Pure in her fear, pure in her sorrow, pure in her hate, pure in her love. She’s silly, too, and sentimental as hell and she’s very, very afraid and lost and somehow she clings to hope and life. WHAT DO YOU LOVE ABOUT THE 5TH WAVE?Ĭassie! She’s vulnerable and funny and fierce. writing, because you’re too tired to judge yourself. writing can be so much better than 2:00 p.m. And you have to learn when you’ve taken it far enough and when you need to go still farther. That no matter how far you take something – alien invasions, young love, the definition of humanity – there’s always a spot you could take it farther. paralysis, existential dread, and a sense of hopelessness – which is exactly what my characters do experience. If I slipped and started to dwell too long on what it would mean to have everything you cherish, rely on, and believe in ripped away in an instant. Maintaining psychological distance from the overwhelmingly unthinkable things that were happening to my characters. WHAT WAS THE HARDEST THING ABOUT WRITING THE 5TH WAVE? There’s a quote from Emerson about this that I remember reading back in college, but that was a long time ago and I’m too lazy to look it up. There’s only so many really cool ideas floating around out there. Oh no, I write quickly because I’m painfully aware I’m not the only one who could write it, and I have to beat that hypothetical person to the punch. HOW IS THIS A STORY ONLY YOU COULD’VE WRITTEN? By the very nature of the event, we’d be more like cockroaches to them than fellow travelers. Not only would there be the sheer terror of an alien abducting you, but afterwards no one would believe you.” Then I read this interview with the physicist Stephen Hawking, who pointed out that an alien visitation probably wouldn’t work out so well for us, the indigenous species. I asked my wife one day, “What’s your biggest fear?” And she answered straight away: “An alien abducting me.” And I said, “I’m not sure that’s even in my top fifty.” And she said, “Think about it. GIVE US THE 140-CHARACTER STORY PITCH:Ī teenaged girl searches for her little brother after an alien apocalypse. Oh, wait, I just looked at the next question. Since that day, I’ve written seven more books for youth, including The Monstrumologist and The 5 th Wave, which is about an alien apocalypse that. One day I decided to tell a story about a middle-aged guy who stumbles into an Arthurian adventure and ended up writing a novel for young-adults by accident. I soon realized the more I said, the more I had to say, and saying it in the context of books that people might actually be interested in reading encouraged me to keep saying it. When the time came, I took a real job, got married, raised a family, and began writing books in earnest. They also tried to steer me away from the arts, which they believed to be a soul-crushing, wretched existence (they were wrong) and not something most people would consider real work (they were right). They raised me to be polite, caring and fully cognizant of the fact that I was special but no better than anyone else. I was ripped from my mother’s arms when I was 72 hours old and spent the next eighteen years under the care of two very kind people who are now dead through no real fault of their own. TELL US ABOUT YOURSELF: WHO THE HELL ARE YOU? Anyway, here’s Rick to answer the Terribleminds Ten. It is, I think, one of my favorite depictions of an alien invasion ever - it’s brutal stuff. I read and adored The Monstrumologist, so when given a chance to interview Rick Yancey about his newest book, The 5th Wave, I was geeked.