Now that Feedback has been out for a while and you’ve all hopefully had a chance to read it and Variant, I thought it would be fun to go back through the book and to discuss my thoughts about the book in more detail. I plan to blog about three chapters every Monday, Wednesday and Friday. (I did the same thing for Variant, the first of which can be found here.) These blogs will be FULL OF SPOILERS. They’ll be a little about the world, a little about the characters, and a lot about the writing process. Think of it like the Director’s Commentary on a DVD: a little behind-the-scenes look at how each chapter came to be. Hope you enjoy. BE PREPARED FOR SPOILERS. THESE BONUS FEATURES ARE WRITTEN ASSUMING YOU’VE READ THE ENTIRE BOOK–BOTH FEEDBACK ANDVARIANT, NOT JUST THE CHAPTERS MENTIONED. YOU’VE BEEN WARNED.

Chapter Ten

–Becky says that when she gets sick she has math dreams. That’s something that I get: when I have a fever I dream about impossible geometry problems. It’s very frustrating.

–This is where we see them putting together the pieces of the progression of the school, and where the importance of that “Steffen Metalworks” pipe comes in. I like Becky’s comments about the androids running on steam, because that would seem to make sense with what they know about the world and history. But that’s not how Maxfield works.

Chapter Eleven

–When Jane says “That’s bad and good”, in response to the discussion about moving to a different facility for adults, it’s the first time in this book that we really see her scared mindset: she’s every bit as afraid of escape as her dupe was, and she thinks that maintaining the status quo is her best attempt at survival.

–As quirky as he is, and as overconfident as he is, Harvard has spent a lot of time on his theory, and he makes a lot of sense. And their explanation (that it’s the government that is keeping them there) makes perfect sense given their assumptions. The problem is that they’re not thinking big enough, or wild enough.

–I like the exchange with Mason. Mason points out to Benson “You never change”, but Mason doesn’t appear to have changed either. (We’ll see later that, yes, Mason does. But it’s because he reaches a desperate breaking point.)

–In a way, Benson’s actions here illustrate everything that Benson is about. He does something dangerous and impetuous and then gets other people involved in his plan almost against their will. Granted, Harvard is more than happy to get involved in the disection of Iceman, but it brings down Maxfield’s wrath on the whole town.

Chapter Twelve

–I love Carrie, and how she is still completely in love with Curtis, even though he doesn’t actually know her.

–Becky counts the gangs, and gets at one of the key points of Variant: that The Society is not made up of androids: it’s made up of kids who are militant in their obedience. They are, like I talked about in that book, based on the Straight Edge gang, or on the kids in The Third Wave. Becky here is deflated to learn that they, who had been the bad guys, are almost entirely human. And so is Isaiah, their leader.

–The court here was originally written as a series of inquisitions or interrogations. It was interesting, but I found that it was more dynamic to include three different people getting interrogated at once. It made the pace faster, and it made the conversations more heated. It brought back some of the paranoia that had been so prevalent in Variant.

–And ultimately, this isn’t about Gabby or Skiver. This is an ambush for Isaiah, a trial for him. Well, less of a trial and more of a shaming and a sentencing. Isaiah doesn’t get to defend himself, and there’s no one there to defend him. I love this scene because, for as bad as Isaiah was, and as much as Birdman is correct on many issues, you really feel bad for Isaiah. You feel bad for Gabby and Jane and Shelley, too, and even bad for Benson and Becky. This is a scene where Birdman unleashes everything he has, let’s his power go to his head, and essentially orders a murder.

Now that Feedback has been out for a while and you’ve all hopefully had a chance to read it and Variant, I thought it would be fun to go back through the book and to discuss my thoughts about the book in more detail. I plan to blog about three chapters every Monday, Wednesday and Friday. (I did the same thing for Variant, the first of which can be found here.) These blogs will be FULL OF SPOILERS. They’ll be a little about the world, a little about the characters, and a lot about the writing process. Think of it like the Director’s Commentary on a DVD: a little behind-the-scenes look at how each chapter came to be. Hope you enjoy. BE PREPARED FOR SPOILERS. THESE BONUS FEATURES ARE WRITTEN ASSUMING YOU’VE READ THE ENTIRE BOOK–BOTH FEEDBACK ANDVARIANT, NOT JUST THE CHAPTERS MENTIONED. YOU’VE BEEN WARNED.

Chapter Seven

–I love Harvard. He is a science nut, and everyone treats him like he’s an incredibly smart person, but the truth is just that he’s a kid who has taken on that persona. He’s not necessarily smarter than anyone else; he just has embraced the nickname “Harvard” and everything that goes with it. In some ways I see him as a kid with a chemistry set–he’s pretending he’s a scientist, but in reality he’s mostly just mixing chemicals together to see what explodes.

–I like the history of Maxfield: how it started as an old west Fort, and expanded, and eventually became the school. It fits well with the backstory I’ve created (which I may or may not get into later, but suffice it to say that the Maxfield creators started on a small scale and gradually expanded). I stumbled onto the fort idea, really. It was the product of a freewrite, just getting words on the page without really thinking them through. It fit so well that I had to keep it.

–Harvard proposes the idea that Iceman and Ms. Vaughn are older generations of the androids–versions that couldn’t fit in to normal society. In later chapters (the final chapters) we’ll see even older versions of the androids that seem almost like the animatronics at Disneyland.

–Laura is just as much of a snake here as she was at Maxfield.

–We get our first view of the president’s daughters here, though we don’t know them as such. But they represent an entirely new course for the school to take. Originally, this was part of the big subplot with Lily–Lily was actually an android from another testing facility who was trying to figure out about the president’s daughters. But even without that subplot, I like them. We’ll talk more about them later.

Chapter Eight

–Lily doesn’t like Becky, because all of Becky’s character growth took place after Lily left the school. I like that Lily is bewildered at Benson refusing to leave with her.

–This whole thing with the beacons just goes to show how desperate the kids here are. With all the different ways Maxfield could be restricting the kids–especially with their high technology–Harvard still believes in the beacons.

Chapter Nine

–I feel so bad for Jane. She has all the same issues that Carrie has–her dupe being in love with someone real–but she’s in the middle of a twisted love triangle, where she isn’t really in love with Benson (or he isn’t really in love with her). But she’s just a very sweet, damaged girl, and life has dealt her some seriously bad cards.

–This is where we first see someone getting feedback. Here’s some trivia: Feedback was the working title of the book, but I never expected it to ever be the real title. But at some point I mentioned it to my editor, and a month later we had a cover mock-up with Feedback as the title. I like the title a lot–I just never expected it.

–I like the strength of Shelly, and about how she is so critical of Benson’s attitude. Shelly is the ultimate practical leader–she isn’t idealistic or leading a crusade; she’s just trying to keep her people alive. (Well, that’s not true, as we learn later in the book. She does have secret plans. But her plans have taken a backseat to survival.)

–Remember that foil and white powder? We see it’s miraculous effects here. And it’s all about getting Becky back into the story.

Now that Feedback has been out for a while and you’ve all hopefully had a chance to read it and Variant, I thought it would be fun to go back through the book and to discuss my thoughts about the book in more detail. I plan to blog about three chapters every Monday, Wednesday and Friday. (I did the same thing for Variant, the first of which can be found here.) These blogs will be FULL OF SPOILERS. They’ll be a little about the world, a little about the characters, and a lot about the writing process. Think of it like the Director’s Commentary on a DVD: a little behind-the-scenes look at how each chapter came to be. Hope you enjoy. BE PREPARED FOR SPOILERS. THESE BONUS FEATURES ARE WRITTEN ASSUMING YOU’VE READ THE ENTIRE BOOK–BOTH FEEDBACK AND VARIANT, NOT JUST THE CHAPTERS MENTIONED. YOU’VE BEEN WARNED.

Chapter Four

–I love the tension of this scene: how we’re creeped out by the incapacitation of the kids; how Iceman has a total disregard for their safety–he’s just dragging them around like dolls; how Becky keeps waking up and making noise; how we’re paranoid that Iceman has found Benson’s tracks or Becky’s blood. I think it works very well.

–Lily shows up! In future chapters, I’ll talk more about Lily. But for now know that her character used to be COMPLETELY different, and she was a big part of the conspiracy.

–You can see there’s a big difference in attitude here than at the school. At Maxfield, the students would have sold out Benson and Becky immediately, but here they have good reason to want to protect them, even under threat of physical harm.

–The idea of making them build their own barracks comes from “The Dirty Dozen”. A lot of prison movies make little cameos in this book.

Chapter Five

–I like the skewed perception of the gangs from Variant. Harvard compares the people living in the fort to the Variants, and the people outside, “the Greens”, to everyone else. It’s not a true comparison, as we’ll see later (and even now it seems off).

–I love this scene with Jane. I love how she’s decorated her room–how she’s tried to make a more happy, whimsical life in her tiny prison cell with her paintings and knickknacks. I also love that we see the real Jane, and we see how she’s been holding out hope for Benson–much like how Carrie has been holding out hope for Curtis. And I love how we see how the brain implant works through her experiences–how she remembers Benson really well because Benson caused her to have strong emotions.

Chapter Six

–So back to Lily: Initially, I had a lot of backstory that I wanted to convey about how Maxfield worked and how the ultimate sinister plot all was laid out, and I used Lily for that. I made her an android–a much more high-tech android than even the dupes, so that she could pass the arm-cutting test. And she acted as a mole, feeding Benson information. I’ll talk more about this role as the story continues, but for now know that my editor didn’t like this subplot very much (and, in hindsight, she was right). So, we cut it and made Lily a real person.

–I mention how Kaitlyn, Chris, Lance, and Trena are out on watch. Those are the names of the marketing team where I worked while I was writing this.

–Much of the point of this conversation is to explain how the androids work: what “popping” is, and what a “dupe” is, and why Birdman keeps such detailed notes about what’s going on. But the real point is for Benson to see the result of his actions–that he led a rebellion where only he and Becky escaped, and sixteen people died. Those deaths, and his response to those deaths, are going to drive most of the book.

Now that Feedback has been out for a while and you’ve all hopefully had a chance to read it and Variant, I thought it would be fun to go back through the book and to discuss my thoughts about the book in more detail. I plan to blog about three chapters every Monday, Wednesday and Friday. (I did the same thing for Variant, the first of which can be found here.) These blogs will be FULL OF SPOILERS. They’ll be a little about the world, a little about the characters, and a lot about the writing process. Think of it like the Director’s Commentary on a DVD: a little behind-the-scenes look at how each chapter came to be. Hope you enjoy. BE PREPARED FOR SPOILERS. THESE BONUS FEATURES ARE WRITTEN ASSUMING YOU’VE READ THE ENTIRE BOOK–BOTH FEEDBACK AND VARIANT, NOT JUST THE CHAPTERS MENTIONED. YOU’VE BEEN WARNED.

Chapter One

–This chapter is essentially a repeat of the last chapter of Variant, with the added paragraphs where Jane cuts her arm. It took me a long time to figure out how to prove that people were human and not androids, and the arm cutting was actually something I discussed with a doctor. He said it was a horrible idea that he would never recommend to anyone, but that it would be reliable, and something that could be sterilized and recovered from. (He actually wanted me to invent some kind of metal detector, but I liked the violence–the menace–of this. It immediately makes you recoil, so that even though they’re proving they’re human, they’re also proving they’re living in a fearful, dangerous world.)

I had one beta reader who worried that it would encourage cutting (as in self-harm). I thought about that for a long time and ultimately decided it was probably safe. (I say that as a person with OCD who has tendencies toward self-harm.)

Chapter Two

–At the end of Variant, I injured Becky very severely. It was done to prove that she was a human, but I hadn’t planned out the ramifications very well. I injured her so much that I really had to re-write the first third of Feedback to accomodate her injury.

–This chapter is Benson’s first big dilemma: he has to chose between saving Becky’s life and running. To make things worse, he knows that Becky wants him to run, not go to the town (though her lucidity is going in and out). But the bigger dilemma in Benson’s mind is that he’s not just dealing with Becky’s life; he’s dealing with the fact that he just watched many of his friends die–and die because of his actions. In the first book, Benson’s character arc takes him from caring only about himself to caring about other people, and then at the end it was this caring–and the rebellion he started–that led to the deaths and injuries of so many. So now he’s questioning everything about himself.

Chapter Three

–Mouse and Birdman are brought in as the main leaders of the town for two reasons. First was because I thought Mouse was a really great character who got kind of short shrift in Variant, and I really thought she could use more of an opportunity to be center stage. And Birdman was brought in because I wanted to continue the story of the fifteen escapees that I started in Variant. (The name “Birdman” refers to the infamous “Birdman of Alcatraz”.)

–The watch and the necklace are the first instance where we see clues as to Birdman’s true character. He’s a leader, yes, and he’s fierce and defensive. But he’s also paranoid, and he’s created fictions around their incarceration to fuel his own paranoia. (If the watch and necklace really were tracking chips, then Benson and Becky wouldn’t have really made it as far as they did–they’re less than a mile from the wall, and they’ve been out all night.)

–The reason Benson asks “What’s a commisary?” is because my editor didn’t know what a commisary was.

–Fort Maxfield is based on Bent’s Old Fort in Eastern Colorado. It’s now a National Historic Site. (I chose it mainly because it had a lot of pictures, and an online floorplan.)

–Carrie’s room is one of the first places where we get a really eerie view of how the people in the town live, and about the connection that they have to the people in the school. Carrie is obsessed with Curtis, her dupe’s boyfriend. But her dupe also has some of the same skills Carrie has–the dupe can draw, just like Carrie.

–Aluminum foil and white powder: that was my solution to Becky’s severe injury. I messed with it a dozen different ways, and then I came to the realization: I write science fiction. If the school has so much invested in these kids, and they have advanced technology, why wouldn’t they put high-tech gear in the students’ first aid kits?