Geek Becomes Hero in YA Novel The Other Normals: Q&A with Ned Vizzini

We all hated summer camp. So does Perry Eckert.

In The Other Normals, Perry – a quintessential geeky teen – is having a hard time focusing on school and, his parents think, dealing with real life. So he's shipped off to summer camp, where he's supposed to stop dreaming, and give up his gaming ways. The kid loves Creatures & Caverns, a D&D-like role-playing game, which creates a world where he feels safe.

At camp, Perry quickly realizes the "real world" is not as it appears. There is something called the "multiverse" and the "World of the Other Normals." Soon, denizens of this other world need someone to save them. And Perry just might be that hero. But he'll have to get out of his comfort zone to be that hero.

That's the premise of The Other Normals, the latest book from Ned Vizzini. The adventure story is smart, witty, and real.

Vizzini is the award-winning author of It's Kind of a Funny Story (also a major motion picture), Be More Chill, Teen Angst? Naaah..., and his latest book, The Other Normals. He has written for the New York Times, Salon, and the L Magazine. In television, he has written for Season 2 of MTV's Teen Wolf and currently writes for ABC's Last Resort. He is the co-author, with Chris Columbus, of the forthcoming fantasy-adventure series House of Secrets. He lives in Los Angeles with his family. His work has been translated into seven languages. Read more about Ned Vizzini at nedvizzini.com.

I had a chance to ask Vizzini about his new book, as well as his geeky past, and whether kids today have a harder time being nerds than when he was growing up, among other topics.

Gilsdorf: Your protagonist, Perry (Peregrine) Eckert, is sharp-witted, has low self-esteem, a thinker, a "Mathlete" (albeit kicked off the team), afraid of girls, and a little behind developmentally from other kids. He feels like an outsider. How much were you aware of these classic nerdy teen protagonist characteristics when you began developing his character? How much did you want Perry to go against the grain of those "revenge of the nerds" traits?

Vizzini: I was very aware of the "nerdy white outsider" when I came up with Perry. That character is has 60 years of history dating from Catcher in the Rye. A lot of people are tired of him. I tried to make Perry different in two ways. First, he's not surrounded by other white kids; he's at a summer camp where he's the only white kid. Hopefully that puts a different spin on things. Second, he's not a "cool nerd" who could be popular if only he had confidence in himself. He's a nerd for whom popularity is hopeless.

Gilsdorf:Your books – It's Kind of a Funny Story, Be More Chill and the new one – are about the awkward, complicated, f-ed up teenage years for boys and young men in America. Why have you zeroed in on this theme and this age group in your work?

Vizzini: Adolescence is the most Technicolor time in our lives. It's the time when adulthood is new and we care most about it. It contains the highs and lows that excite me as a writer.

Gilsdorf: When you write a book like this for kids, how much are you aware that you want to create a fun adventure story, but also "teach" them stuff about life? Or is that something you shy away from?

Vizzini: Putting lessons in young adult books is very dangerous. The Other Normals doesn't have lessons; it has warnings: examples of behavior that hopefully the reader never, ever emulates. Like Perry pulling his pants down at a dance at camp. That stuff is entertaining.

Gilsdorf: Talk about your own life. How much are you and Perry alike? How much of a nerd are you? Did you or do you play RPGs?

Vizzini: Talk about my own life? There's four books about it! God, how much could anyone want to know?

Perry is 80% me. I was never as into tabletop RPGs, although I did have the situation where I owned the books but didn't have anyone to play with. Now I'm too old and busy to be a real nerd. I fantasize about it. I want to buy the original Final Fantasy for my iPad and beat it again but I'm a father.

Gilsdorf: How many kids do you have, and how much of this book is for them, or inspired by them?

Vizzini: My son is 16 months old. Not only is the book not for him, the book is his enemy, because it takes away from time I should be spending with him.

Gilsdorf: Do kids today have a harder or easier time being nerds and navigating their "roles" than when you were growing up? (And remind us, how old are you?)

Vizzini: I'm 31. I don't think it ever gets easier or harder to be a teenager. I don't think that sexual confusion and wanting to destroy things and sometimes feeling incandescently powerful and then later the same day wanting to hurt yourself will ever be removed from the experience.

Gilsdorf: You speak to kids and college kids about not freaking out and how to succeed in school. How did that gig come about?

Vizzini: That started with my book It's Kind of a Funny Story. That book is about depression and redemption in the psych hospital and is based on my real-life experience. I took that experience and turned it into a talk about stress management that I've delivered around the US and Canada.

Gilsdorf: To me, the tone and treatment of the material in The Other Normals – this adventure story of a young kid prone to fantasy escapism – reads as much like an adult novel as one for kids. The jokes fly fast and furious. When Perry and his family get to the summer camp where Perry will be spending the next 8 weeks, there's a sign that says "No lawyers beyond this point." That's just plain funny.

Vizzini: Thank goodness.

Gilsdorf: Your book is labeled "Grades 8 & up." There is some slightly off-color humor, more than a couple f-bombs being dropped, and on page 1, a joke about "playing with myself " (which refers to his solo play with RPGs, not what you all are thinking). How much PG-13/R-rated content is necessary when appealing to kids today?

Vizzini: You have tremendous freedom in the young adult book world to write what you want. You can put R-rated content in a book that you can't in a similarly targeted movie. That's good, because the reality of being a teenager involves a couple f-bombs.

I wrote for MTV's Teen Wolf, and showrunner Jeff Davis used to say that people always said they wanted real teen dialogue, but you know what real teen dialogue is? "Hey, man, did you see that thing last night? That was uber-f***ed up. You know what? S***."

Gilsdorf: I loved the self-referential stuff about D&D (in your book, the game is fictionalized as "C&C" – Creatures & Caverns) and Tolkien. Peregrine seems possibly named for "Peregrine/Pippin" in Lord of the Rings. Once Perry meets Mortin, who comes from the "World of the Other Normals," there's a great bit about how Tolkien actually traveled there. Mortin says, "Tolkien said the climate reminded him of being a baby in South Africa." And then Mortin cracks, "Have you ever seen someone deal with a bill in Middle-earth"? Comment?

Vizzini: Perry's name wasn't an explicit reference to Peregrine/Pippin — but that's a great catch. Maybe I'll claim I was smart like that.

There's no way I could write a book like The Other Normals without referencing D&D and LOTR. I am crouching on the shoulders of giants. I read a lot of books about fantasy — including yours, Fantasy Freaks & Gaming Geeks, which I liked a lot — and somewhere along the way I thought it might be funny to say that Tolkien got his ideas for LOTR from the World of the Other Normals. But I always found it odd that no one has bills or crappy jobs in Middle-earth. Only in fantasy is "adventurer" a job.

Gilsdorf: How much do you worry that this book might not appeal to non-gamers?

Vizzini: My editor at HarperCollins is a non-gamer, and she helped trim the gaming stuff to make it not overpower the book. That said, in all honesty, this book is a deep album cut for me. It's me doing something I've always dreamed about, not me trying to appeal to everybody.

Gilsdorf: Just before Perry makes the jump to the "World of the Other Normals," he and Mortin are talking and Perry is freaking out. I love Mortin's line: "Perry, I thought I knew about you from studying you, but I didn't realize that at any given moment your brain is either scared, apologetic, or thinking about something. You need to make more room in there for direct action." Sounds a lot like me. To what extent is this a book about a shy, geeky kid finding his inner mojo to take action?

Vizzini: You nailed it. There's a great part of Michael Crichton's The Andromeda Strain where a bunch of scientists are sitting around a table, and the narrator notes that half of human blood flow is used to feed the brain, so in many ways these aren't bodies around the table, they're just giant, pulsating brains. Our brains can take over our bodies. And for Perry, there needs to be a moment where he forgets about his brain to be fulfilled.

Gilsdorf: Eventually, there's a quest to rescue a princess. How did you make that old quest idea fresh?

Vizzini: Well, there's a twist at the end. "Your princess is in another castle," so to speak, but worse. So hopefully that helped.

Gilsdorf: How did you decide to make this book from the POV of a first-person, present tense narrator in the voice of Perry, versus a third-person or past tense narrator? What are advantages and disadvantages of the first-person narrator and is it trendy now in YA fiction? The Hunger Games uses first-person present.

Vizzini: I always start a book thinking that it can be something other than first-person present, and I always come back to first-person present. It's just the easiest way. Notes from Underground: "I am a sick man... I am a spiteful man." You're right there with the narrator from the start.

But I'm happy to report that I am branching out. I co-wrote a book with Chris Columbus, House of Secrets, the first in a series, that's coming in April 2013. And for that book, it's still present tense, but we use third person. So that's big for me.

Gilsdorf: You said (somewhere): "The Other Normals is about summer camp (as well as swords – and growing up) and it's based in part on my summer camp experience." So, talk about your summer camp experience. Miserable?

Vizzini: I'm going to answer this one with a – video. That's what my camp was like. I also wrote about it in my first book Teen Angst? Naaah....

Gilsdorf: You have some cool promo ideas to launch your book, including a Twitter Game that plays like the old Choose Your Own Adventure books. How the heck does that work?

Vizzini: You tweet "@OthrNrml start" to begin, and the Twitter Game sends you prompts. You pick what you want to do, like the Choose Your Own Adventure books, and try not to die!

Full instructions are here. If you finish the game, you get a free book — but nobody has finished it yet!

Gilsdorf: Any other comments or thoughts?

Vizzini: Just thanks, Ethan. Not just for this interview — for reading the book!

Gilsdorf: My pleasure. Over and out.

Read more about Ned Vizzini and The Other Normals at nedvizzini.com.