Interview with Karen McCoy, author of The Etiquette of Voles

Today I’m going to introduce you to Karen McCoy, author of The Etiquette of Voles, a middle grade Victorian mystery, and a good friend from my Flagstaff days. And since we’ll be talking about middle grade fiction, I’ll share a little about the books that impacted me when I was a kid. But first:

This post is part of the Insecure Writers Support Group (IWSG) blog hop. On the first Wednesday of every month, we IWSG-ers share our doubts, fears, struggles, and triumphs. Our awesome co-hosts this month are PJ Colando, Pat Garcia, Kim Lajevardi, Melisa Maygrove, and Jean Davis. Each month our fearless leader (Ninja Captain Alex J. Cavanaugh) gives us an optional question to answer. This month’s question, in a great example of synchronicity, is about children’s literature:

What were some books that impacted you as a child or young adult?

I’m going to answer this month’s question, then turn it over to Karen.

Books that impacted me when I was a kid

Oh, there were so many! First would be The Wizard of Oz and all the other Oz books. One of them–I can’t remember which–was the first chapter book I ever read on my own. I’d been bugging my mom to read to me, but she was busy. Finally I got tired of waiting, picked up the book myself, and found to my everlasting joy that I could read it. I cannot overstate the impact of that moment–the independence, the ability to engage in one of my very favorite activities ALL ON MY OWN!!! There really aren’t enough exclamation points to convey how exciting that was.

Others with a big impact:

• Judy Blume’s books. All of them. I was an anxious, poorly-groomed social outcast with thrift store clothes and a dysfunctional family. Blume’s characters made me feel like I wasn’t alone in the world.
• Fairy tales of all sorts. Grimm’s, Anderson’s, a series of books with fairy and folk tales from different countries that I checked out from my school library and read over and over and over during 5th and 6th grades when I was miserable and desperate for an escape. I still have my mom’s collection of fairy tales from when she was a kid. It’s falling apart from being read so much, literally taped together, and stored wrapped in paper in a cedar chest.
• Later, as a teenager, Stephen King’s books. A high school friend lent me The Stand, and I read it in less than a week (and that thing is a doorstop). Then I blew through Carrie, The Shining, ‘Salem’s Lot (which terrified me), Night Shift, and a few more. These were the first adult books I really fell in love with.

Meet Karen McCoy, author of The Etiquette of Voles

Now, let me introduce you to my good friend and fellow librarian, Karen McCoy. I shared some information about her debut middle-grade novel, The Etiquette of Voles, in last month’s IWSG post. Today we’re going to learn more about Karen as well as her book.

Karen, welcome to the blog! Like superheroes, every author has an origin story. What’s yours?

I’ve wanted to write ever since I read the Baby-sitters Club series as a kid. But the day I truly committed to being an author was an interesting one. I was 27, deep into the throes of my first professional librarian job, and the new city manager required all “new” employees to attend an 8-hour workshop where they read the employee handbook front to back. (I had already been on the job for ten months!) The brightest thing in the room was the exit sign, and there was a tiny, sad little disco ball hanging from the ceiling of the city building. Needless to say, I cracked. I turned over a notebook and started writing what became my first novel. The person next to me at the workshop said, “Wow, you’re taking really great notes!” So, yeah. Once I started, all I could think was, “Oh, this is what my brain has wanted to do this whole time!”

WT actual F??!! 8 hours of reading the employee handbook? That city manager should be slapped with a dead salmon. Preferably a spawned-out, half-rotted one. And “The brightest thing in the room was the exit sign” is a wonderful line.

Tell us more about your writing career. What genre(s) have you written in? Have you changed genres during your writing career? What was your path to publication?

I’d say my journey has been pretty typical. In publishing, I started by writing book reviews for a couple library-centered publications, and then I wrote a nonfiction book chapter, and a feature article in a magazine, all before I had my first short story published. I thought for years that I was a Young Adult author, until, very late in the process, I figured out that my voice was much more suited for the Middle Grade space. While I have a few other Middle Grade books drafted, The Etiquette of Voles will be my first published novel. 

Let’s talk about The Etiquette of Voles. How would you describe the ideal reader for this book?

Of course this book is mainly aimed toward children and tweens in Grades 5-8 (ages 9-14), but my hope is that adults, particularly parents, teachers, and librarians will enjoy it as well. Since it’s a historical novel, there’s quite a bit that can be linked to a K-12 teaching curriculum (and I’ll be working on a curriculum guide for the book as well). 

What inspired you to write this book? What (or who) inspired the characters? And which came first–plot or characters?
Chains definitely came first, fully formed, and demanding to be written down. I knew right away that his name was Chains because of Charles Darwin’s misinterpreted “missing link” theory and that he wanted to solve mysteries in order to eke out his own origins. The development of the plot was centered mainly on that. 

Your main character is a vole. What’s the hardest thing about writing a character who isn’t human?

Actually, it’s weirdly easier for me to write in what are called “odd” points of view. Case in point, I’ve written various flash fiction pieces that have starred a heating duct, a pigeon, a smoke detector, and a chair. Most of these were for the 100 word contests on Janet Reid’s blog – enter my first and last names in the search box if you want to see some of the content. Human main characters have always been a bit trickier for me to tap into, but my characters are most often determined by what they have to deal with in the outside world, and how they perceive it differently from everyone else. When it comes to writing non-human characters, I have to think about what they can and/or can’t do and what makes them different from humans. For instance, voles usually have keen hearing and are very active and agile animals. I wanted to make sure that Chains’ actions and mannerisms would be believable to readers.

What led you to set your book in Victorian London?

I was very inspired by the The Great Dickens Christmas Fair they have every year in Daly City, south of San Francisco. We now go every year if we can. I’m also fascinated with British history, and a lot of my ancestors lived and were from the British Isles before they migrated to the states. 

One of the things I find most intimidating about writing historical fiction (which I’ve done only a little bit) is the need to be historically accurate. How much research did you need to do for The Etiquette of Voles? And how did you go about doing it? Did you travel as part of your research?

As a librarian, research is one of my love languages. I had a wonderful time looking at old London maps, photographs, and newspapers. I actually stumbled upon a physical newspaper at an antique store once! I collect all my research in a folder on my computer that acts as a sub-folder to the book content itself. I have often gone back and referred to primary source documents and other research artifacts in the process of both drafting and revising.

I’m also a librarian, and I also love doing research, but I love it a little too much. I once spent 3 hours researching turn-of-the-last-century couches to inform one sentence–and I cut that sentence in a future revision.

#relatable

I’m a writer too, and I love learning about how other writers approach their work. What’s your writing process like–in general and with The Etiquette of Voles?

My writing process has definitely changed since I started! I was very much a “pantser” for many years, just writing as I went without outlining…but a few hard lessons have since shown me the benefits of an outline. I map out as much of the plot as I can using the three-act structure from Blake Snyder’s Save the Cat, but these are mostly benchmarks. I still, in pantser fashion, discover a lot of the story on the page.

Drafting is often easier than revising, though in the last few novels I’ve drafted, I’m finally finding a revision process I’m relatively comfortable with.

Please tell us more about this revision process! Revising is the bane of my writerly existence! A good revision process is my Holy Grail.

Mostly, it’s exporting a draft to my Kindle and then making a list of big picture problems that might need to change. Exporting to my Kindle accomplishes two things: First, it means that I cannot edit as a read, which would slow down the process and second, seeing the writing in a different font somehow epitomizes any flaws I might have missed while drafting (maybe because it’s in a different font?)

What’s your typical writing day look like? How long did it take you to write The Etiquette of Voles?

Generally, I try to write when my brain is fresh–first thing in the day, or “paying myself first” as someone once put it. However, I have a varied work schedule. I generally don’t get time to write unless I’m working an evening shift. When I can’t write due to other commitments, I regularly update an active excel chart of various book ideas for that project so I remember to add elements as they occur in the plot. 

As for The Etiquette of Voles itself, that answer is a bit more convoluted…the idea came all the way back in November of 2016 (!) and I’m pretty sure I had a first draft not long after that. I spent the next few years revising, sending to beta readers, and revising further until I queried the project in 2020. However, not a lot of publishers and agents were taking on new projects that year (for obvious reasons) so I took a break on it and worked on two more middle grade projects (one is nearly ready, the other is first-draft finished). Once I found my publisher, we went through a few rounds of revision, but no huge changes were made at that point (only smaller ones).  

Were any parts of this book especially fun or difficult to write?

I had an especially hard time getting the scenes on the pirate ship logistically worked out, because there was a lot happening at once. I think the most fun is just letting Chains talk, and seeing how his interactions with people develop. Banter is a lot of fun!

What’s the best writing advice you ever received?

Ooh, that’s a tough one. I’d probably say this particular post written by Lisa Cron was very pivotal for me. One of the trickiest parts of writing is knowing how much/how little information to put in a scene, and I realized that I was giving too much detail to parts that weren’t very important and not giving enough description to what really mattered and/or to elements that readers could really hook onto. 

That’s a great post. Readers, check it out!

What’s the worst writing advice you ever received?

The worst writing advice I have received usually has come dressed up in ways to change the focus of my story. For example, I was writing a Young Adult novel and having it critiqued in one of my writing classes–and the attention was diverted from the main character to her mother. After that, I revised in the wrong direction…for five years. I have definitely learned that it’s really important to trust your gut, and not let anyone sway your story in a direction it doesn’t belong. 

Is there anything else you’d like to tell us about yourself, your work, and/or The Etiquette of Voles?
I love meeting new people! Here are some links to my upcoming events: https://www.karenbmccoy.com/events/

Karen, thanks so much for visiting my little corner of the interwebs! And good luck with your book launch! Readers, you can preorder a copy of The Etiquette of Voles now or buy it when it comes out on June 10. If you’d like to host Karen on your blog, podcast, or other platform, you can contact her via her website, Karen McCoy Books. As you can tell from this interview, she’s a great guest!

The memery

The tl;dr version of literary classics:

I once handwrote part of a scene on the back of my car’s extended warranty (Yes, I bought one. No, I’m not a sucker. That thing has paid for itself a couple of times over. Too bad no one is writing lifetime warranties for cars anymore, at least not in my state.) It’s a tad embarrassing when I have to hand it over to the Nissan service department. At least it isn’t a sex scene.

This next image isn’t a meme. It’s a sign I saw in a coffee shop in Camp Verde, Arizona, a few years ago. It resonates in these troubled times.

And on that note, I’m outta here. Take care of yourselves, friends. Drop a comment to share the books that impacted you most in your youth–and go buy Karen’s book!