The Weight of the Sky
Caroline Schley
Publication date: May 20th 2021
Genres: Contemporary, Young Adult
Speak meets Gossip Girl in this searing contemporary Young Adult novel where the most courageous three words a teenage girl will ever have to say are, “I need help.”
But fifteen-year-old Chris Miller is far from courageous. She does nothing when her best friend is sent to juvenile detention for a crime Chris knows she didn’t commit. She stays quiet as her mother steamrolls her into a scholarship program at St. Catherine’s Prep for her sophomore year. She acquiesces when her new friends introduce ‘drinkstagram’ at their sleepovers. Chris understands that quiet insecurity isn’t the most valiant approach to life, but it gets her through the day unscathed. Until she’s sexually assaulted.
In the aftermath, Chris’s fragile coping mechanisms crumble, alongside her grades and her tenuous happiness. When Chris is forced to volunteer at an afterschool program to maintain her scholarship, she finds herself catapulted back to the very neighborhood she has been struggling to escape. When her family is thrust into the crosshairs of a gang war, she discovers just how much damage her silence can cause. Ultimately, she must decide if she will continue to stay quiet as others call the shots and remain a victim, or if she can forge the strength to stand up, declare the truth and call herself a survivor.
Trigger Warning: This story contains content that may be sensitive for some readers including sexual assault and drug/alcohol consumption
Author Bio:
I am a writer, teacher and outdoor enthusiast, always looking for a new adventure.
Originally from New York City, I have also lived in China, New Zealand and Spain. I’m on a constant quest for the best food and views in the world. Some of my favorite places are the GR 221 in Mallorca, the top floor of the Musee D’Orsay in Paris and the window seat on a Fifth Avenue bus in Manhattan.
I’m have received comprehensive work training in a large variety of fields including political street canvassing, freelance writing, white water rafting, latte making, childcare and secondary science education.
I have an undergraduate Magna Cum Laude degree in Environmental Science with a focus in Hydrology from CU-Boulder and a graduate degree in Secondary Science Education from NYU. I’ve served as an NSTA New Teacher Fellow, a Jhumpki Basu Fellow and participated in the Jane Goodall Roots and Shoots Training program.
I’ve just completed my first YA contemporary manuscript and I’m seeking agent and publisher representation.
I asked the author:
How do you approach the writing of sensitive topics (sexual assault, etc.).When I started writing ‘The Weight of the Sky’ in the spring of 2018, I was convinced that it would be a love story. My main character would have no flaws, meet-cute with a respectful young man, and live happily ever after. She was perfect, so nothing bad should ever happen to her, right? Right.
But, as it turned out, it was also so, SO boring.
About 40K words into a draft of this story, the #metoo movement exploded in the United States. It was a watershed moment in history for women’s empowerment, with women coming forward by the thousands to discuss the impact of sexual assault experiences they had suffered in their teenage years. By the time Dr. Christine Blasey Ford was testifying in front of Congress, there was a thread of this #metoo culture woven deeply into both my consciousness and my storyline.
As my plot developed, I hoped it might tell one small version of a vital story that had clearly been underreported for several decades. As I researched, I developed some dictates in order to treat the subject with the respect it deserved. Find my most important lessons below.
1. Give your audience a heads up. Though the sexual assault scene is a turning point in my novel, at first I wasn’t sure how much to include about it in the synopsis. To help me decide, I polled the #writingcommunity on Twitter.
The responses were overwhelming.
For survivors of sexual assault, a heads-up isn’t just a courtesy, it’s a cornerstone. After carefully reading through the long comment thread, I put the assault clearly in the blurb AND added a trigger warning.
Your readers deserve to know exactly what they are getting themselves into.
2. Own it. Early on in my writing, I learned that on-page sexual assault scenes are a hard sell in the traditional publishing world.
I tried to ‘write around’ the assault for months. But I couldn’t do it. I decided to write the book the way I heard it in my mind and felt it in my heart and see what happened next. I loved the authentic story that developed. Eventually, this ability to write the story exactly how I wanted was a big part of the reason I published independently. I get to own my words, my ideas and my characters in the face of all the sensitive and difficult themes they come up against. And I wouldn’t have it any other way.
3. Be prepared for uncomfortable questions. In the weeks before publication, I got cold feet about the book several times, wracked with anxiety considering the reality of having this story out in the world with my name stamped in large letters across the front cover.
One afternoon at the school where I teach, I griped to a friend during a bout of despair, “I mean, what if I publish this story and my students start to come to me with experiences of sexual assault? I don’t know how to handle that. That would be terrible.”
My friend took a moment before he answered. “Well, actually…wouldn’t that be kind of amazing?”
The statement went off like a flash of lightning in my mind. In the end, the whole point of writing about sensitive topics is to encourage difficult conversations. Be prepared to engage in the conversations that will provide these delicate, difficult issues space to grow in the public conscious.
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The book sounds really good and I enjoyed reading the interview with the author.
ReplyDeleteThanks for being on the tour! :)
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