By Samantha Alissa Martin

Jennifer Brody—novelist, short-story writer, TV/film producer and writer, and writing instructor—dives into her obsession with “Dear John” letters, Ancient Chinese philosophy, and science in her latest novel, A Sacrifice of Blood and Stars. The story follows protagonist Hikari Skye (Kari) as she enlists to be part of Space Force in the midst of the Proxy Wars. The trouble is, her reputation is far from perfect, as her father’s status as a deserter seems to follow her all the way to space. To make matters worse, she is paired with her bully, Draeden Rache (Drae), through a Sympathetic program that forces them to share their feelings and experiences with one another, resulting in a blurring of lines between love and hate. This science-fiction enemies-to-lovers romance is enriched by Brody’s research into military service and various sciences, and explores themes like coming-of-age, mental health, and the effects of a world that has militarized space.

The Coachella Review spoke with Brody about her writing process, including how she’s paid to scare children in her 7-book series Disney Chills under her pen name, Vera Strange, and her abiding love for villains and morally gray characters. Brody also discussed her focus on maintaining authenticity by reaching out to veterans and active service men/women around her while writing her novel, and her interest in continuing to write fiction that reveals what’s going on in the world around us. (This interview has been slightly condensed and edited for clarity.)

 

The Coachella Review: You do so much work under the pen name, Vera Strange, including your works for Disney Chills and Star Wars. I know these are some beloved Disney characters. How was it writing stories with these characters? How did you get into the mindset of characters people already know so well?

Jennifer Brody: It was sort of a dream come true. It’s funny because it’s not something I sought out—which is to be a media tie-in IP [intellectual property] writer—even though my background is in Hollywood, so it seems like a good fit. I’m known for writing all of the “villains,” the big villains, and [I’m] basically getting paid to scare children, which is also a very funny niche to have fallen into, but that really suits me. My editor—who did Disney Chills with me and is now an author in his own right—said, “I couldn’t imagine someone else doing this series.” And I was like, “Is that because I’m dark and creepy?” And he was like, “Yeah, sort of.” It’s kind of like writing fanfiction but getting paid to do it officially. I’m a huge Star Wars fan, and when they called me up and asked me to write canon Darth Vader, I almost died on the spot—on the Zoom. Anakin is my favorite Star Wars character by far. They hired me because they liked how I made the Disney villains scary again and for taking them back into their fairy tale roots that are quite dark—if you’re familiar with the Grimm fairy tales.

Originally, when we were breaking Disney Chills, they asked me what villain I wanted to do first. It’s a hard choice. I think Disney has the best canon villains of any IP brand in the world, and I wanted to do Ursula. She’s fabulous. I love my villains with big personalities. She’s a sea witch. She’s basically a drag queen. She wears makeup underwater. She’s so extra and beloved, and if you’ve looked at my first series, The 13th Continuum, I’m very interested in ocean—anything underwater. It’s really fun to build a fictional town around an aquarium and essentially bring the villains into contemporary kids’ lives, which I think also makes them scarier. It’s a bit of a Goosebumps/Disney mashup, and I’ve loved every single villain I’ve written. The most recent ones were Maleficent, who is my favorite Disney villain, and Scar, who was a blast to write. I know we just lost James Earl Jones [voice actor for Mufasa], and I think that without him and Jeremy Irons—and his voicing of Scar—I don’t think The Lion King would be what I consider a top-tier Disney film. The voice-over work they brought to these characters made [them] come alive.

TCR: I thought it was really amazing to see all the books you’ve written for Disney and know you’ve taken on writing these characters—something I find very daunting— especially since so many people have love for them.

JB: Yeah, you get nervous. Stars Wars is known for having scary fans that will come after you, especially being a woman and writing Darth Vader. My experience has actually been fairly positive. I’ll tell you, the most challenging fandom I’ve dealt with is actually for Frozen, which was surprising.

TCR: Huh, really?

JB: I did a canon Elsa story for the tenth anniversary of the Frozen films and the great anthology [entitled All Is Strange]. Elsa is my favorite Disney princess since Belle from Beauty and the Beast because, obviously, I love books. I love reading. And yeah, I was warned. [Fans] get very upset if you don’t have the sisters together at all times. There’s a strange obsession with that. But the series has been well received, and Disney Chills shocked people when it came out because it had what I call “unhappily ever afters.” Every book has a twist and a dark and terrible ending, and no kids make it out. When Part of Your Nightmare debuted, people were reading to the end and thinking, “She’s [the kid protagonist] gonna get out. She’s gonna get out of this.” Spoiler: she doesn’t. The villains win in my series. I think it shocked people. The reviews would say stuff like, “Yeah I liked it, but I’m just so disturbed by this ending. I’m not sure what to do.” And I was like, That was a five-star review. It’s gotten to a point where fans try to guess what horrible twist I’m going to put at the end of each book.

TCR: But it just makes so much sense with the villain being the protagonist. It’s their story, so it’s not always going to be a happy ending.

JB: Yeah! I always say the villains are the stars, but the point of view is always the kid. I think that’s part of why people think that. What I like is that it’s anthology style, which has been a really fun thing in horror. Each book has a totally different vibe. Different characters, different settings, [but] very much inspired. I go back to the original animated Disney films to craft that kind of world, and I put a lot of Easter eggs in for folks who are fans. The villains have a huge fandom, and I think they’re somewhat under-served. If I were to have some criticism of recent Disney movies, it’s that they’ve sort of backed away from doing big villain work for the most part. A lot of the recent films don’t have that. That’s one reason why Frozen stands out… it’s the last kind of classic fairy tale—Hans Christian Anderson. Elsa is actually the villain for most of it, which is why I’ve been asking to write her for years. Though technically, she’s a princess—she’s not a villain.

TCR: She’s in that in-between [range], which is interesting.

JB: She’s the antagonist for about eighty percent of the movie, and I think it’s really fascinating character work that way. Because she is [a villain]. She’s a snow-witch. She’s an ice queen. It’s true to the original [Hans Christian Anderson] fairytale. But yeah, I would like to see Disney go back to some of these films. They were born from Snow White and the Seven Dwarves—a Grimm fairytale. I’d love for them to do some more re-imaginings.

TCR: How did you see your work under Vera Strange influence A Sacrifice of Blood and Stars, especially taking into consideration the crafting of the world, since it’s in space? Did you use any inspiration from those works for this?

JB: Not specifically. Interestingly, A Sacrifice of Blood and Stars is a book I started before I ever wrote for Disney. It’s a book I worked on, on and off, for about five years. It’s a pretty lengthy manuscript. It’s a very unusual book in the sense that when I started it, I thought nobody was going to want this. Nobody cares about space or science fiction, or militarization in space. Nobody is interested in new adult fiction right now. It was this big dead zone for a while after the Fifty Shades of Grey phenomenon. It was just a story that I felt passionately that I had to write. I started writing it before the Space Force existed, so it was supposed to be called Space Corps and a kind of branch of the Air Force.

TCR: You mentioned in the acknowledgments in the book that the idea for this novel began as a short story. How did it expand [into a book series]?

JB: Yeah, it began as an idea for a short story. My first trilogy is a YA dystopian Sci-Fi. It came out around The Hunger Games and Divergent, but it’s a pretty different story in the sense that it’s big world-building, multiple point of views, colonies under water, colonies in outer space, colonies on the ground, and the surface has been destroyed. So it had big epic Sci-Fi elements, and A Sacrifice of Blood and Stars was bridging off that more than Disney. But what Disney did for me was force me to outline very heavily because of all the approvals we go through on Disney stories—it’s a lot. It forced me to write very quickly on deadline. I don’t think A Sacrifice of Blood and Stars—and in particular the sequel I just finished copy edits on—would be as strong or developed if I hadn’t had to move to that model of writing in those years. So much of what the book is premised on is reality now, and that’s the crazy, scary part. But it’s also the most interesting part, that I think makes the story very relevant, even though it’s very digestible, in the sense that it’s grounded with characters and has a love story at the core of it. It’s my Dear John in outer space—love letters in space story.

TCR: You mentioned Space Force. How did you balance what’s real and not real in terms of creative freedom [when crafting the world]? What did you take and make your own?

JB: For science fiction, we are often taking more grounded things than perhaps in fantasy and bridging off them and looking at what a future might look like. We get to change things—to make them work in the way that suits our story—but we are a little bit more beholden to things like physics, astrophysics, science, even space travel. When I was first breaking out the book, I went to a program called Launchpad Astronomy Workshop for Writers. It’s a really neat, funded program run by some astronomy professors at the University of Wyoming. They were getting frustrated by movies, television, and authors getting the science so wrong, and created this program to bootcamp teach us a lot of science in a week. A lot of big writers have gone there, like N.K Jemisin, who wrote The Fifth Season. I went and workshopped a lot of the ideas that had to do with the warp tech that allows interstellar travel. That’s a long-winded way of [explaining] the research that goes into building out these books.

In terms of Space Force, there was no Space Force when I first started writing the book. The militarization of space [was] something I had a special interest in, but it wasn’t on the map for most people. Then [former] President Trump created it—or announced it—or who really knows what happened. There was a speech where he blurted out that we had Space Force and everyone was like, “Wait, what? Is this true?” I actually had to pause the book for a while…because the news affected my world-building. About eight months later, [former] Vice President Pence made a speech officially announcing the Space Force as the fifth branch of the military. It was the first new branch since the Air Force—so it’s kind of a big deal, even though a lot of people think of it as a joke. It is funded and I know people who work for it. It is very real.

[Recently], The New York Times ran an article on the front page, announcing a change in our foreign policy and our military policy, specifically now being oriented towards the militarization of space and a new arms race, basically, with China and Russia. So it is the new front I tell people about. This is very much the world-building my book is predicated on, even though I started writing before these elements started to come into place. I do think this is something important to think about, especially since we’re in an era where people are concerned with forever wars. It’s a huge issue for youth movements right now. The second book, in particular, starts to get into the college resistance and protest elements against wars. You’re seeing [it now] in reality, including where I went to college—which was Harvard.

TCR: Your novel dives into the trope of enemies-to-lovers, so Kari and Drae get off on the wrong foot. They end up on separate planets, but then they are emotionally connected by a neural implant from the Pairing Ceremony as part of this “Sympathetic Program” that requires all guardians to still be connected to home, to Earth, while in space. Were there any challenges or complications you faced in terms of building the romance between the characters in the middle of all of this going on?

JB: That was always the core of the story. [Even] the short story had to do with someone stuck in a war in space, disconnected from Earth, and needing to communicate with somebody back home, either to get help or to make them aware. So the breakout for me made sense—going back to the old wars, where there were “Dear John” letters you used to write to soldiers and there was a lot of lag time. Now you can just FaceTime someone in Afghanistan, but back then, it might be months waiting to hear back. Sometimes it was romantic, sometimes it was to break up with a soldier at war, but sometimes it was just to keep morale and hopes up. Now we have this instant communication, but when we reintroduce space into the equation, we reintroduce lag time. You have to wait and receive it and reply. For me, it made sense, this idea of a program to connect soldiers to somebody, especially as we’re deploying to space. It’s so alien and foreign. We’re reintroducing longer terms of service where you’re not going home very often.

I thought that it would be a great premise—looking at a lot of young adult fiction and exploring the enemies-to-lovers trope in new adult fiction—where you’re forcing two people together who really hate each other, almost like bullies-to-lovers. It is a story about deconstructing privilege and what it looks like in a new world with military service as an organizing principle. I thought it would be interesting to force two people together in the classic trope but to do it in a way that is mental—so you can’t hide how you feel—and how terrible and horrifying and scary everything is, but to also feel how they aren’t really that different from each other. [I was] writing a book with two points of view and two people who have very different opinions, who come from families that have different values and life circumstances, and then forcing them to communicate and seeing how they start to change as they open up. Thematically, that was very interesting to me. Especially characters who are young, as these are coming-of-age stories. I have a lot of friends in military service, and I have so much respect for what they do for us as a nation, and what they go through. I went to college, so I was like Drae. I wanted to show the divergent coming-to-age experiences of what it looks like to go to college versus to enlist and go to basic training.

TCR: The Sympathetic Program is very unique and, while it does help progress the romance between Kari and Drae, what stood out to me was the “why” behind the creation of this program. They described [in the novel] “Space Trauma,” mentioning how mentally taxing being a guardian is: the struggles of isolation, the long terms of duty, and the trouble of readjusting when they come back to Earth. Can you talk a little bit about the importance of representing mental health in the story?

JB: Yes! As I mentioned, I do know a lot of veterans. My partner is a veteran. He’s ex-army, and we’re active in trying to help in the community. PTSD is real. The incidence of it is very high. As you see now, we’re fighting multiple wars in multiple places. It’s really hard for [veterans], not only what they go through and the mental health aspects that go with it, but when they come home, there are struggles [for some service members] —readjusting to civilian life. Going from having a purpose and an organized schedule to being home, what’s expected of you is very different. When I looked at what would happen when you put a soldier into space, it occurred to me that the incidents, like space trauma, will go up. It made sense for me that in this world, they would study the problem and create a program to try to fix it. This program is engineered for soldiers to have a glorified pen pal that they can confide in and trust. They can talk about everyday things and not feel disconnected. My book explores a lot of dystopian elements, but I hate this idea in fiction that “the system” is always bad. I wanted a program that was positive. It is a mental health program. It is a smart use of technology that can potentially help people overcome [challenging] circumstances.

TCR: It makes the story feel a lot more realistic and complex. There are these heavy underlying themes weaved into the love story. Kari struggles with the fact that her father is a deserter and has abandoned her family. While that affects how people view her, she also can’t help but hate her father. Was it difficult to maintain these complex feelings?

JB: Yes! Without giving any spoilers, I knew her father would play a role in the story, even though at the beginning he’s very MIA. Kari hates him. He ruined her life, her mother’s, her sister’s. I spent a lot of time trying to make it feel real in a way [where] you’re still struggling to understand what really happened. It was very hard to write, juggling all these elements you’ve mentioned. And it’s funny that we’re not talking about the major thrust of the narrative, which is about a war and a potential terrorist attack, and who’s behind it. What’s interesting about the story—I think— is the character work and the romance, [while] we have this big storyline playing out.

TCR: The pacing of this novel was done really well. Each chapter felt action-packed despite not being long. What is your writing process when it comes to maintaining a certain pace? Is that something you keep in mind?

JB: Yes, I do. I want to give the readers the experience of getting so immersed into the characters, so caught up in the plot, that they can’t put it down. I do tend to write shorter chapters. I like to write from multiple points of view, which is more like George R. R. Martin with Game of Thrones. I really like to move through the story and cliffhang and break on points of tension and then bring you back. They’re parallel stories, like writing two books in one. The Space Force elements are a bit more interesting and more action-packed on some level. But I think having a character like Drae, who gets sucked into a secret society and underground resistance movements in college, gave him a lot of thrust in his narrative. I think it’s always looking for what… brings tension to the page.

TCR: The friendship between Rho and Drae progresses into a fun pairing. There were a couple of moments where Drae felt his feelings for Rho were that of attraction. In romance, there always seems to be the threat of a “love rival.” Did you always plan for Drae and Rho to feel this confusion, or did this development surprise you?

JB: It was more of a surprise. Rho obviously doesn’t reciprocate those feelings, but I think it comes from when I created Drae. Having been around guys, that is so much the thought process, like we see with how comedians talk about why guys keep around many girl friends. They always think there might be a chance. Drae does get confused with Rho, and he doesn’t have his stuff figured out at all, which is very relatable. There is something called the “Proximity Principle,” which I think all women are aware of and worry about. Drae is in college and surrounded by a lot of opportunities. I like writing what I call “messy” characters.

TCR: Kari and Drae have a long-distance relationship, and with that comes possible complications. It’s definitely to be expected to make mistakes in relationships.

JB: Having been in these types of relationships: you’re young and sometimes relationships don’t last or you do mess up a lot, which will be seen more in the second book. The messiness of relationships appeals to me as a writer, especially going into romance. I haven’t really written things that are core romance, although I am doing more of that coming up. I don’t like stuff that feels too tropey and surface-like. This is why I love Colleen Hoover, as well. She’s the queen of messy and toxic romance. She gets knocked for it sometimes, but I can see why younger readers relate to her books. Her characters are young and, again, they don’t have things figured out. They make mistakes, doing things that aren’t always “morally” good, but that’s life. The way she writes characters feels real. I think that speaks to her success. You can’t simply sum up the relationships in her books…[like] how she writes about domestic violence in It Ends With Us, which was based on a real experience. Even though it gets a bad rap sometimes, it was nuanced about something real, and that happens a lot unfortunately.

TCR: These “darker” themes are real, and people connect to them. I believe that’s why, in the romance genre, we’re seeing a rise of people wanting these morally gray characters. They make mistakes and have to figure out how to fix them. There is nobody that is perfect.

JB: I’m glad to hear you say that. You live long enough, and you can’t be so smart that you’ve never fallen into a bad romance, you know? It doesn’t matter how smart you are or how progressive you feel. That’s why I thought It Ends With Us was so important. People always think, “Oh, I would just leave,” but [the story] shows you why she doesn’t. Studies say it takes seven times to leave, on average. It’s important to talk about this stuff. Especially right now, in a world where women are losing their rights, you’re going to see romance fiction with toxic romances. Fiction reflects what’s going on in the real world. My next series is going to be a thriller with a lot of dark, toxic romance elements. I am looking at what I consider good examples of this kind of stuff, and Colleen Hoover is on the list.

TCR: The influence of Sun Tzu’s The Art of War is prominent in your novel. You pull direct quotes from it as you divide the novel into parts, and the characters of the novel mention it several times when talking battle strategies. Some of these direct quotes felt, at times, like you were foreshadowing that the aliens were the real antagonists in the war Kari was fighting. Was it your original intention to lay out these hints?

JB: The core theme, which is also in The 13th Continuum, is a lot about [the spectrum of] humanity. We are capable of creating so many amazing things, but we are also capable of so much destruction. Sometimes we use creativity to create things like nuclear weapons. It’s seeing which impulse wins out. This book [explores] Proxy Wars, and the second book will get into the idea of forever wars, which is … something that’s on the ballot right now. It’s this idea that humanity is very tribal and war-like, and how another entity might see this and use that against us as a strategy. Typically, alien invasions are not that smart or well-executed. I liked this idea of someone coming in and deciding to stir the pot, and having this ulterior motive made a lot of sense.

I’m obsessed with Ancient Chinese philosophy. I heard at some point that soldiers are given a copy of The Art of War when they enlist. I’ve never verified this, but it stuck in my head. So in my series, this is what happens. They are taught about these battle strategies and how relevant it is now, as it was then. It was weaving it in, exactly as you said, as “foreshadowing.” But it also gives the characters the piece of the puzzle, having them figuring something out from his writings. Sun Tzu’s writings continue through Book Two, as we enter a new phase with the characters. A lot of this applies to romance just as much as it does to battle strategy. Sometimes, romance can feel like waging a war. “Know your enemy.” “Know your lover.” The whole book is predicated on the idea that the enemy’s situation isn’t just with the Proxy Wars, but it’s in the romance, too. We start out with enemies on all sides, even with the love story.

TCR: I know that as writers, we put our all into everything we write—and you’ve written so many things—and I don’t think we ever stop learning. Did you learn anything new about the writing process while writing this novel, or even about yourself?

JB: That’s so wise what you said. I think when you stop learning, you stop living. It’s really important to have an expansion mindset—a learning mindset—even if you’re not a writer. Just because you get a little older, doesn’t mean you have to stop. I think now, having written a lot of books, every new book/series you write does feel like learning to write all over again. Each book, if you’re doing your job right, demands something different from you, unless you’re one of those writers who try to write in a formulaic way, which you can do and be successful—that’s not judgment. I prefer to be like the Stanley Kubrick of books. Every movie he directed is widely different. He never did two things the same, and I’m guessing he would have been bored if he tried to recreate something the same [way]. I’m that kind of writer. What interests me is trying a lot of different things. Exploring. So each book demands that you learn how to write all over again and figure out the way to tell the story.

Obviously, I had to learn more about astrophysics and warp technology. The other funny thing I had to learn for this book—because I have not been in the military—I bought a lot of books like Basic Training for Dummies. There are books that help people who want to enlist prepare for what’s to come. I took versions of that [information] and tweak it a little bit. I also talked to current servicemen and women and veterans. It was important to me that there was some authenticity.

This is [also] the first time I wrote something that is a core romance, although my other stories do have elements of this. I also wrote the book in first-person present-tense, and I hadn’t written a novel that way. I’ve written mostly in close third-person. It was super fun. I loved the immediacy. I tried writing it in third person to start, and it wasn’t working. I realized because romance is such an internal experience, I needed access to that first person to get deep enough to explore on the page what was important to the story. It’s a really fun way to write, so I think those were a few things I learned.

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Samantha Alissa Martin holds a B.A. in English Literature from the California State University of San Bernardino. She is currently an MFA candidate in the University of California, Riverside-Palm Desert low-residency program in Creative Writing & Writing for the Performing Arts.