Sara Zarr
Sara Zarr
Sara Zarris an American writer. She was raised in San Francisco, and now lives in Salt Lake City, Utah with her husband. Her first novel, Story of a Girl, was a 2007 National Book Award finalist. She is also the author of Sweethearts and Once Was Lost. All three are published by Little, Brown...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionYoung Adult Author
Date of Birth3 October 1970
CountryUnited States of America
writing class voice
I was a 'learn by doing' writer - I never took any formal writing classes. So it took a long time to figure things out and find my voice.
mother believe writing
It's hard to say when my interest in writing began, or how. My mother read to my sister and me every night, and we always loved playing make-believe games. I had a well-primed imagination. I didn't start thinking about writing as a serious pursuit, a career I could have, until after college.
jobs character writing
My first job is to write the characters as full and authentic people as well as I can.
christian writing fiction
I wanted to be free to write the way I wanted to write, and my impression of Christian publishing, at least in fiction, was that there wasn't room for what I wanted to write.
character writing stories
I didn't 'decide' to write YA, per se. But every time I thought of a story, it featured characters 15, 16, 17.
writing littles way
I do have a little bit more confidence in - or at least familiarity with - my process. For example, when it feels like it's going badly or that I'm lost, I know I'll eventually find my way because I've been through it before. But writing itself is still hard.
writing trying difficult
The one reader I'm trying to please as I write is me, and I'm pretty difficult to please.
good knowledge mind neutral patterns recognize recurring terms work
Is it good, bad, or neutral to recognize thematic patterns in your own work? When it comes to recurring themes, I'm of the mind that knowledge is probably not power, at least in terms of the work.
craft please reader trying
I'm so focused on trying to craft the story that I'm in my own little world with it and that process. The one reader I'm trying to please as I write is me, and I'm pretty difficult to please.
characters finished needed reader rewarding says school tells until
When a young reader tells you that they'd never finished a book outside of school until they read yours, or that they really needed to hear something that one of your characters says or thinks... that's just rewarding and humbling.
hope people since
The characters are whole, real people to me that I'm getting to know, and since real people are all flawed, so are my characters, I hope.
discipline good maybe played
I played the clarinet, and my sister played the violin... If we'd had the discipline and the passion, maybe we could have been good.
I don't want to pretend like I'm some intellectual person who understands Flannery O'Connor.
asking characters leading letting lives questions seeing takes unfold
When my characters are questioning things, it's not me leading up to an answer; it's me asking those same questions and letting the characters' lives unfold and seeing where it takes them.