It was a bad idea to write WHERE FUTURES END.
The structure is complex, the ideas strange: five interconnected stories, spanning one hundred years, show what happens to our world after it collides with an alternate universe.
Early on, I described my idea for the book to an agent at a writers’ conference and he recommended I try something simpler instead. Too late: I’d already started writing the book and was okay with the possibility that I would fail to execute my idea. I had just parted ways with my second agent and was feeling oddly elated by my new freedom to write whatever I wanted to, even if it didn’t fit neatly into the market. I was in love with unusual books like M. T. Anderson’s FEED, David Mitchell’s CLOUD ATLAS, Margo Lanagan’s THE BRIDES OF ROLLROCK ISLAND, and Ray Bradbury’s THE MARTIAN CHRONICLES. I wanted to write something just as imaginative.
I had a great time writing WHERE FUTURES END, even while I doubted it would get published. I started out telling myself that this one would just be for fun. But I sent sections of the manuscript to writer friends as I wrote, and they responded with, “Can you send more?” and “This is pretty good” and then “You should try to publish this.” I felt it too—that buzz that meant I had hit on something. Something that had come from a meaningful place inside of me, something that readers might also connect with.
Still, I was pretty sure no agent would want to sign such a strange project, and that no editor would take the risk either. I was wrong on both counts. My now-agent Ammi-Joan Paquette, who found me through my website, was excited to send WHERE FUTURES END to editors looking for a unique project. Kathy Dawson, who had already edited such wonderfully strange books as CHIME and THE RETURNING, won the book at auction.
I never know how people are going to respond to my unusual book. But WHERE FUTURES END is the book I wanted to write, no matter what—no matter if others thought it would be risky to execute, or difficult to place, or tricky to market. And to me, the book you want to write that badly is the only kind of book worth writing.
Synopsis of Where Futures End (from Goodreads):
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Five futures.
Two worlds.
One ending.
One year from now, Dylan develops a sixth sense that allows him to glimpse another world.
Ten years from now, Brixney must get more hits on her social media feed or risk being stuck in a debtors’ colony.
Thirty years from now, Epony scrubs her entire online profile from the web and goes “High Concept.”
Sixty years from now, Reef struggles to survive in a city turned virtual gameboard.
And more than a hundred years from now, Quinn uncovers the alarming secret that links them all.
Five people, divided by time, will determine the fate of us all. These are stories of a world bent on destroying itself, and of the alternate world that might be its savior–unless it’s too late.
Thank you to Parker Peevyhouse and Penguin Random House for sharing Where Futures End with us!
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