Interview with Laurie Devore

Hello, everyone. How was your weekend? What's that I hear? Not long enough? Well, I totally agree. But to help us deal with our dreaded Monday, let's take a break from the stress by getting to know a great aspiring writer. Let's welcome Laurie Devore.

Hi, Laurie!Tell us a bit about yourself.

I’m a 21-year-old college student in South Carolina. By day, I intern for sports teams and by night I write about high school students with far more dramatic lives than my own.

How long have you been writing?

I know it’s cliché to say, but I’ve been writing for as long as I remember. But I’ve only been writing seriously for the past two years, in which time I’ve finished a novel, almost finished another one, and quit one halfway through (for those keeping count, that’s a lot of words).

What is the name and genre of the manuscript you're currently pitching?

I’m working toward querying my YA dark contemporary Pretty Sins.

Ooh, I like the title. Here’s the part where you pitch it. What’s your story about?

Pretty Sins is about Olivia, a high school cheerleader, who is betrayed by her best friend and falls from social grace. But Olivia’s not one to take things lying down: she decides the best punishment will be to steal her ex-bff’s boyfriend. It’s not like she would hate having him (back). It doesn’t take long before Olivia realizes she might be the meanest mean girl of them all. And that’s not something she wants to live with. Along the way, she deals with the grief over her older brother’s death and meets a golfer who she either loves to hate or hates to love—she hasn’t decided yet.


(This is a pitch in progress. Still haven’t perfected one for this book yet.)

Sounds dark indeed. I'm captivated! How did the idea of the story come to you?

This story actually began as a short story I wrote for my fiction class. I had the idea of this cheerleader who had contempt for how she was viewed because she was a cheerleader and Olivia was born (though she was originally named Tristan).

What else do you have in the works?

I have an already complete novel about a college sophomore which really has nowhere to go. I have a half-finished (but badly in need of a rewrite) YA romance based on a Taylor Swift song and I have a YA mystery in the works.

Wow, a little bit of everything. Do you have a critique group/partner or beta readers, or do you self-edit?

I like to self-edit a good bit and then let a group of beta readers loose on my ms.

What’s the hardest part of writing for you?

Plotting. To me, the words come easy, but trying to guide my readers through a coherent, believable, tense story is incredibly difficult. And all the pretty sentences in the world do not a book make.

Let’s get to know you on a deeper level. What do you absolutely have to have nearby when writing?

Well, I really like to write in cafes, so maybe some food or a drink. But I’m kind of the ‘write anywhere, anytime’ school, so honestly, nothing. As long as I have a computer or a pen and paper, I’m good to go.

If you could have any super power, what would it be?

I don’t know if this is a super power, but I would like to have the power to eat whatever I want and never gain weight.

LOL, I think we'd all like to be able to do that. Imagine the possibilities!

Quick writing test! Use the following words in a sentence: zebra, elevator, and thesis.

I kept waiting for my thesis to start writing itself, which seemed about as likely as seeing a zebra board the elevator in my apartment complex.

Hehe. Okay, here’s the part where you thank the people who are supporting you. To whom would you like to give a shout out?

I don’t know if they’ll read this, but obviously my family, who has been super supportive of my dream of being published and all my online friends, cheerleaders and betas from Twitter and AW and Google Groups. I don’t want to start naming in case I forget someone, but they know who they are.

And finally, where can people find you online?

Uhm, probably more places than you should be able to. I blog at Old Enough to Know Better, Too Young to Care. I tweet from the account @laurie_devore and I’m JustLaurie on the AW forums.

Thank you so much for chatting with us, Laurie. I wish you lots of success with your books. Let us know when you've reached the next step in your publishing journey!