About the book:
1) How did you come up with the story of You’re Next?
I’ve always gravitated towards powerful girls. Girls who punch way above their weight. I got this random idea for a teenage detective, and I was really intrigued by the idea of a sixteen-year-old girl--someone society sees as being inherently weak, or vulnerable--taking down the privileged and the powerful.
Over the course of many drafts, my answers about what the book is about, or what its central themes are, have evolved a lot...but one of the first ideas I was toying around with was this sentence that popped into my head one day: “Good girls always have the darkest secrets.” And that led me to this idea that girls in general--good or otherwise--put so much energy into exuding some kind of facade that meets other people’s expectations, and there’s so much lurking under the surface we might never know about. That idea is still deeply in the DNA of the story in a lot of different respects.
2) Which of the characters from You’re Next are you the most similar to?
When I first started writing the book, I thought I was most similar to Cass, Flora’s best friend. Like her, I am super aware of other people’s emotions, and I tend to be more of a strategizer & planner when it comes to solving my problems...unlike Flora, who would rather just jump off the cliff and figure it out on the way down. The more I worked on the book though, the more I realized that Flora and I weren’t so dissimilar after all. And even beyond the deeper emotional stuff, I definitely drew on a lot of my high school experience to inform Flora’s experience as an outsider. I was the new kid in a very small high school in a very quiet, uptight town in Connecticut, and while there was no fight club at my school (that I know of), there were plenty of grim secrets hiding under that pristine exterior.
3) Did you already know who Ava’s killer was or was it a surprise for you too?
The killer actually changed several times as I was drafting. YOU’RE NEXT is the first book I ever wrote, so I learned a lot along the way...and that means I went through a ton of revisions! The biggest re-write I did was in 2017, when I was accepted into the Pitch Wars mentorship program. In Pitch Wars, you work with a mentor over the course of a few months to revise your manuscript for an agent showcase. I rewrote the entire book from scratch under the guidance of my brilliant mentor, Amy Trueblood (author of NOTHING BUT SKY and ACROSS A BROKEN SHORE). It was her suggestion to make Ava’s killer the person who it is now, and the book is 1000x better for it. She also recommended that the fight club be at the center of the mystery! Before, it was just one random scene--more a cool setting than an important piece of the puzzle. The book wouldn’t be what it is today at all without Pitch Wars.
4) Which part of the book was the hardest to write? Beginning, middle or the end?
Definitely the middle--that’s the part of any story I always struggle with the most. When I’m first drafting a story, I tend to think of ideas in terms of individual scenes, like “it would be fun to see Flora do X” or “it would be cool if Y happened.” But making it all logical and fit together? So much harder!! Learning about character arcs and how they work really helped me to figure out my middles.
5) Where can readers purchase You’re Next?
It’s available everywhere books are sold! If you’re looking for an indie bookstore to support, I have been using Bookshop.org to shop at Black-owned stores all over the country--Semicolon Books and Fulton Street Books & Coffee are just a couple I’ve purchased from.
Due to the pandemic, there’s no specific store carrying signed copies at the moment, but I’ll be sure to update people on my social media if that changes (@kylieschachte on both Instagram & Twitter).
About You:
1. If you won a prize for something, what would it be and why?
I have a very good memory and have always kind of wanted to do one of those memory test competitions! Unfortunately, my memory only seems to work for mostly useless things. I frequently forget my jacket places, but I can tell you what football team my 10th grade English teacher supported, or replay word-for-word a conversation I had with a friend four years ago about where to get dinner. Thrilling stuff!
2. If a director wanted to make You’re Next into a movie and wanted you to act in it, who would you be and why?
My background is actually in theatre & film acting! I moved to LA after college thinking that was what I wanted to do. I ultimately realized it wasn’t the path I wanted, and that’s when I got serious about my writing.
Back in the day, the types of roles I was cast in were totally Elle Dorsey, the ruthless mean girl at Flora’s school. I think Elle could be fun to play, because on the one hand--like Flora--she has almost this character that she plays, that she projects out into the world. This stereotypical Regina George bitch. But under that she’s got this cunning, and ambition, and vulnerability that’s a lot more human, and weird, and complicated (even if she still sucks). I think these days I’d have to be really vigilant about my skincare routine to pull off playing a high school student though!
3. What are some of your favorite tv shows and movies?
People are always surprised to learn that I’d never seen Veronica Mars when I first started writing YOU’RE NEXT. Now it’s one of my favorites, but any resemblance is pure coincidence. My other all-time favorite mystery show is American Vandal. I first watched it while I was still drafting YOU’RE NEXT, and even though it’s a parody it’s so tightly plotted that I learned a ton about mystery craft.
Right now, I’m watching Warrior Nun--right up my alley--and I am deeply obsessed with Legendary on HBO Max. Watched the first 7 episodes in under 24 hours!
4. What do you like to do when you are not writing?
I live in the Pacific Northwest, so I try to hike whenever I can. I have a four-year-old great dane named Clementine, so I love to take her into the woods where she can run around for ten minutes like a deranged racehorse and then fall asleep.
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