Ali Novak on Heartstrings, The Heartbreak Chronicles and Bringing Passion to Writing

It took no time at all for us to get hooked on the coming-of-age storytelling and compelling family drama of My Life With the Walter Boys on Netflix. We knew it was based on book by writer Ali Novak, which was originally published to Wattpad, but what we didn't know is that she also has a dreamy series following the members of a band called The Heartbreakers. As soon as we heard that the next book of The Heartbreak Chronicles, Heartstrings,  would be publishing on Oct. 7, we jumped at the opportunity to read an early copy—and we're so glad we did.

Heartstrings follows Indie, a high school senior and violin prodigy who's spent most of her life feeling overshadowed by her older sister, Violet. That's because Violet is a popular TV actress, known best as the lead of a vampire drama called Immortal Nights. Because their dad is also Violet's manager and their mom is on the other side of the country pursuing her dreams as a concert violinist herself, Indie laments her sister's career, the division it's caused in the family and how neglected she feels now.

So Indie is suspicious when Violet invites her to New York Comic Con with her to help out ahead of her panel. The event is right up Indie's alley, as she's a lover of comic books, sci-fi fantasy and special effects makeup, but she does not want to be put to work—especially by her sister. After much coercion, she finally agrees, but only on the condition that she gets to see her favorite makeup artist's panel. Of course, things go awry, and she misses out on the one reason she came, only for her day to turn around completely when she meets Xander Jones, the geeky yet charming guitarist of The Heartbreakers. The two hit it off immediately, sharing an interest in the convention and bonding over playing second fiddle to bigger personalities. Their friendship will force them to take a second look at their talents and what they really want for themselves, especially as that bond grows into something more.

Ahead of todays big release, we had the pleasure of hopping on a Zoom call with Ali to talk all things Heartbreakers and Walter Boys and dig into her writing process. Read our full interview with the author below.

Sweety High: As the story goes, you were inspired to write an original story about a fictional band when One Direction fan fiction was first becoming  all the rage. From the beginning, were you planning out a four book series—one for each member of the band—or did that evolve from the writing process? 

Ali Novak: I wrote The Heartbreakers out of frustration with One Direction fan fiction. I love One Direction, but because it was so popular, it became really hard for people to find my original fiction. The Heartbreakers was written as a one-off. It was never meant to be a four-book series, but my editor at the time really liked it. She convinced me to write three more books, one for each guy in the band.

(Image courtesy of Ali Novak)

 

SH: Once the decision was made to write four books for the series, were there any things you wish you'd written or planned differently for that first story?

AN: Yes! I mean, I never would have named one of the characters JJ, because that's my cousin. I'm finishing up the fourth book now, and it's kind of weird writing a main love story about falling in love with someone with the same name as my cousin. I definitely would have gone about a few things differently, but I'm still happy with how it turned out. I don't think there's any major overhaul that I would have done.

And because the first book was written on Wattpad and then published, there were changes that I made between the Wattpad version and the published version of The Heartbreakers that then affected the rest of the series. The Wattpad version was kind of the rough draft.  Like in the original version, Xander was the drummer and not JJ, and that got switched. Little details like that.

 

SH: What does the process look like when you first write a story on Wattpad that later gets published as a novel?

AN: When I wrote My Life With the Walter Boys and The Heartbreakers, I didn't have a publisher. I was just writing online for fun. Of course, writing serialized fiction online is very different than writing a book that's going to be traditionally published. It's much more like a TV show where the end of every chapter you upload has to have something—whether that's a kiss or a cliffhanger—to entice readers to come back and read the next chapter you upload. It lends to a much more dramatic, up-and-down form of storytelling, versus the usual arc you see in a traditionally published book.

When I took The Walter Boys and The Heartbreakers and got them ready to be traditionally published, there had to be a major overhaul with both books. There was a lot of rewriting to do. With the other books in the Heartbreak Chronicles series—Paper Hearts, Heartstrings and In a Heartbeat—I already knew they were going to be published when I wrote them. Even though they were posted online, I wrote them with that intention so I wouldn't have to do all of that extra work of changing the storyline to fit a traditionally published novel format later.

And it's a lot of work to change them. I think The Walter Boys was like 70 chapters and 150,000 words long when it was on Wattpad, and the traditionally published novel is 90,000 words and 20-some chapters. A lot of superfluous content was cut.

I mean, the concept of The Heartbreakers is this random girl going on tour with a world-famous boy band. It makes zero sense when you think about that, but again, the story was written out of a place of frustration when I was a teenager, and so I wasn't putting a lot of time and thought into creating the logic of the story. So sure, it makes sense that she's going to go on tour with this band.

And I didn't put any time and thought into the name of the band. I was listening to Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers at the time that I came up with the concept, so I just called them The Heartbreakers. I didn't think, "Is that an original name for a band?" And now, that's going to be an issue because the series is being adapted into a television show, and they're going to have to change the name of the band, and the title. I'm hoping they can name the TV show The Heartbreak Chronicles, like the book series. It's disappointing, but it makes sense why that has to happen.

 

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SH: Once you understood that you were going to be writing one book around each of the four members of the band, how did you go about creating the love interests for each of them? How did you decide on those dynamics and who could bring out what each guy needed?

AN:  So, book four is about Cara—Stella's sister, who appeared in the first book—and JJ. In the original version of The Heartbreakers, they kind of had a relationship, and people really liked them together, but it wasn't very realistic. Stella was already with one member of the band, and it all happened so quickly. I also really enjoyed those characters together, but I wanted to give the relationship a little bit of breathing room, which is why I decided to tackle JJ and Cara last.

Violet from Heartstrings was was originally supposed to be paired with Alec in Paper Hearts, because I had this concept in my head of this actress—the star of this cheesy vampire show—and she was supposed to be this big, over-the-top personality matched with Alec, who's so quiet and brooding. But my editor at the time didn't like the idea. She said, well, you already have one famous love interest. You want your readers to feel like they can relate to the main character, which is hard if she's also famous. I understood, but I was also frustrated because I really liked the character. That's why we have Felicity, who's your relatable, average girl.

But I just couldn't let go of Violet. That's why she's mentioned throughout Paper Hearts, and she also appears in one scene. I set that all up so she could be one of the main characters in the new book, Heartstrings. Indie is Violet's sister, and she really stemmed from wanting to have Violet as a main character. But Indie needed to be wildly different from her sister. I had this concept of this famous actress. Well, how does her sister feel about that? Does she use that fame to her advantage? Does she have a chip on her shoulder? And since Cara is very much a fan girl, I didn't want to repeat that. So with Indie, we have this character who's unhappy with fame and who feels very overshadowed by her sister being a celebrity and the way it affects their relationship and their family's lives.

(Heartstrings via Sourcebooks Fire)

Alec is my favorite character, which is why I went with him for the second book. Then, because I set up the whole thing with Violet, that's why Heartstrings comes next, and then Cara and JJ are last, because I figured I should give them a few years for their relationship to come into being. It's about two and a half or three years between the start of the first book and the start of the last book.

 

SH: It's also mentioned in Heartstrings that Felicity is the spitting image of Violet…

AN: I was being petty. I was a little angry that I wasn't allowed to make her the main character, and that is 1000% why she is the spitting image of Violet.

 

SH: How much do you see yourself in the female love interests in these books?

AN: I always put a little bit of myself into characters. If I was like any character in any of my books, I would say I'm most like Alex from The Walter Boys or Felicity. Alex, because like I'm very nerdy. I love fantasy. I love gaming. And Felicity because I was an American lit major and I tend to be kind of shy and keep to myself.

I don't see a lot of myself in Indie. She can be a bit blunt. She likes scary movies and I can't even watch thrillers. I'm very much a girly girl with the way I dress, and Indie is the opposite. I would say the one way we're similar is I always wanted to write a plus size character, because I'm plus size. I didn't necessarily want it to be what the book was about, just like the theme of my life isn't that I'm plus size. But even though I don't see a lot of myself in her, that's actually the fun thing about writing. You can put yourself into a different person's shoes every time you write a new story.

 

SH: Within My Life With the Walter Boys and The Heartbreak Chronicles books, sibling dynamics are really important. We bet you have siblings of your own. How have your real-life experiences informed what shows up in your writing?

AN: I have a very large extended family. My mom has five siblings and my dad has five siblings, so I have a ton of cousins, and when I was growing up, we all lived in the same area. A lot of my cousins felt like siblings when I was a child, and that's why I wanted to write a big family dynamic for The Walter Boys. In each Heartbreak Chronicles book, sister relationships are very important. Yes, Drew is there in the first book, but really, it's all about sisters—and my sister is my best friend.

We both love reading, we both love writing. Actually, her debut book comes out in November. We're very similar, but we weren't like that as kids.  There's a six-year age difference between us. We lovingly call my sister a word that starts with a B and rhymes with "witch." She's got a personality, and as a kid, it was very much me and my brother versus my sister. I think she often felt ganged up on, but as we got older, this switch kind of flipped and there was just so much that we connected over. I really wanted to pay homage to my relationship with my sister through dissecting different sister relationships throughout the series. We have some very loving relationships and some not-so loving relationships, because not every single familial relationship is perfect.

And if you read In a Heartbeat when it comes out next August, you'll realize that not everything you thought you knew about Stella and Cara's relationship is accurate because you saw it through the lens of Stella and the Heartbreakers. You'll get a totally different view of what that relationship is in In a Heartbeat.

 

SH: You mentioned a Heartbreak Chronicles TV series. Is there anything at all you can reveal about what's coming?

AN: Well, it has a streaming home, but it hasn't been announced yet, so I can't reveal it. They are pretty close to signing a showrunner, and I think there's going to be a lot of news at the start of next year. There's a lot of stuff that I know but I can't share just it yet!

We're still a way off, because depending on the project, it can take years. The Walter Boys was optioned in 2017, and it wasn't released until 2023. But, because of the success of The Walter Boys, the pre-production and development are going a lot faster.

 

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SH: Do you have any advice for writers on breaking through writer's block and getting a story done?

AN: First off, writing is a skill, and just like any other skill, you have to develop it. If you want to learn how to play violin, you have to practice every single day to get better. The same can be said about writing. I think you need to read and write every single day if you want to improve your writing skills.

Also, it's important to recognize that every single writer is different. I really struggle with writer's block, and there are two things that help me. Number one, having a writing schedule. It doesn't have to be a strict "I'm going to sit down between this time and this time and only write during that time" or "I can only write here and not there." For me, what really helps is sitting down at roughly the same time very day. It helps that creativity switch flip. When I'm inconsistent—like if I try to write in the morning one day and the next at night, or one day I'm writing in my office and the next day I'm in a café—it's easier for my mind to wander. But, if I get up every single morning, make myself a cup of tea and sit down at the kitchen table and just write for a half an hour, and I do that consistently every single day, it trains my brain to go, "Okay, this is when you're writing."

I know some people don't like to be rigid with their creativity,  and for them, they want to be creative specifically when the creativity is flowing. For me, though, sitting down at roughly the same time every day and having a schedule or ritual with it makes that creativity flow more easily.

The other thing is that you have to be passionate about what you're writing.
If you do not love what you're writing—if you're writing only because you think it's going to be a successful novel or because a trope is really popular right now—you're going to struggle.

That's one thing that I actually struggled with this series. The first book was written out of frustration, and the next three books were written because my editor thought it was going to be a good idea, not necessarily something that I had envisioned myself writing. It took me a lot longer to write the last three books in this series than it's taken me to write other things, because if you're not passionate about it, it's a lot harder to force yourself to sit down at the same time every single day and work on it. And when you write something you're not passionate about, I think it comes across with the readers that you're not really enjoying the writing. There's something missing when that excitement doesn't come into play.

 

SH: Were you able to eventually find that passion and excitement for writing the other three Heartbreak Chronicles books? How did you tap into that to bring those stories to life?

AN: For me, it was finding something that I loved about each book. For example, I'm a huge nerd, and I think out of all of my books, it comes across the most in Heartstrings. The characters go to Comic-Con. Indie reads a fan fiction and she's into comics. Xander does archery. That is very much me.

For In a Heartbeat, what really helped me write this book, even though I was struggling to write it, was the theme of cancer and overcoming being sick. My father passed away from cancer when I was 17, and then in 2020, my mom was diagnosed with stage 4 colorectal cancer. I've never had cancer, and my siblings haven't had cancer, but it's something that has been a major part of our life as a family.

I thought a lot about my mom when I was writing this book and all of the hard things that she went through and her really long road to recovery when she was sick—what that process must have felt like, and how you get back to normal. That's what Cara struggles with in the fourth book. She's cured, but she's not the same person she was. Does she find her way back to that, or is she a completely new person, and how does she keep moving forward with who she is now? That was a very personal theme for me to tackle. For each book, it was about finding something that I love to make me write.

 

SH: Another thing that comes up in Heartstrings is Indie's love for special effects makeup and Halloween. Were you inspired at all by the competition series Face Off? And do you have any big plans for Halloween?

AN: That's exactly where the idea came from, and Halloween is my favorite holiday. My husband and I actually got married on Halloween because we love it so much. Well, I love it—he enjoys it. All of our wedding guests were allowed to wear costumes. This year, we're going to a concert on Halloween., so I don't think we're dressing up this year. I'm like a fall vibes, witchy Halloween. Not a scary movie Halloween person, because I'm like the biggest chicken in the world.

And the special effects makeup 1000% came from that show. I binged it years ago with one of my best friends, who's also an author. I was struggling to come up with the concept for this book, and in my head, Indy was always a musician, but something about the story was falling  flat and I wasn't interested in writing it. I needed another element to make me enjoy it, so we were just watching that show and we were loving it. My friend just tossed out, "Well, what if she was into this?" I'm like, yeah, I like this. We can do this, even though it was so random.

It's a lot, when you think about it. She's this prodigy violinist, but also really good at this. Of course, everyone has multiple talents, but it really come out of left field for me when I started writing this book, because SFX makeup was not part of it when I first started drafting it. But again, it was something that made me enjoy writing it more.

 

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