she did loosely base it on Ridgewood, a Bergen County town where she lived for a while.

“The people there aren’t like in my books,” Scott said. “Though they do have big economic diversity there. I was just sitting in Starbucks one day, and I was watching the town go by, and I realized that there were some
kids in that town who got cars for their seventeenth birthdays, and others who lived in apartments, and they all go to school together. I wondered what that must be like, to live with this dichotomy." 

The rich residents of Scott’s imaginary town also all have homes on Long Beach Island, where the action shifts for a part of the second book, which depicts the characters’ troubled summer. While following the drama through the young characters’ eyes, the readers get to step into some of the most luxurious and intriguing LBI “Benny” homes, and also spend some time getting to know the locals.

Young fans from all over the state and beyond are eagerly waiting for Scott’s last book “This is So Not Happening” coming out in May 2012.   

Scott did publish some books for middle-graders, but writing for teens is what she loves best.

“I always tell people that I stopped maturing at the age of seventeen,” Scott said. “There are a lot of really compelling stories, and there is a lot of drama in being a teenager that’s fun to write.”

In writing her stories, Scott wants the teens to know that though sometimes staying true to who you are takes courage, it’s worth it.

“I always try to create heroes that have a sort of a good sense of self,” Scott said. “I don’t want them to necessarily know exactly who they are, but I like them to be strong in their convictions and in their morals -- for example, Ally, [the main character of the “So” trilogy], doesn’t curse
really; she makes it a point not to drink all through the first book. Through
her actions, I try to show a girl that I would admire as a teenager. I try to
show that you don’t have to be shallow and superficial, which a lot of the
media preaches these days as being cool.”

A few years ago, a Princeton librarian invited Scott to conduct a writing workshop for teens. Scott loved the experience so much, she started presenting these workshops in other areas as well.

When she comes to the Lacey branch of the Ocean County Library on Saturday, Oct. 8th, Scott will talk to budding writers about building
characters in fiction, among other things.

“Character is the most important thing in a story,” Scott said. “For example, if you have a vampire story and you put Bella Swan in it, as opposed to Buffy the Vampire Slayer, you’re going to get a very different story. Bella is going to kiss all the vampires, and Buffy will kill all the vampires.”

Scott plans to conclude the workshop with a Q and A session for the young writers. The Saturday workshop will start at 2 p.m. at the Lacey Library. Young readers are welcome to bring their copies of Kieran Scott's books for her to sign at the library.