In Conversation: Nina Varela and Farah Naz Rishi

NV: Definitely! The big thing studying screenwriting helped me with was figuring out the bare bones of the story. Before I went to college, I’d only ever done prose and poetry, and my writing style was lyrical to the point of being sort of overly abstract or impenetrable, and I was good at writing character studies and slow, quiet stories where not much happened, but that was about it. Screenwriting kicked my ass at first. It’s all about structure. You have to learn the rules before you can break them, and the rules are like: You get eight sequences of about 15 pages each. Here’s what needs to happen narratively in each sequence. The inciting incident is page 10 to 15 and the midpoint is page 65 and the Dark Night of the Soul is page 90.
It’s even tighter for a TV episode, where you have 30 pages (comedy) or 60 pages (drama) to tell that week’s story in its entirety. You don’t have 400 pages to worldbuild and delve into the characters and explore all the themes, etc.; you have to show, not tell, because everything is so visual. You learn to trim everything except what is absolutely vital. It took me a while to get better at this, but in the end it made me a much stronger writer.
Okay, so you’re asking about my screenwriting background, but I’m fascinated by your background as a lawyer! Did anything about being a lawyer—the things you studied, the people or cases you worked with—inspire or influence I Hope You Get This Message (or any other stories you’re working on)? What made you pivot careers from lawyer to writer?

FNR: I studied environmental and animal law in law school and I absolutely loved it. I was so certain that as long as I put in the time and energy, I would slowly evolve into a magical desi Captain Planet and save all the wildlife. But then I got an externship at the DOJ and started to work on some real cases, and—this is going to sound super glum—I basically lost my faith in humanity. Depression hit me hard. I couldn’t imagine myself waking up every day to a job that felt like a losing battle. It’s honestly really hard to talk about it, but basically the things I saw had convinced me that humans were the worst. Then, to top it all off, in my final year of law school, my dad got diagnosed with cancer. Those experiences put me at a crossroads in terms of my career, and I had to reevaluate my lifelong dream of being a wildlife attorney. Ultimately, I took a break from law and turned to writing, because it was the only way I knew how to process the things I’d seen and the sadness I felt. I had to tell myself that if I didn’t want to do law anymore, it wasn’t some sort of moral failing on my part—I had to be gentle, because if I wasn’t going to give myself the emotional space to breathe, then who would? But this is why in everything I write, the state of the world, the environment, and animals play a huge part. Wildlife protection will always be important to me, even if I had to step away for a bit.
NV: I can see why the thesis of your work is “hopeful stories for a not-so-hopeful world.” I’d love to hear your thoughts on how writing hopeful stories affects how you react to and deal with the not-so-hopeful parts of the world. Also, I’m thinking a lot about your title, I Hope You Get This Message. It feels like the title has a triple meaning—the alien reference, the characters getting one last chance to find people they’ve lost, but also it’s like you’re speaking directly to readers. What message do you hope readers will get from your book?
FNR: Ha, this is the perfect segue question! So after deciding not to practice law, writing Hope was my way of trying to (re)teach myself the good sides of humanity, too, and reconcile with all the bad things I felt were happening in my life. So I guess that’s the fourth meaning! It was also a message to myself. I figured if I couldn’t comfort myself, then how the heck was I supposed to comfort my little brother, or anyone else? I think that’s the magic of writing books. No matter what kind of crap is happening in the world around us–politically, environmentally, socially–we can write stories to give ourselves and each other the strength to make a better world. That’s the message of the book. Which I feel like isn’t much different from Crier’s War…except by the end of the book, I was ready to start a revolution with my automaton girlfriend.
Okay, but actually, one of the biggest draws to Crier’s War is the incredibly detailed worldbuilding and timely political underpinnings. For example, the Automae have dominated humans—who they view as lesser beings—for generations, and believe that they are in the right to do so. And Crier, though not a bad person, by any means, automatically benefits from that system simply by being Automade. You’ve set up this genre-mashup of fantasy and dystopian science fiction that becomes the perfect stage to illustrate oppression, privilege, government control, and ultimately, what it means to be human. Were there are real-world events in our current political landscape that inspired the message of Crier’s War? Much of Hope was just me trying to comfort myself, and I definitely also found comfort Ayla and Crier, being the ultimate symbols of love and rebellion in an otherwise dark, dark world. Was that the case for you as well?
NV: The real world definitely bled through. It’s funny—so far I’ve gotten the “Is this born from current AI/android-related paranoia?” question a few times, and the answer is just sort of no. I never really thought about Siri or Sophia or anything in Black Mirror. I was just thinking about power imbalances and class differences and how the only people who get hurt when kings go to war is regular people. And yeah, so much of this story was about comforting myself, exactly like you said. The world has always been scary, but over the past couple years it’s like every possible type of scary has crawled out into the light and started yelling and then seen other types of scary doing the same thing and felt emboldened by it and yelled louder. It is so easy to feel hopeless and helpless and terrified. For every one thing you do to help with one issue, there are a thousand other issues, a million new disasters every day, a billion other people who need help and won’t get it. There is so much suffering, so much evil in power. So many decisions about the literal fate of the planet made by the people who will be affected the least. Who care the least. So often I feel hopeless. I try not to. I don’t really think I have the right. But I can’t help it. Writing Crier’s War was absolutely an exercise in idealism—this idea of capital-R Revolution, a total overthrow of the existing oppressive system. It’s about how hope and anger are the driving forces for change. It’s about how strong and brave and badass teenage girls are, even if they shouldn’t have to be. Maybe that most of all. Hey, teenage girls, you’re awesome. I believe in you. Keep going. You are so much cooler and more powerful than you think.
Speaking of awesome teenagers, something I’m so excited about in your book is the focus on friendship—there’s nothing I love more than a found family vs. the apocalypse type story. And aside from the main trio, the other big relationships in the book are Adeem and his sister and Cate and her long-lost father. I appreciate that so much because culturally we tend to prioritize romance above all other types of relationships. Did you have a specific reason or desire for focusing on friendship and family, or did it come naturally as you began to plan out the story?
FNR: That’s exactly the reason why I wanted to focus mostly on friendship and family relationships, because you’re absolutely right that culturally, we prioritize romance in pretty much all forms of media. Don’t get me wrong, I LOVE romance, but I feel there’s this notion in our society that being single is something to be ashamed of, and that therefore, the stories of “singlehood” are not worthy of being told. Not only does that kind of thinking erase aromantic people, but it pressures people–especially young and vulnerable people–to be in a relationship they either might not be ready for, or might not be good for them. We grow up feeling enough pressure as it is. Even with Hope, I was worried people might not like it because they felt it was missing a romantic component. But I didn’t want to force anything into the story that didn’t need to be there. So in the end, the story became one about found family. It just felt more natural to me that way.
Again, I’m a big believer that love conquers all. But that doesn’t always have to mean romantic love.
[That said…] For me, the other biggest draw to Crier’s War is the romance. I love a good romance, especially in epic fantasy when the stakes of love—and keeping it—feel especially high, but Crier’s War reads like a master class in the art of the slow burn. Was there any fiction romances you pulled from as inspiration for portraying the love between Ayla and Crier?
NV: Honestly, Pride & Prejudice (any version, but especially 2005). Everyone always talks about “The Hand Flex” for a reason—it’s such a perfect golden moment. It encapsulates all the best things about forbidden or slow burn romance: the yearning, the way you anticipate and savor even the briefest contact, the way your love story happens in these tiny disparate moments. So when this person touches your hand even for an instant, you want to remember it; you want it to leave a mark. For me, romance lives in the details. The rule I go by is: two characters shouldn’t need to kiss for you to know they’re in love. The most exciting part is the potential—like when you know these characters are falling for each other, it’s so obvious, but maybe they haven’t admitted it or acted on it or whatever yet, so you just read every scene holding your breath. Like, “Is this gonna be the one?”
FNR: Kinok is SUCH a good villain because even though we know he’s horrible to humans on every level, when we first meet him, he appears kind, even doting, to Crier. What makes a good villain for you? What goes into crafting a believable one?
NV: I always think about that saying like “Every villain is the hero of their own story.” I don’t take it literally—I don’t think every villain believes they’re doing the right thing. I think a lot of the time they’re just selfish. They want something—power, a title, a throne—and they will do anything to get it and they don’t care if it’s right or heroic or not, it’s just the thing they want. And the thing they want matters more than what anyone else wants. And that’s how their world works, so they can do truly egregious stuff whilst still operating within the parameters of that world. Without too many details, that’s the kind of person Kinok is. He is self-serving; he will do whatever it takes to get what he wants. Sometimes it takes charm. Sometimes it’s beneficial for him to win the whole room over, so he does. I think that’s a very realistic kind of villain, especially because humans are pretty inherently selfish. I don’t mean that in a bad way. I think a bit of selfishness can be totally fine and healthy—you should be important to you. But because we all have that seed of selfishness inside us, it’s so easy to extrapolate a Kinok: someone for whom the seed has sprouted and taken over and choked out everything else. I think everyone knows someone who will do anything to get what they want. That’s why he’s so chilling. You recognize him.
Now, something I find so beautiful about apocalypse stories is the focus on small human things within the big nightmare thing—like, the world is literally ending, civilization is over, humans are quite possibly about to go extinct, and still these three teens’ reaction is, “I want to find my dad. I want to find my sister.” What do you think that says about us as human beings? What made you want to write an apocalypse story—specifically featuring aliens?
FNR: Aliens feel like the ultimate Scary Thing to humanity because they represent the ultimate unknown. We don’t know what they might be like—all we know is that there’s actually a chance they exist. Our imagination takes care of the rest. And what an alien could be  depends on the individual person. That’s why I find the idea of an alien apocalypse—as opposed to, say, a biological apocalypse or something—so compelling. Even if you don’t believe in a god, or in the afterlife, you may very well believe in aliens, and fear of the unknown resonates with us all.
Writing an apocalypse story forced me to really think about those “small human things,” and how easy it is to lose sight of them. There’s this idea in Islam that when you die and meet your Maker, angels will read aloud from books filled with your sins and your good deeds, chronicled by the angels on your shoulders who’ve been with you since the day you were born. It really puts things in perspective for me, and reminds me how trivial most of my problems really are. So if I discover I only have a few days to live, then chances are pretty high I’m going to focus on the relationships that are important to me, the people that fill my heart—because that’s all I can take with me. And I think that’s the case for most people. Humans are kind of basic, and the promise of death has a way of making us live a little more honestly.
NV: Very morbid, but….The impending alien apocalypse is announced tomorrow. What’s your plan?
FNR: YES. OKAY. I’ve had a lot of time to think about this. Here is my plan: Tomorrow. They announce the alien apocalypse. We have seven days. First thing I do? I drive to my favorite bakery. One chocolate peanut butter bomb cake, I tell them. They ask, do you need candles? I say yes. I love candles. I drive to the nearest dog shelter. I adopt another dog and some kittens. Finally, I go home, drop off the cake, the dogs, and the kittens, then I shove my car off a cliff. I hate driving and I won’t need it anymore. The next few days are spent eating cake (after I blow out the candles) and petting animals and also maybe playing through the entire Mass Effect video game series. Two days before the deadline, I pass out from a chocolate-induced coma. I sleep through the apocalypse surrounded by family and furry, equally sleepy animals. And nothing hurts.
NV: That sounds incredible. I desperately want a chocolate peanut butter bomb cake. Please, next question, I need to think about something other than a chocolate peanut butter bomb cake.
FNR: I’m always curious about what other writers do when they get stuck. Say you hit a writer’s block one evening: What does Nina do to bring back the flow of words? I think you’ve mentioned music a couple times on Twitter—do you find that music helps?
NV: Music and poetry, mostly. I can’t listen to music while I write, but I make character and project/atmosphere playlists, plus a general “Writing Inspiration” playlist that’s basically just a ton of super dramatic film scores. If that doesn’t work, poetry. There’s something about such a contained form of writing that I find really inspiring—so much evocative emotion packed into like 15 lines. I just pick one of the poetry collections on my bookshelf at random. Most recently I started Something Bright, Then Holes by Maggie Nelson. “The heart, too, is porous; / I lost the water you poured into it.”
FNR: [One last thing] I love Benjy. There’s no question here, I just need you to know.
NV: He’s a very passionate boy! And I am SO READY to meet my three kids and also Adeem’s sister my queer Desi babe!
FNR: And they’re so ready to meet you!
Both I Hope You Get This Message and Crier’s War are on shelves now.