Previous TWWF inspiration post: The Stand
It makes sense for me to bring up this second book that helped inspire The Way We Fall immediately after The Stand, because the two basically took a tag team approach to convincing me I needed to write about an epidemic. The second book being The Forest of Hands and Teeth by Carrie Ryan.
I got to read The Forest of Hands and Teeth a few months early, in late 2008, as part of the ARC swapping done among the 2009 Debs. I stayed up later than I normally would to finish it, because I needed to know how it ended, and then, as I relate in this post shortly after the fact, I had the only other nightmare I’ve ever had that was based on a book. It involved one particular plot development, which I won’t spoil if you haven’t read it, but it was emotionally wrenching specifically because of the infectious nature of the zombie condition. Because the most horrifying element for me was imagining what it would be like to be infected or have someone you care about infected and know there’s nothing that can stop the disease from following its course towards the inevitably awful end.
And as you can see in the post I linked to, when I thought about that, and how the only other book that affected me that much was The Stand, I knew I needed to write a book about my own mysterious and deadly virus.
It took a year of brainstorming and researching and outlining (I didn’t start the first draft until the end of 2009), but finally I did write that book, and that book was of course The Way We Fall.
Giveaway completed. Thanks to all who entered!
Originally published at another world, not quite ours - Megan Crewe's blog. You can comment here or there.
