Ep 134: Crafting Complex Narratives with Lauren Oliver

If you’re the kind of person who devours psychological thrillers but also wants to be emotionally sucker-punched (in the best way), Lauren Oliver’s What Happened to Lucy Vale needs to be on your radar. 

In this episode, Lauren takes us behind the scenes of what might be her most structurally daring novel to date. Set in a small Indiana town with a possibly-haunted house at its core, Lucy Vale unspools two eerie mysteries—one set in the past, one unraveling in real time—using both traditional storytelling and a collective “we” voice (think The Virgin Suicides meets Reddit sleuth thread). 

This book took years to write, and when you hear how the pieces click into place, you’ll understand why. 

Through this book, she challenges us to ask: What if we’re not always the hero in someone else’s story? 

We also dive into Lauren’s writing journey, which is less “neat staircase to the top” and more “rollercoaster meets overgrown hiking trail.” She talks honestly about the pressure to stick to one genre, the heartbreak of writing books that don’t land, and the weird freedom in failure. “I’d rather have a diversified breaking of my heart,” she says. 

So whether you’re obsessed with fresh storytelling formats, fascinated by how online culture is warping our real-life relationships, or just here for the haunted-house vibes, What Happened to Lucy Vale is a must-

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Chapters

• 1:13 Introduction to Lauren Oliver
• 3:03 The Making of "What Happened to Lucy Vale"
• 6:26 Crafting a "We" Perspective
• 11:33 The Discord Element
• 14:40 Writing Process and Challenges
• 19:18 Themes of Content and Consumption
• 25:34 Career Reflections and Industry Insights
• 28:47 Reading Recommendations and Closing Thoughts

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:37

Hi everybody and welcome back. All right, I am so excited today to be talking to Lauren Oliver. I have been reading this gem what Happened to Lucy Vale? Which? This doesn't come out, lauren, until September. Right, okay, I'm going to need everyone to get this on the pre-order list. Like, just get it in the carts now. I have so many questions to ask you about this.

Speaker 2: 0:59

This is your seventh novel yes, oh, my goodness. No, it's like my fifth novel.

Speaker 1: 1:05

It is.

Speaker 2: 1:06

Yeah, I've written a lot. I guess I didn't include all of them in the previous titles list.

Speaker 1: 1:12

Okay, well, somewhere I just want to be clear somewhere it said seventh.

Speaker 2: 1:17

Okay, well, it's not.

Speaker 1: 1:27

It's like my 20th, but you know, at a certain point it's like who's counting? Well, we all are in this space Like kids, right. Once you reach a certain number, we all stop counting or I did but books, they all count, okay. So, of the six that are listed in the beginning of this book, I have to say that the titles of them feel very on the nose right now. We have Broken Things, panic, right, the Delirium Trilogy and then what Happened to Lucy Vale. I feel like it could very easily be like what's Happened? To just fill in the blank. We could put all kinds of things. Now that I know there are 20, I'm going to actually start with a different question, but this book is kind of rocking me in a very good way. This is so complicated. I need to know how you did this. So, for people who don't know, it's multiple POV. One of the POVs is we, so it's a collective Right. So it's a collective right, and then the collective, if you will, has these text or messenger chats.

Speaker 2: 2:27

Yes, okay yeah, just yes. So should I say what the book is about go for it.

Speaker 1: 2:34

just don't give anything away, because I'm on page, I don't know two something, so just don't know two something, so just don't get me started.

Speaker 2: 2:42

Yeah, what happened to Lucy Vale is, very loosely speaking, about two interconnected mysteries that are all linked to the same house, kind of what ends up becoming a fabled, almost like haunted house called the Faraday House in a small Indiana town. You know it has a lot of. There are themes in what happened to Lucy Vale. First of all, about the repetition, cyclical violence, things like that, but also about online culture in general and how we both become a kind of have become a kind of Greek chorus that narrates the realities of other people's lives and also end up then, unlike a Greek chorus, actually influencing the action and potentially playing a role that we don't ourselves anticipate. So the answer to your question about how I did it was yeah. No, it was like an impossible book to write. It took me five years. It was awful. My publishers were so mad and you know I was working on it continuously.

Speaker 2: 3:41

But with this book I really understood certain elements of the character. I knew the characters and I knew that theme was one I wanted to explore and I knew I wanted to tackle a wee perspective. You know, the first book I ever read from a wee perspective was the Virgin Suicides. Then there was a great book by Joshua Ferris called. Then we Came to the End and I just those books really lit me up and I'd always wanted to tackle it and it seemed appropriate for this theme. But man, it's hard, it's so hard. And the funny thing is is that so I was writing and I would draft and draft and then it wouldn't work and I would realize that I was kind of cheating with the perspective and people knew things they shouldn't know. And wait, what do you mean? You were cheating. Well, you know, I would say, you know I would be writing from the we perspective, but then I would suddenly kind of be shifting into the third person perspective because I wanted to follow a certain character and you know, or I would.

Speaker 2: 4:36

Originally, the we perspective was an entire grade, right, but then there were just craft challenges of. Were you talking about everybody in that grade all the time? Whenever you used we, how did you denote subcategories? And also, I was like, how would they know? I started to crave. I was like what I really want, what would be really perfect, is if there was an online technology like Twitter, but it could be private and only for a single group of people. I, as soon as I went on Discord, which is like a private Twitter where you can just have little communities and anybody can make a Discord, I was like, oh my God, this is the technology Now. That said, it still took me years to finish.

Speaker 1: 5:32

But I'm not like you know. So the names. This part, I think, is so I don't know if I say interesting or fascinating one more time in a podcast Lauren, like I need a new word, but so we've got high as a Kyle, like their names. How fun was this? I was like I thought this is like naming nail polish colors. Yeah, rhythm, spin doctor, who's a cash. He's like cash money, right, so, and the other thing that's that's fun about this, but I have to do it slowly is that much like on Discord or even in a text thread, the same person will message, so they'll say three things, but it's three, right, one after the other as opposed to one.

Speaker 2: 6:18

Or on Discord, I would always find, you know, because obviously I went on Discord and I was involved and actually I really liked Discord.

Speaker 2: 6:24

But or, even more confusingly, somebody will write, somebody will write something totally unrelated and then you know, person C will respond to person A and person D will respond to person B and it's just this incredibly like fluid, chaotic, very organic exchange and actually I mean, I think again for this book, some books are really linear. The book I wrote after what Happened to Lucy Vale, which comes out, you know, not this September but next May, very linear. I picked it up. I started writing page one, I ended at page. You know, I picked it up. I started writing page one, I ended at page. You know, whatever it was, I ended at page one and it was just like a clean shot. You know, both in narrative structure and process. Lucy Vale was much more this tentacled thing that took me in unexpected directions and revealed things. I mean much like one of those organic, you know, conversations that is featured, you know, or is represented by the discord messages in the book.

Speaker 1: 7:28

Yeah Well, and to keep it all, I'm curious. Of course I'm always curious about first drafts. Was this just what was it? I don't, I don't want to put words. Was it quick, unwieldy?

Speaker 2: 7:41

Like yeah, I mean, I wouldn't even call what I did for many years draft. I think I did pieces.

Speaker 2: 7:49

I mean I did part one over in the book 20 times. You know, maybe part two was four, maybe I had totally different part threes and had to change them. I really wrote it in. It was very ungainly and very unwieldy. Okay yeah, I mean it just was a real challenge and also I mean I did. There was I mean even on a line level. I really was really precious in some ways about it, which is funny because you can't necessarily tell the things that are hard for an author or not. So it's not as though I mean there are some great lines in there, like one of my favorite lines I've ever written, which is August was crawling on its hands and knees through a heat wave. I love that line.

Speaker 2: 8:37

Yes, yeah, like 40 minutes, you know, or more, but you know, I mean it's meant to be as complex as it is. It's meant to be breathy and fun even in some places to read, in many places, because it does ultimately become very heavy and I tolerate that for a whole book, and that's also not the reality of how people communicate online, you know, and how Exactly. Yeah, so, but yeah, it was just. It was a very messy process to compose into a whole and I did feel like this with this one. Again, some books you feel that you're kind of stringing together an arrow on a bow and letting it loose. This one was like this weird messy symphony that I had to compose into a whole.

Speaker 1: 10:17

Yeah, and I, I. It's interesting because again there's the word again when you get to the end of it and it works, which this does. It just keeps me going and I've got, I've got very compartmentalized, which I'm surprised by for me, frankly, that I have such a well compartmentalized vision or view of all the different characters Rachel and Lucy and Akash, and even Nina, who is missing, Right, I mean, or or presumed dead, so like, and then the who's, the swimmer, Tommy, Tommy Swift, right. So I have this and I mean it. Either I have to imagine it either works or it doesn't. But I, and it does, but I have to imagine it's extremely tedious and tenuous to get it to the point where it does work, Absolutely.

Speaker 2: 11:07

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And also agonizing in a way because, again, for me, absolutely. And also agonizing in a way because, again for me, with this book, you know, again A, this had been a craft challenge I'd wanted to take on basically my whole life. And then B ultimately it does kind of all come together in. I mean, ultimately it is a very sad book. I think it's a very true book but it's sad and there were things I wanted to say that I don't. You know that I felt that there were things that were important for me to say in this book and so I really wanted it to work. You know, I mean every book is different and again, I mean I'm always doing the best I can in any given moment. But there are certainly books I've written because I thought the idea was cool or I just wanted to explore a world. This was more of a book where I actually wanted to leave people with a thought or a feeling or about something important, you know.

Speaker 1: 12:13

So can you, without giving anything away, what were some of the things that you really wanted to speak to and touch upon in this book and had to kind of find a way into it?

Speaker 2: 12:27

Yeah, I mean I wanted to touch about on the fact that you know, we kind of consume and chew people up like gossip, especially nowadays, and, like you know, like content, other people become content, their content, and you know we are the heroes of the story. I also wanted that was a big theme. So, content, and you know we are the heroes of the story, I also wanted that was a big theme. So, first of all, you know, one of the themes was just that you know you really can never truly know, you never know what's actually going on. And, again, consuming something and dissecting it for content is not the same thing as considering it and really having access to truth about it, considering it and really having access to truth about it.

Speaker 2: 13:04

Another one was simply that you know we should all be careful of the role we play in other people's stories. In other words, in our stories we're always heroes, but it takes a lot of maturity and sophistication and so you know, and the hero, almost anything is justified from the hero, right? I mean, just watch a Marvel movie, you can kill as many people as you want, you're still the hero, but you know we're not the heroes in other people's stories. We play different roles, and I think it's important to think about which ones those are, to the best of our ability.

Speaker 1: 13:35

Which ones we, which roles we play in other people's stories.

Speaker 2: 13:39

Yeah. Yeah, I mean to some extent can't control it, but to others you can right Like there's. If you actually strip away the narrative justification we give to much of why we do what we do and you settle back into what is the actual behavior what are literally, what are we doing? Right, it becomes much clearer and easier to to kind of to see morally where we sit.

Speaker 1: 14:11

It's making me think this is kind of give me another word. I beg of you, interesting, give me another one, something Thought provoking. This is thank you so much. Okay, fine, I'm getting out the thesaurus. This is very thought-provoking that I am a show that I am borderline. Are you pulling up a thesaurus right now? I love you so much. I need a list.

Speaker 1: 14:34

Can you just have them at the ready, because it's gonna happen again yeah, yeah, the show that I'm borderline obsessed with is couples therapy, which is so funny because I'm not in a couple, but I love watching the way that I don't think I ever understood that, in addition to there being a therapist, there can be a behavior analyst, which is my understanding of what this doctor is.

Speaker 2: 15:01

Dr, Orna.

Speaker 1: 15:01

That's what she does. Is helps the individuals within these couples see what their behavior is and where it comes from and why they do it, and so it's a totally different lens from which, I think, to look at behavior than just pointing fingers and saying whatever it is. We're saying like I fixed you or your things, or your fault or my fault, whatever, exactly Coming from that hero perspective.

Speaker 2: 15:31

Exactly. Yeah, so these things are, you know, those things are important to me and you know this is also a basis of this is real. I'm in recovery and have been for years, and this is the basis of recovery work, which is the belief that, like the only thing you are in control of is your own action and choices. And so, for example, if somebody cuts you off rudely on the highway and then you scream out F you, you are, you're not responsible for the one person cutting you off. That's on them, but what you are responsible for is the fact that you curse somebody out. That was your choice, that was your bad, that was your thing to make amends for. It's really interesting. It's ultimately actually a way to liberate yourself entirely from the kind of cause and effect that says, well, because this person does this to me, or this happens to me in life, I'm going to do this Right and it ultimately is supposed to. You know, if you practice it correctly, then you have complete freedom over choice and behavior.

Speaker 1: 16:30

Well, also, it's so easy to use that as justification. Well, of course, I did this because you did this. I have one of my dearest friends is also in recovery, and so I've. I've heard for years, I've learned so so much from her. It's just wonderful, and the whole keeping your side of the street clean, yes, that's it.

Speaker 1: 16:47

Keep your side of the street clean. How are you contributing to this? Are you contributing to the noise and the anger and the ferociousness of the moment if we're speaking of road rage, or are you thinking maybe they're in a hurry, maybe someone's in labor, maybe that's what I try to do?

Speaker 2: 17:11

Yeah, I try, yeah, yeah, no, absolutely. And again, I mean, if you think about it with respect to what happens to Lucy Vale, and again it's very human. I'm not impugning anything, but if you look at online, the culture of you know the online culture, you know the question are you contributing to the noise and the rage is very pertinent.

Speaker 1: 17:27

Well, all you have to do is look in a comment section to see that, right, I mean, someone can post, good morning, it's a beautiful day, and then someone else is like why would you, why would you say that? Exactly, exactly, it's happening, yeah. So first, first, having spent so many years in this space, what are your feelings about where the industry's going? What's surprising to you? What are some assumptions that people may make about your experience or your bank account? These are things that I love to, and I'm not asking you what's in your bank account. And the thing that's interesting about it, too, is, many times people will be full-time writers and they will not disclose not here. People are so transparent. I love it, but they won't disclose that their partner is the bread winner. I'm not asking you how you're able to do it, but I love to hear from people kind of what's something that a lot of people think is true, that isn't true, or the reverse.

Speaker 2: 18:27

There's a couple of things that I would say I've observed. So one is that in order to be a very successful commercial writer, people have to know what kind of book they're going to get from you, and so you have to kind of write the same kind of books I'm not disparaging that, you know, it's just a thing and those are the most successful kind of branded commercial authors. I did not do that at all in the early part of my career, and so I had books that were wildly successful and books that were wildly failures. Right, because there was nothing for people to kind of follow me. Oh, I know I'm going to get this kind of a Lord Oliver book, is this kind of book? So that's just something to know, and it's also something to kind of, in a way, accept. It's like you can either accept oh, I'm going to write whatever I want, but that means that my readers may not follow me to every book and I'm going to have periods where I'm not selling very many books, you know, or you can say you know what I'm going to be. This is important to me, this is also a business for me, so let me be very thoughtful about how I brand myself and the kind of books I write. And then I also think that, yeah, there's, I used to think when I was younger that success kind of worked like a climb, a hike up a mountain, like you just went on a straight, you know, you just fought your way up the steep slope.

Speaker 2: 19:41

And I mean my career has been way more like a roller coaster and also more like a labyrinthine walk through the forest, and it has taken me to really unexpected places. It's like you know, I mean and it's all, and basically it's fine. Do you know what I mean? Like it's all fine, it's all fine, yeah, it's all fine. I have basically made my living as a novelist, although I mean again, I haven't, although not for really monetary reasons. In other words, I've done other kinds of writing, I've done book packaging, I've even done creative technology stuff, but that's all just because that's the kind of person I am. I always say I can't break my heart in the same industry every day. I need to break my heart little ways and have a diversified breaking of my heart.

Speaker 1: 20:29

Diversified, I am so adopting this because, right, Sometimes I think there's this. I also like to do different things and they're not even related all the time, yeah. I know I love it Right and it's, and so I'm going to start, instead of looking at it like I'm having a problem paying attention and staying committed. It's like I just I don't know, does that make us masochists? I mean, you know, I think you're a little bit to be an artist in general, we'd be Dr Orna for that.

Speaker 1: 21:01

Yeah, exactly, exactly, yeah, yeah, exactly, exactly, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And I actually think that one of the ways you explained that was really lovely sort of the labyrinth, but thinking of it not in terms of oh my God, I can't get out, but in terms of around every corner there could be I mean, there could be a monster. But there also could be a really fun unexpected connection or experience or idea.

Speaker 1: 21:27

Yeah absolutely, absolutely. I mean, are you someone who would get? See? I would get bored writing the same. Some people don't, and that's great. That's why I never say there's a right or a wrong, but I would get bored if I were. I think if I were writing the exact same style.

Speaker 2: 21:45

Yeah, I mean we'll see, because, again, my I'm slowly. I'm right now I'm in a mystery era, now a mystery and psychological thriller era, and now that happens. I mean that's always been a category that I actually loved, loved, loved to read. We'll see. I mean, it's an era that's so far lessened for two books or maybe three, so I might get bored. I think that there is a way in which, you know, I get inspired by something and I want to, and it could be. I'm very, very curious. I love history, I love weird facts, I love weird theories, and all of those things suggest books to me in different categories. So you know, yeah, if it were up to me, I'd probably experiment with writing a book in every single category that ever existed, okay, but there are some genres, we'll see that I do think like, oh, there's multiple things that I can do here in this space and that I want to do. Great point.

Speaker 1: 22:47

Because even within just taking the thriller category as an example, you can split off and say well, I want to do multiple POV in this one, and then in this one I want to go historical, but the main core genre is the same.

Speaker 2: 23:00

So you can bring your readers along yeah. Right. If they hate the 1800s then that might yeah Right, I mean, and even like a category like that or a category like mystery. I mean, mystery has there's so many subcategories inside of something you know Like contemporary, it's like romance.

Speaker 1: 23:16

There's so many subcategories. There used to be sort of the rule where and also before online, you know Amazon and et cetera started creating their own categories. We were really restricted. I mean, if we use the BISAC categories, we don't have nearly the creativity that we can have when it in terms of categorizing something that we can have when we're listing on, say, amazon.

Speaker 2: 23:41

Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1: 23:42

And it can go really deep yeah, totally yeah, yeah. So last question I typically ask is what are you reading now or what have you read recently? You know okay.

Speaker 2: 23:53

Speaking of mysteries, I can give two very different mysteries that I've read recently and, by the way, you can tell I'm like catching up on read, fiction reading, because there was a period where I was reading tons of nonfiction and you can tell I'm catching up on it from like four years ago. Okay, I read my first Harlan Coben book, which one, the Boy in the Woods. Oh, okay, yeah, which one's good? Sorry, I mean not that that one was bad, but so you know what's funny?

Speaker 1: 24:19

you would say which one's good. I haven't read any of them, I've seen them, yeah. So I mean it's okay, it was.

Speaker 2: 24:26

It's very pacey, which is, which is great, like a very interesting. I wasn't thrilled and then so that's a mystery, but of a kind of, you know, people get into brawls and there's guns and stuff.

Speaker 1: 24:40

And then I was at Thursday Night Murder.

Speaker 2: 24:42

Club which one Thursday Night Murder Club, like four years late.

Speaker 1: 24:47

Yes, thank you for like making it okay to be late on things because I am the. I too went through a huge nonfiction phase and I was just reading everything nonfiction, a good bit of memoir, but a ton of nonfiction. And only in the last, I'd say, year and a half two years have I become reacquainted with fiction and fallen very much back in love with it.

Speaker 2: 25:11

I know, yeah, it's been nice. It was slow, I went through a real dry period and again I was reading every day, but it was all you know, stuff related to recovery and spirituality and you know the meaning of life, kind of stuff. Why are we here? Picture answers those questions, can answer those questions in different ways, right, sure, and on a much more emotional level. But, yeah, no, I'm really loving Thursday Night Murder Club, but I'm about four years late to where commercial fiction is, so I will have a lot of reading to catch up on.

Speaker 1: 25:41

Yeah, and I love actually that both fiction and nonfiction, frankly, for the most part, but especially fiction, can have such a long tail. Yeah, yeah, I mean, it's just you can find out about something and then go, oh my God, this came out six years ago, I haven't ever even heard of it, and fall in love with it. And then you that's what happened to me with Taylor Jenkins read is I read, I really, cause I wasn't on the fiction train so I didn't. I had heard about Daisy Jones in six and I, but I hadn't picked any of it up. I got seven husbands of Evelyn Hugo, loved it and now want to read everything. And her new one has just come out to rave reviews and I've got to get that one on my doorstep. I mean, that's awesome. I just I, if I could just spend all day. I'm a fast reader, are you a fast reader?

Speaker 2: 26:31

I mean it depends on what I'm reading, Okay. But yeah, I'm a pretty fast reader. But you know, again, classic being in my phase, I read before bed and I go to sleep, Right. So it's not about the fast reading, it's about now by how long I can tolerate. I mean, this summer has been nice because I've actually not every day, but I've had some good days where I can kind of knock off from work early and just sit outside on the porch and and actually get an, a solid hour, two hours in a reading. I can't remember the last time that's happened. That's been really nice.

Speaker 1: 27:03

Well, and that's what I meant by fast reader too and I'm not a fast like, I'm not a speed reader either, because I enjoy really sinking into it, but I just don't typically have hours in the day. Yeah, of course I'd love to. Yeah, I look forward to that. Yeah, I look forward to that. Yeah, it's just not there now. It's not there yet. It's not there yet, right, exactly. Well thank you so much. I'm so excited for this to be available to people, because I can't wait to just keep going.

Speaker 2: 27:31

You've got me even more intrigued.

Speaker 1: 27:33

It's so well done and it's just had me thinking so much about not just the story I'm reading, but like how did you do this? It's just really Thank you. It's a kind of a masterpiece. Thank you, You're welcome.

Speaker 2: 27:50

Hopefully I kind of feel the same way. It doesn't mean anybody will agree, or even read it, I agree.

Speaker 1: 27:56

Thank you, I agree, thank you, I agree, I think it's and it's. I think I can actually give it credit for bringing me into a like a thriller phase. I will take the credit. Yes, yes, I will. I, that is what it is, because I just have never really thought I was talking to somebody I don't remember who, cause I never remember I mean, I don't even remember like what day I think it's Monday, I'm not sure and I said I don't like historical fiction. And she said well, do you like? And she gave me the title of a book I don't remember and I said loved that. She said that's historical fiction.

Speaker 1: 28:30

Yeah, I don't know why, but I thought historical fiction was like Little House on the Prairie.

Speaker 2: 28:34

I'm like I'm over it. Right, right, right, wait, are you telling me you?

Speaker 1: 28:37

don't like Little House on the Prairie. Well, I mean, I did at one time, but not today, and so I thought I'm not really a thriller person. Right, right, right, apparently, I'm a thriller person, at least when you write them. Oh, thank you.

Speaker 2: 28:51

Well, again, there's probably a million subcategories, so you might be a thriller person if it features kind of a weird haunted house, takes place in Indiana and also has like a swim team. Who knows, yeah, who knows well?

Speaker 1: 29:02

and I've all you know. There's probably other other thrillers like that, right, yeah, there's all that's going to become its own category. Amazon Prime. I do the monthly, you know, the monthly book pick or whatever, and I've noticed myself lately picking thrillers. Oh that's cool, as opposed my typical, which is like women's fiction. I love women's fiction, I love rom-com, I love anything funny, especially when it involves women. But yeah, I've noticed myself picking thrillers.

Speaker 2: 29:30

So thank you, Lauren, for that.

Speaker 1: 29:31

Like I said, I'll take the credit, happily, yep. So thank you, thank you. I'll put all your links in the bio or in.