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Boston Globe

YA author Julie Soto on her new thriller, ‘The Thrashers,' and the fanfiction-to-published pipeline

Set in the fictional, cutthroat New Helvetia High, the novel centers on Jodi, an outcast within an elite group of friends known as The Thrashers, led by her best friend and long-time crush, Zack. The group's impenetrable inner circle becomes threatened when their classmate, Emily Mills, a wannabe Thrasher, suddenly dies. As the Thrashers become the center of a police investigation, Jodi unearths more and more clues that make her question if she really knows her friends, or if they were ever friends at all. Get Starting Point A guide through the most important stories of the morning, delivered Monday through Friday. Enter Email Sign Up The novel marks Soto's first venture into young adult fiction and her first novel stemming from a wholly original world. Both of her contemporary romances — Advertisement Soto will celebrate the release of 'The Thrashers' with an event at Advertisement Q. So I binged your book. A. Oh my gosh! Q. 'The Thrashers' dramatizes a lot of the struggles of teen friendships . Did you draw from your own experiences when crafting these dynamics? A. I feel like, for a lot of us, that feeling of 'Am I really a part of this friend group?' never leaves us. I [had been part of] an outside theater company and there was something really interesting about the dynamics there. It's like you got cast into this clique of people. There was something that I liked about that for 'The Thrashers.' I wanted to examine: What does it feel like when you have nothing in common with your friends except for the fact that you care about each other? Q. About Jodi , how did you balance writing a flawed character but also someone that you want readers to root for? A. The first thing I began with Jodi was the idea that we've all been in a position where we sacrifice something to maintain our comfort. The difficulty I faced with Jodi was not making it so that she was a moral compass the entire book, because The Thrashers don't keep people like that around. Advertisement Q. I got enemies-to-lovers energy from Jodi and [fellow Thrasher] Julian. Can readers expect to see them again in a potential sequel? A. That is my greatest hope. I want a million more 'Thrashers' books. My next young adult thriller follows a different group of people, but there will be one very small connection. Q. 'The Thrashers " deals with the topic of teen suicide, something you explored in your 2014 musical 'Generation Me.' What was important to you during these writing processes? A. What I find interesting about the topic is that there's such a sense of survivor's guilt. Why is it them? And why is it not me? What could I have done differently in this situation? And most of the time, the answer is nothing. But it's still that question that you're choking on through this entire grieving process. Q. You did a workshop for 'Generation Me' What was that experience like? A. Theater is exasperating sometimes because it's like, 'Oh, my gosh, this worked so well, now let's change it.' We were going through edits and ways to feel out if there were tighter ways to do things, so we utilized the talent at Boston Conservatory. It was great. Boston was a perfect place. It was like we were getting out of New York City, while still feeling a bustle and an art scene, and the safety of working with the Boston Conservatory, Advertisement Q. Switching gears to fanfiction. I hope you know that . A. Oh, my gosh! I'm so glad! Q. How did you navigate going from writing for an unsanitized, 'anything goes' space like an independent platform like AO3 to writing for a commercial market and publisher ? A. It is so different, but at the same time, I learned everything I know about writing from AO3. There's no middleman between you and your audience. And there are so many middlemen in [traditional] publishing. My friend [author] Ali Hazelwood wanted to call her most recent book 'Whet.' One of the major retailers said 'no,' and they changed the title to 'Deep End.' And no one has that power over you in fanfiction. You can use Taylor Swift songs as the title of your fanfic! I loved that title, so I started the hashtag #KeepItWhet, and now there are special editions of that book coming out with an alternate cover. I'm like, exactly . Give the people what they want! Q. Does your connection with the characters you're writing about feel different when you create them from scratch vs. when they're pre-existing, like in fanfiction? A. When I'm strictly writing fanfiction, the relationship to the characters is specifically tied to the things I find interesting about the property. When it comes to writing my own characters, 'The Thrashers' [features] the very first original characters I ever wrote. It's almost more in conversation with yourself and the people who make up your life, than it is to be in conversation with another creator's characters and world. Q. Your next romance novel, is out this July and is the first in an upcoming trilogy inspired by one of your Dramione fanfictions. While your previous novels featured similar challenges, was it difficult to remove a story from the existing Harry Potter universe and build something from scratch ? Advertisement A. Yeah, I reworked and completely stripped out and rebuilt that story, but it'll feel very familiar to people who've read my fanfiction. The good thing about fanfiction is that, most of the time, the plot is yours. I had to start with plot and refashion characters that suited those circumstances. I built a world that feels far more like a Westeros, almost, that feels more politically complex. There are multiple countries, and some of them leave each other alone, some of them have been in silent war for years. I looked at other fantasy worlds and decided: Where did I want to go? Where did I want to live with this story to live? So, to answer your question, it was very hard. Julie Soto will be in conversation with cardiologist / romance novelist Shirlene Obuobi , May 5, 7-9 p.m. Lovestruck Books, 44 Brattle St., Cambridge. . Tickets required, $33.85, includes copy of book. Interview was edited and condensed. Marianna Orozco can be reached at