Interview with Pam Bachorz, Author of Candor

Today I'd like to welcome Pam Bachorz, author of her spine tingling and thought provoking novel, Candor which will will be published September 22nd 2009!

In your debut novel, Candor, Oscar Banks knows that people in the town of Candor, Florida are being fed a steady of diet of subliminal messages which are secretly pumped throughout the entire cookie cutter development. Let’s say you had the power to influence people through any subliminal message you wanted- is there one thing in particular you’d love to manipulate people into doing or not doing?

Ohhhh, fun! Well, first I would like to ensure that everybody gives me cupcakes. Then I suppose I should move into things that benefit other people, eh? I wish I could make everybody treat others with kindness—somehow eliminate the jerk factor that seems to have infiltrated our society. I hate jerks.

Many dystopian novels are depicted in futuristic settings. The story for Candor unfolds believably within our present time. Did you ever debate about laying Candor out in a more far away time period, and if so, what made you decide to stick to the present instead?

I love having CANDOR happen in modern day because it opens up the possibility that this very place could exist somewhere today. I mean really… couldn’t it? Or at least aren’t there some people who wish that it did? I have always been enchanted by the idea of secret societies and secret places existing inside our mundane world, and it’s a recurring motif in my work.

The setting of Candor was inspired by the six years you lived in a planned community in Florida. Can you tell us more about how the places inspired you in the writing process? Was there one thing in particular that really got the creative ball rolling?

My former Florida home is very beautiful, and it was full of places to use as starting points when I thought about setting. One place that really influenced CANDOR was a model home (which isn’t a model anymore): it had this gorgeous shed in the backyard, bigger than my kitchen and family room combined, and stocked to the hilt with gardening gear, dried flowers, etc. There was even a place in the wall to plug your iPod into the speaker system. When I needed a place for my main character to use for a secret hideout, that shed immediately sprang to mind.

The two girls in Oscar Banks’ life are Nia, the dark, fiery free spirit and Mandi, the straight laced, overachieving, perfect Candor teenager. When you were that age, were you more of a rebel like Nia or a studious, follow the rules type girl like Mandi?

Probably there’s a little bit of me in every single one of my characters. But I think there’s actually a lot more of my teen self in my main character Oscar (which is a little scary to admit since he’s not necessarily the nicest guy all the time). People in Candor think he’s got everything figured out, but inside he feels like a total outsider. Oscar longs for someone who sees through his façade… and still loves him. That’s how I felt during all of my teenage years, and sometimes I still feel that way!

On your blog, you have some questions you love to ask the authors that you interview. I thought I’d turn the tables around and ask YOU a couple of them instead!

First question--What do you think sixteen year old Pam would have to say if she was to read Candor?

She would be insanely excited. I’ve been writing since I dictated a Pooh Bear picture book to my mother, in preschool. And sixteen year-old Pam would love the premise, since her bookshelves are filled with creepy YA by authors such as Lois Duncan and Mildred Ames.

Second question - What would you say to convince my grandmother that young adult novels aren’t just for teens and that she should read Candor too?

Who doesn’t remember being a teenager? For many of us, it’s the most vivid part of our memories. Reading YA reminds us that we’re not as removed from our teens selves as we might think—and it also opens a reader up to a world of fine-crafted, tight fiction that never has a dull moment.

If Candor were to be made into a movie, are there any actors in particular that you envision playing the roles for Oscar and Nia?

Wouldn’t that be cool? But honestly I haven’t seen any particular actor who screams “Oscar” or “Nia” to me. I would love to see age-appropriate actors who are smart and have the air of rebellion about them. I figure that if there’s ever a movie of CANDOR, it will take awhile, and those kids are probably in elementary school right now! I would love to see Neal McDonough play Oscar’s father, Campbell Banks: he excels at characters who are both smooth and dangerous.

What was your road to publication like in getting Candor published? How long did it take to write it?

Over five years, I wrote 3 novels (one of them CANDOR), had a child and moved to a new state. It was all kind of mixed in there so I can’t honestly say it took 5 straight years to write… but it was five years from first word to sale. Things happened very quickly once I started subbing to agents. I ended up signing with the fabulous Elana Roth (with Caren Johnson Literary) and then sold the book to Egmont USA not long after that.

For all of us that have read Candor, and were left staggering from the chilling ending—can you tell us if there will be a sequel to the book?

Thanks! I hope the ending affects people and surprises them. I’m not working on a sequel right now—my next book will be about entirely different people in entirely different places—but I wouldn’t rule a sequel out.

What projects are you currently working on now that we can look forward to?

Egmont USA will be publishing my next novel, another YA novel that pulls the reader into a dark community that exists inside of our own. It should pub in 2010 or 2011.

A very special thanks to Pam for stopping by!