A friend of mine chose Scary Stories for Young Foxes for her book club, and they sent me some pretty hard-hitting questions.
So I thought I’d share the answers here!
Fair warning: Spoilers abound. And while there’s no inappropriate content, I answered these like I’m talking to adults. I’ll post a kids Q&A next week.
1. The book brings up current issues facing children - bullying, body shaming - was it your intent to bring those issues to the forefront?
The short answer is not at all. I’ve never been the victim of bullying or body-shaming, so I would feel uncomfortable purposefully tackling those topics. I think people who have lived those experiences would be much better suited.
For the more complete answer, I have to magically transport us back to the first draft of Scary Stories for Young Foxes.
Uly was born without a front leg because I needed him to remain in the den long enough for his father to return. Fox fathers tend to keep away throughout most of the kits’ development process, only dropping by a few times early on to bring prey to the recovering mom. But later, the fathers do not take kindly to male heirs. They see their sons as competition and will attack them if they cross paths. The original draft had Uly hanging around the den for several weeks after his siblings had departed so his mother could continue to hunt for him. He couldn’t do it himself. This led to a showdown with his father.
But as the story developed and I drew parallels to the horror movie Six Sisters is based on, things started to shift. Also, by having Mia leave the den weeks before she should have, I had to have the same thing happen to Uly so they could meet.
By this point Uly’s missing leg seemed like a natural part of him. And that’s how he’s been ever since.
2. There aren’t any strong adult male figures - in fact Mr. Scratch is a classic father figure who is cruel, controlling, and scary - what was your reason for having a lack of adult male mentorship? Is this life in the world of foxes?
I have no issues with strong adult male mentorship! At least, I don’t think I do. I was raised by a single mom . . .
But really, Mr. Scratch was based on the fact that fox fathers are hostile toward their male offspring. Although, I’ll admit I did crank up the evil juice (ew) once Mr. Scratch became one of the major villains and the fox parallel of Dracula.
3. You’ve thoroughly researched the hazards that a fox may encounter throughout life. Were you surprised by any of those hazards?
Strangely, I was surprised by something I thought was a hazard but isn’t. When I wrote the original anthropomorphic version of these stories, I had a mom eat her brood during a famine. But it turns out fox moms rarely if ever eat their young. This fact completely scrapped one of the planned stories, although, let’s face it, that probably would have been too horrific.
4. Is it common in a den of foxes for the male to mark his females with a nip on the ear?
That was my invention.
5. The reader will never look at Beatrix Potter the same again. Can you add anymore to her story? Any insight into her seemingly love of little creatures while harboring a totally cruel way of studying them and ending their lives?
I know, I know. I’ve ruined Beatrix Potter for so many people. I’m . . . not really sorry.
Beatrix Potter was a naturalist. She loved animals, but she also strived to know how they worked, inside and out. Her methods of putting them to sleep with ether is common practice and relatively merciful.
I had a ton of autobiographical details that I had to leave on the cutting-room floor—her deceased husband, her publishing woes, her struggle to be recognized in the scientific field for her legitimate genius articles and sketches. I will tell you that many of her lines are near-direct quotes from her diaries. “You must know how frost smells” is one. The fact that she called baby piglets “little cherubs” is another. The other day, someone asked me if Miss Potter ever stuffed/ate her pet Peter Rabbit, and the answer is almost certainly no. But she did collect other specimens.
6. What would you like your young reader to take away from your book? It’s not a book a reader simply puts back on the bedside table.
This book started out as a love letter to the spooky Berenstain Bears books (Bears in the Night, The Spooky Old Tree), which I absolutely adored as a kid. At first, I was just trying to recreate that cozy Halloween feeling I had when I was young. But as I made the book more realistic, I had to admit to myself that I do want people to think about foxes. Not humans that look like foxes (a la Berenstain Bears) but real foxes.
I don’t think people think enough about the plight of animals, many of which lead miserable lives. And humans are only making it worse. How many people who consume meat would actually be willing to watch what happens inside a factory farm? We’re all like Beatrix Potter in a sense. We love to watch videos of adorable pigs and cows, but when it comes to what’s going to bring us maximum pleasure, we turn a blind eye. In a way, I think we’re worse than Miss Potter because we don’t do it with our own hands.
Basically, I wanted to challenge readers to think about the foxes themselves, not how it relates to humans in a fable sort of way. That being said, whatever my readers take away from the book is just fine by me. It’s theirs now. I’d much rather the book raise questions (like these!) than provide answers. I hate any story that rings like an after school special.
7. You’ve done a great job of creating a tender read with a scary undercurrent. You’ve taken themes with which we are all familiar and given them a tweak and a twist that makes those themes fresh and new. What would you have done differently? Anything?
Another great question! And I can’t shake the feeling that you have something specific in mind . . . haha.
Um . . . I might be too close to the book right now (it came out less than two months ago) to give you a solid answer right now. I know how I would change my first two books. But right now? Hmm. Hmm. I’m typing words hoping that something will come to me. Um um um um um . . .
No. I kept editing and editing and editing this book until I feel like I’d struck upon what happened to these characters. Not what I wanted to happen. Not what I think the reader would want to happen. But what happened.
I’ll tell you that killing Baby Bizzy was really hard on me. Really hard. I still don’t like to think about it. But I knew it had to happen. The old storyteller had told me so. And Mia was actually there, so she would know. Every other time I’ve killed a character in a story, it’s been kind of . . . delightful? Like, oh boy, this is gonna surprise the reader. But when I realized what had to happen to Bizzy, I grew really depressed. And that’s when I knew it had to happen. It’s a new writing rule for me now. Don’t kill any character unless it’s going to hurt.
Ask me this question again in a year. Or two. I’m sure I’ll have recognized plenty of flaws by then.
8. All the adults let the young foxes down. Do you feel that is the current state of affairs in today’s world? Was this a necessity in order for our young foxes to grow into the foxes they became? Does the lack of strong adults imply they too will be weak adults in the end? That would be a depressing thought.
Close your eyes and imagine a popular children’s book.
Now imagine what the parents are doing in the story.
Now do this with a few more children’s books.
Without knowing which stories you picked, I can tell you right now that the parents are occupied. They might be dead or distracted or divorced or at work or under a spell or evil or they didn’t fall through the same magic portal their kid did or or or or or. From Hansel and Gretel to Harry Potter, it’s been the parents’ job to get out of the main character’s way so that the child can be the one who solves the problem. Not the adult. That’s how kids (and kits) grow.
It also makes for better storytelling.
Imagine how disappointed you would’ve been if I’d had Mia’s mom romp into the final story at the last moment and save the day by defeating Mr. Scratch and taming zombie Roa. Would you have walked away from the book and thought, ‘Parents are the best! What a great book.’ Or would you have felt ripped off because Mia and Uly didn’t solve the problem themselves?
There’s an old children’s writing rule that says ‘Kill the parents.’ But that rule has created plenty of lonely orphan clichés. More modern children’s stories find new ways to get the parents off the page. They’re abusive or cowardly or addicted or just plain not smart (Roald Dahl does this a lot). But whatever they are, they cannot solve the problem for the main character.
(As an aside, I don’t think Uly’s or Mia’s mom fail them and that Mia’s father’s failure is just a part of fox culture, but I’ll let you suss out why.)
As to whether or not Mia and Uly will become terrible parents themselves, I’d say these harrowing experiences will turn them into some of the best adults/parents in the wild. Then again, if I were to write stories about their kits, then I would need to get rid of Mia and Uly somehow. Not kill them or turn them into Mr. Scratches or anything like that. But something . . .
Thanks to the writing group for such excellent questions!