Five Questions with YA Author and Agent Eric Smith

We talk writing for teens, publishing, music and more

If I tried to write dialogue for teenage characters, it would be like Steve Buscemi in 30 Rock.

Eric Smith, though, excels at writing realistic dialogue in his YA novels, Don’t Read the Comments and You Can Go Your Own Way. He’s also a jack-of-all-trades in publishing. He’s currently a literary agent at P.S. Literary and previously worked at Quirk Books, a publishing house. Eric recently contributed to a YA short story anthology, Battle of the Bands, which depicts a concert competition over 15 tales told from different perspectives and is collaborating with Alanis Morissette, Diablo Cody, and Glen Ballard (!) on a YA adaptation of the Jagged Little Pill musical.

Eric and I had a fascinating conversation about writing YA, music and more.  Our conversation has been edited and condensed for clarity.

What is it that draws you to writing for teens?

A big part of it is that I feel like I'm still kind of a big kid. I'm something of a man child in a lot of ways. And the voice that works best for YA and middle grade is a very close, immediate voice, where everything is high stakes, and the feelings are all very big. And that’s how I feel all the time.

That’s the voice and tone in YA: intensity. Because that’s what teenagers are like. Everything is huge. The stakes area always big. It doesn’t have to be a big post-apocalyptic end­-of-the-world book to feel huge and complicated. The stakes can be a friendship ending — and that can feel devastating and the end of the world. It’s a voice I feel comfortable with. 

Speaking of voice, how do you make teenage dialogue sound real?

It's funny. A lot of my friends asked me the same question because they're thinking about writing a middle grade book. They’re wondering if they should spend more time with their younger cousins or talking with their neighbor's kids?

I generally think the easiest way to get into that mindset is just to read as much as you can, reading lots of YA, reading lots of books in the category that you want to write in. It's going to end up informing your writing and is really valuable. I’m always picking up something. I’m always reading something.

Nerd culture and music are common topics in your books. What keeps bringing you back to those themes?

Oh, goodness. I’ve built my life around culture. I’ve always been drawn to video games, comic book, and movies with lots of special effects and big explosions. That's the kind of stuff that fills my heart with joy and I like writing about the things that make me happy.

When it comes to writing about music, I feel like music is one of those things that just brings about a certain nostalgia, no matter how old you are. Even if you’re 18 or 19, you can still find yourself rocketed back to when you’re 16, when this music evoked all these feelings.

I remember when I was 18, I would get super excited to hear Eve 6 on the radio and saying, ‘Oh wow, do you remember them?’ They weren’t super old, but it was just this assaulting thing for me as a kid and even now as an adult.

As someone who sees multiple sides of the publishing industry, what do you wish readers better understood about it?

In my first few weeks of working at a publishing house, we went to Barnes and Noble for a research trip and I said something along the lines of every book in the store representing a massive financial success.

And in reality, living off writing is hard. Most writers have day jobs and most writers don't get giant six-figure deals.

I wish, on the other side of things, that writers understood it's okay for writing be the thing you come home to work on it later in the day. You’re still a writer. It's all just a process of building your back list of books until it can support you. It's a lot. There's a lot of patience required there, and it can be really frustrating. But just stick with it.

Any books you want to recommend?

I just started rereading Fresh by Margot Wood, which is absolutely hilarious. It's one of those rare YA college books, and it's all about discovering and building your way through everything. Margo is a brilliant writer and wildly wildly funny.

I recently finished reading The Ex Talk by Rachel Lynn Solomon. It’s a rivals-to-lovers romcom set in the world of public radio. Competing employees have to pretend they were dating in order to run this dating public radio show. It’s so so funny. Anything she writes, I want it right away.

Erin Hahn has a new one out, Never Saw You Coming. It’s this really quiet YA romance set in the world of evangelical Christianity. Her first few books were really wonderful music-filled YA romances and this one is about religion. She has an adult romcom coming out this year that she let me read. It’s set in the world of HGTV home repair shows and it’s really funny. It’s called Built To Last — great title.

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