The Sparks:

I once took a self-guided tour of King Tutankhamen's tomb where each visitor received a Walkman with a cassette tape inside. (Okay, it wasn't Mr. Tut's actual tomb…it was a mock-up in a Las Vegas casino.) Standing in front of each display, you pressed play and the narrator told you what you were looking at. Then you hit stop and moved on to the next display…all at your own pace. I've always been drawn to books with unique formats and kept the self-guided tour idea in the back of my mind. In place of regular chapters, there would be sides of cassette tapes (instead of Chapter 1, you'd have Cassette 1: Side A, and so on…). At the time, I was only interested in writing humorous books, but I couldn't find a funny story which needed to be told in that format.

A few weeks after getting married, my wife and I moved from California's central coast to Sheridan, Wyoming for six months. I worked two part-time jobs while there; as an assistant children's librarian, and a bookseller at an independent bookstore. (It was a magical time!) In the middle of the winter, driving on a dark road slicked with ice--the perfect conditions to inspire a suspense novel--the entire premise of Thirteen Reasons Why came flooding into me: Hannah, Clay, the suicide, the shoebox full of cassettes, the back and forth narration. I pulled into the nearest gas station and sat there (with the heater running full blast!) for about twenty minutes, scribbling notes into a spiral notebook. Before I went to bed that night, I'd written the introductory chapter and part of the first cassette.


Suicide:  (The following events left huge impressions on me…mainly because they raised questions that could never be fully answered.)

A close relative of mine attempted suicide by overdosing on pills when she was Hannah's age. Thankfully (and luckily), she survived. Long before I started writing this book, she and I often discussed the events and emotions that led her to make that decision. She could never talk about one specific circumstance without telling me what led up to it or what followed.

When I was about Clay's age, a co-worker of my father's committed suicide. A few nights prior, the man drove to our house with his car loaded up with sports equipment, which he claimed he didn't need anymore. There was nothing about his demeanor to raise concerns…in fact, I remember him seeming content and happy. It turns out, rather than dumping his possessions, he was finding homes for them.


My Writing Process:

Initially, I tried writing the book straight through. I'd give Hannah a few lines of dialogue, then get a response from Clay to break things up. But at that stage, I wasn't entirely sure where Hannah's story was going…and I had absolutely no idea where Clay came in. A lot of his reactions were pointless and I ended up deleting them.

I went back to the beginning and wrote Hannah's story all the way through. That process took longer than expected, and (for a very brief moment) I considered calling it finished and submitting it purely as Hannah's story. But by that point, I'd done too much brainstorming about Clay's character, and I fooled myself into thinking his part of the story would take a lot less time to write.