Lauren Kate: It all began with a complex love story

Imagine angels looking down on us from heaven, fawning over earthly ladies, and then being kicked out of heaven because that kind of behavior is just not expected of proper angelic decorum. Fallen angels and mortal women seem to be the new “it” couple of today as is evident in the twisted and mythical story of star-crossed lovers Lucinda and Daniel in the four-part novel series, Fallen. Author Lauren Kate was in Manila for a couple of days to interact with her local fans and talk about the books.

The series depicts the forbidden love of 17-year-old Lucinda for a gorgeous and too-perfect intelligent boy Daniel. But they meet at a grim and menacing school, Sword & Cross, a dark and shady school for juveniles and delinquents. The story unfurls as she finds out that Daniel is actually a fallen angel, and that external good and evil forces continue to try to keep them apart, as it has actually been lifetimes that the two have been finding and losing each other. It’s an ill-fated romantic adventure, rooted in history and rich in mythology.

The first two books of the series Fallen and Torment, have topped the New York Times bestsellers list, and a Disney movie is in the works with an ideal cast of Ed Westwick as Cam, Lucy Hale in the role of Lucinda, Emma Stone as Arriane and Liam Hemsworth in the role of Daniel.

Lauren was able to spare few minutes to talk more about how she came up with this mystical hit-series and her personal writing process.

YOUNG STAR: Where did your fascination with the mystical and fallen angels come from?

LAUREN KATE: Well, I started out by trying to tell a love story. I came across a line in Genesis that talked about a group of angels that looked down from heaven, saw mortal women and fell in love with them. I loved the idea of this angel being drawn to a woman on earth and ultimately giving up his place in heaven for that love, so to me from the beginning it seemed like a really complex, complicated, interesting and big idea for a love story that led me to the two characters Lucinda and Daniel. As soon as I started developing their characters I began to be drawn more and more into the world of angelology. So, the fascination with angels came almost as an afterthought to the love story.

How much background research did you have to do to build the story?

I did a lot because I was really starting from scratch. I didn’t know anything about angels to begin with so I hooked up with a divinity scholar in California and sat down with her and she gave me a lot of book recommendations and led me to a couple of scholars who were really helpful. It gave me the confidence to decide to pick and choose things from different mythologies, so to read Paradise Lost and say “I love this bit from here,” or to read something from the Dead Sea Scrolls or another apocryphal text and say, “I’m going to choose this from there,” by doing that and getting a base of research you can pick and choose parts and eventually create your own mythology for the books, which is what I ended up doing. From there you feel like you have enough ground to start writing.

Do you have the whole series planned out already or are you writing it as you go?

Both. It changes all the time. I do have a map and a plan and an outline for the whole thing, but I love the moments when I’m writing and something surprising happens and the character does something I’m not anticipating he’ll do. I just seize the opportunity to run with those moments, and really go in a new direction if it feels natural for the books. So there’s always a backbone for the story, and then I give myself the freedom to kind of move outside of it.

Why do you think there is such a huge following among young adult literature for the supernatural, like fallen angels?

I think it’s about escape. I think there’s something exotic and sensual and there’s an element of surprise with a mythical creature like an angel. I think there’s also a lot of familiarity when we grow up knowing about them, we read about them in the Bible, we see them on greeting cards all the time, they’re sort of everywhere. We all have these established ideas about what they might be and that gives a writer like me a lot of freedom to push outside those boundaries and do something different with them. It’s not like I’m inventing some whole new thing that they (readers) have to familiarize themselves with; they’re already drawn to them and so they can be drawn to the story more easily and be allowed to experience all the surprises that can be planted, such as my own take on angels.

How do you get yourself in the mood to write a series like this?

My routine is pretty simple. By now, I’m already very invested in the characters so they keep me fueled. I do it every single day; I don’t really take a break. I write all day, every day, for a few months when I’m working on a draft and then I come up for air and regroup. That kind of consistency is the biggest part for me. It’s hard when you take a break and try to get back into writing.

What would your advice be for young writers?

Finish your stories. It’s pretty easy to be inspired by an idea, write a few pages and feel really great and optimistic about it, but inevitably everybody gets some form of writer’s block and there’s that moment where inspiration leaves you and you’re just sort of slogging through. To be able to get over that and move past it is a really important step, so you just have to make yourself finish it. You can always go back and make it better.

What should your readers expect from the remaining of the series?

The third book is a kind of prequel that looks back across the past lives of Luce and Daniel for about 5,000 years. It dips in and out of about 15 past lives so a lot of the history is revealed and we get all the answers for why they came to be this couple. The fourth book will be the big battle that will conclude the series.

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The third book of the series, Passion will be released in June 2011. Get your copies of Fallen and Torment at National Book Store now!