By Laura B. Hoffman
Robert Cormier is a former journalist and the author of several bestselling novels for young adults. His books repeatedly appear on the Best Books for Young Adults lists of the American Library Association, The New York Times and School Library Journal. He has won the Margaret A. Edwards Award for The Chocolate War, I Am the Cheese and After the First Death. His most recent novel In the Middle of the Night was nominated for an Edgar award.
Q: Why do you choose to write young adult novels_
A: I don’t think of them that way. When I write I write to the fullest of my ability and I usually have an interesting and intelligent person in mind with whom I can be subtle. That person often turns out to be 14 years old, but that reader can also be 45.
Q: Do you receive a lot of feedback from your readers_
A: Yes, I get lots of calls. My telephone number is Amy Hertz’s number in I am the Cheese. Word spreads around so kids call. Just today, I received a call from a class in Colorado Springs that was studying the book. Often I get calls from individual kids who just want to keep in touch. They are very inventive. They ask for Amy and create all kinds of scenarios saying Adam is calling. The letters and phone calls I get confirm what I am doing, and since writing is so solitary, it is good to get that confirmation.
Q: Your books are often considered dark. Why do you choose to write about the dark side of life_
A: I think they are probably shadowed but not completely dark. On the surface they may look dark, but a closer reading reveals moral values. I am fortunate that teachers teach the books, because more than a casual reading will reveal those things. However, I must contradict myself and say I’m not in the business of creating role models or sending out lessons. I am a storyteller trying to write believable stories with believable characters. For instance, in The Chocolate War, the main character Jerry gets defeated because nobody comes to his rescue. The implicit lesson is that bad things happen when good people don’t do anything. All the books tend to have these values if people care to look.
Q: Which one of your characters is most like you_
A: Adam, in I am the Cheese, is a pretty good portrait of me as a kid. It shows what a wreck I was. I actually began the book as an exercise experimenting with first person present tense but then I became very emotionally involved because I realized I was writing about myself. Like Adam, I had a paper route and I was chased by thousands of dogs. I was intimidated by bullies and I was scared of my own shadow. It became very personal.
Q: What about the other characters you have created, do they reflect different htmlects of your personality_
A: I guess there are pieces of me in all the books. When The Chocolate War was first accepted for publication, I went down to an editing meeting in New York and met a young editor who looked at me and said, “if I ever met Archie Costello I think I’d thrash him.” I thought that word was so terrific, I always remembered it. Well, I thought to myself, you’re looking at him because I thought up all those terrible things that Archie Costello did. At that I moment in time, when I was writing at the typewriter, I was Archie Costello. I devised all the assignments, I spoke through his voice and saw
the world through his eyes. I think all writers have bits and pieces of themselves in all their characters, although you identify more with some than others.
Q: How do you begin a novel_
A: I usually start with an emotion, something that happens that really affects me. Then I devise a character because I think that characters are the keys to the books, they are the beginning point. The reader must be able to picture the characters. Then there is a natural progression of having them overcome conflicts and reach goals.
Q: Do you know what is going to happen to them when you begin the story_
A: I never outline but I do have a sense of where it is going. I like the excitement of sort of, winging it. When I started The Chocolate War I knew that Jerry would end up not selling the chocolates. I felt I needed to have someone opposing him and that forced me to create the Vigils. You just keep answering that great question, ‘what if_’ What if there is a faculty member opposing him_ So I created Brother Leon and then, how were they opposing him_
That is the joy of writing, to find out what is going to happen. You create these characters and they start colliding with each other, that’s the thrill and the excitement of it all.
Q: The main characters in In The Middle of the Night, The Chocolate War, and I am the Cheese are all loners. Why are you so interested in the loner_
A: As an adolescent I always felt like an outsider and I think a lot of kids feel that way. They want so much to belong to the group but there is something shouting in each of them that they are really alone. I have always had a sense that we are all pretty much alone in life, particularly in adolescence.
Q: Do you have any final thoughts to share with our readers about the profession of being a writer_
A: Writing is, as a chosen profession, filled with frustrations and rejection so you have to have the love of words and writing and expression and then everything else follows. But the love has to be there in the first place. Despite all those frustrations, the rewards of writing are endless. When you complete the book, when you see your words on the page, when you see it in a bookstore or library, when somebody reads it and writes you a letter. These fantastic rewards make it worth the long solitary hours at the computer or typewriter. Being a writer is filled with all sorts of perils, but if you have the love of writing the rewards are terrific and it is all worth it in the end.