By: | October 2, 2024 | | Middletown
Photo credit: Susie Sefcik
By LiliAnn Paras
It’s generally no fun to be wrong. But what a joy it is to be wrong about predicting a thriller’s ending! Author MK Pagano of Middletown accomplishes this and more in her debut novel, Girls Who Burn. Aptly described in Goodreads as a “twisty, pulse-pounding enemies-to-lovers thriller full of secrets, privilege, and murder,” this book transcends the YA (Young Adult) label and has appeal to teens and adults. The protagonists are Addie and Seth, two headstrong 18 and 19-year-olds in dogged pursuit of justice for two murder victims: Addie’s sister, and Seth’s cousin.
Pagano has written many other stories, and after 10 years, her dream of publishing a novel came true. She described being picked up by Penguin Publishing as “weird, exciting, and relieving all at the same time.” Born in Monmouth County, Pagano lived in major US cities and France before returning to her roots to write and raise a family along with her two cats.
Community Magazine: What is your earliest memory of loving to write?
MK Pagano: I can remember being given assignments in English class, something like “write a 3-page story about Thanksgiving,” and turning it into a 30-page story instead (meanwhile entirely neglecting my math homework.) I always loved reading, so writing down my own stories just seemed like a natural next step.
CM: What was your favorite childhood book?
MKP: Tuck Everlasting. I love that story so much.
CM: And the first book that deeply affected you?
MKP: A Wrinkle in Time. It was the first time I’d ever really seen a flawed, imperfect female protagonist — I felt like the message when I was growing up was that girls needed to be nice and perfect and pretty all the time in order to be worthy and liked. Meg Murry is prickly and temperamental and generally a messy young girl, but still deserving of love, and I loved seeing myself in a book like that. I’m not sure Addie in my book would exist without her.
CM: What drew you to write Young Adult books?
MKP: There’s something so unique about that time in all our lives, where you’re leaving childhood behind but haven’t quite entered adulthood, your body is changing faster than you can keep up with it, you’re so confused but also starting to come into your own — it’s a time like no other, and I love exploring it. I started writing in my mid-twenties, and a teenage protagonist just came more naturally to me — I still felt like a clueless teenager most of the time. Now that I’m a little older, I’ve started dabbling more in writing for adults, but I think I’ll always write YA alongside that.
CM: Which authors influence your writing?
MKP: I’m a huge Tana French fan; I decided to set my book in the woods because of her book, In The Woods. I would love to be able to write an adult book on her level someday. I’m also very influenced by other YA thriller writers, and there are many adult thriller writers I adore. I also like to read outside the thriller genre and have definitely been influenced by those authors in my own writing as well.
CM: What do you draw on for your ideas?
MKP: Ideas come to me in pieces; like for Girls Who Burn, I wanted to write about childhood friends seeing each other in a new way, and I wanted to set a book in the woods, so I just put those together, then had to figure out the plot. I knew I wanted this one to be a thriller, so then I had to figure out who was killed and why, who the red herrings are, etc. Other ideas come to me similarly; like I’ll hear a line in a movie and think, “Oooh I want to explore that idea more,” or for my next book, I really wanted to set it in a creepy seaside mansion. Then when I have something written down, if I go back and keep adding to it, eventually I’ll have the beginnings of a story.
CM: Do you have the entire story mapped out?
MKP: I map it out, but it also develops as I go. With thrillers, I imagine it would be hard to know nothing as you start; for me, I do an outline, but I keep it loose, because other ideas come to me as I write. The more I write, the more I get to know my characters and the more they start to dictate what happens. I love a good character-driven story, so I always try and let them take the reins once I’ve gotten far enough along. In Girls Who Burn, I really let Addie tell the story from her own point of view, and I think the book is stronger for that.
CM: What is the best writing advice you received?
MKP: “You can’t rest on good writing.” Meaning, you can write the most beautiful prose in the world, but if you can’t nail down the other aspects of your story — character arcs, tension, pacing, plotting — you’re not going to have a very good book. I’m someone who loves pretty prose, and spent a lot of time in my early career focusing on that, to the detriment of all those other things. Once I realized how important those other story elements are alongside good prose, I really began to write more propulsive stories, which eventually led to me selling one.
Another great piece of advice was to find your character’s “misbelief” — the thing they believe firmly about themselves at the start of the story, that they have to unlearn by the end. Like in Girls Who Burn, Addie has grown up with this idea that she’s unlovable and easy to abandon, which informs everything she says and does. And as she tries to solve her sister’s murder, she also needs to come to terms with the fact that she’s not unlovable, she’s just someone to whom a lot of bad stuff has happened.
CM: And the worst advice?
MKP: Not to outline. Look — not outlining can work for some people, but it doesn’t work for me. In general, I think prescriptive writing advice — “You have to do it this way, or you’re doing it wrong” — is rarely helpful. Because all writers are different, and we all have to find the process that works for us.
CM: Have you had any strange feedback from readers?
MKP: I think the strangest feedback is actually the few critical comments from older readers. They’ll say, “This book feels like it’s for teens,” or “The characters are immature.” To which I say, “My book is for teens, and the characters are immature, because they have literally not yet matured.” When reading a YA book, adult readers need to keep in mind that adults are not the primary audience. Overall, reception from both teen and adult readers has been overwhelmingly positive.
CM: Any special feedback?
MKP: The most special has been from teens. At my book launch at the Asbury Book Cooperative, we did a YA Book Club session before the signing, and getting to sit there and talk to actual teenagers about my book was so amazing. They were so smart, and had such great questions for me, and told me how much they loved the book — that’s been one of the best parts about this whole process, for sure.
CM: Can you tell us about Cheryl mentioned on the dedication page?
MKP: Cheryl is my cousin whom I lost (to cancer, not murder) 13 years ago. It was my first experience losing someone who wasn’t an elderly relative and it profoundly affected me. Cheryl was an amazing person, a mother of four, a business owner, a veterinarian who would drop everything anytime anyone in the family (and we have a very big extended family) had any kind of pet ailment. She ran the New York City Marathon just a few months before she passed away. She was also a voracious reader; we loved chatting about books. I don’t think this book could have been written the way it was without having lost her; I tapped into my grief to make Addie’s more fully realized. I know Cheryl would have loved this book and would be shouting about it to anyone who would listen.
The unfairness of Cheryl’s cancer diagnosis still makes me so angry; having nowhere to direct that anger is hard. So I channeled it into this book, into Addie, who does have somewhere to direct her anger: toward the person who killed her sister. But even with how much I love this book, I’d give it all up in a second to have my cousin back.
CM: Favorite quote or philosophy.
MKP: "The struggle itself towards the heights is enough to fill a man's heart. One must imagine Sisyphus happy." - Albert Camus, The Myth of Sisyphus
This is my philosophy both in writing and in life. It feels like we spend so much time on trying to reach a certain destination, we forget to appreciate the journey. Having a book published is amazing; but my favorite part of being a writer is still in the writing itself. And it’s the same thing with the rest of my life. There are days when I look at my to-do list and at my messy house and see how little I’ve accomplished that day and despair. But then I’ll look at my children playing and think, “But this is us living our lives, and there’s nothing wrong with that.” The everyday struggle is what makes me happy.
