In 2015, I sat down to rewrite it from scratch (for the umpteenth time), and that was the version that got me my agent and then quickly sold. I rewrote it many, many different ways, giving it whole new casts of characters, altering the premise and voice and format quite a few times. I was quickly overwhelmed by the research, so it didn’t take long for me to reframe it from the perspective of a modern-day teenage girl. It was originally meant to span the first 40 years of a Taiwanese woman’s life (based on my grandmother), starting in 1927 in the mountains of Northern Taiwan. I started writing it in 2010, but it was a very different book back then. It may have taken many years to write The Astonishing Color of After (Little, Brown March 19, 2018), but the results are what SLJ calls in its starred review “an exploration of grief and what it means to accept a loved one’s suicide,” with “lyrical and heart-rending prose” that “invites readers to take flight into their own lives and examine their relationships.” Pan discusses the novel’s many iterations, why it’s important to talk about mental health in YA, and what she’s working on next.Ĭan you tell us a little bit about this manuscript’s journey, from initial idea to final draft? How long did it take to write The Astonishing Color of After?
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