An Interview with Dean Backus, author of Darts and Flowers
You’re a longtime prolific writer across many categories. What genres and themes would you say are most prevalent in your work?
Excellent question. I like writing about people who have a can’t-miss idea that misses or who are a little too smart for their own good. That definitely describes a lot of the characters in Darts, where everyone is playing mental chess with everyone else.
I’m working on a new, much darker novel about a high school swimmer in a relationship with a girl who starts abusing him, but he initially thinks he can “handle” it. My screenplay Unaccompanied is about the world’s worst metal band that reunites years later for a music competition only to discover it’s an acapella competition.
My screenplay for Lily and Finn is about a lovelorn aquarium worker who has to hide the fact that her new boyfriend is a merman. People getting in over their heads is always fun to write.
Darts and Flowers is your first young adult novel and was originally a screenplay. What inspired it?
Well, when I started writing it way back in the early 90s, there were no same-sex love stories, especially for teens and young adults. Like, none. So I started with the image of two boys slow dancing and worked my way backward. Jamie came into focus very early, based on an enchanting girl I worked with for exactly one night at a movie theater, and Zack came next. All of the characters and plot were mapped out in script form long before Clueless or High School Musical or Elite happened, so it’s been wild seeing other works incorporate similar themes and arcs so many years later. I was ahead of the curve, even though now I’m finally at the dance.
What made you turn it into a novel?
I started filling in backstories for the various characters as young kids and realized I had too much material to cover via film flashbacks. So I started digging deeper and deeper with all the connective sinew between the scenes from the script, and it was amazing how much more vivid all the characters became.
You’re a huge movie buff, and Darts and Flowers is clearly inspired by 90s rom-com movies. Which ones are your favorites?
Clueless, definitely, as it’s set in high school. My Best Friend’s Wedding, which has the whole breakup plot. 10 Things I Hate About You, which also features a can’t-miss plan that, of course, misses. A couple of later movies definitely remind me of Darts, such as Easy A and Get Over It!
Is there still baggage or pressure to create “perfect” characters, or do you have an inner voice saying “But what would the fans think if I do X?”
Perfect, no. I actually like the fact that all the characters make questionable choices, yet hopefully, you understand why they make them. But authenticity is still very important. I’m a middle-aged cisgender white man, and when I’m writing Chantel, a teenage Black girl whose sexual orientation is a secret, I know I have to tread respectfully. A friend who attended high school with me and went through a lot of Chantel’s journey helped keep her real (She’s now The Curvy Goddess in New York City!)
Who is one of your favorite characters? Who is one of your best-written characters? Are they the same? Why/why not?
Oh, Jamie’s the most fun, no question. She’s just a hoot. At various times in various drafts, she crashed the stock market, was emailing Putin and Hugo Chavez, she fences but also knows ballroom dancing. She’s Margot Kidder, Catherine Mary Stewart, Rebecca DeMornay, and Meg Ryan in a blender.
I think Josh’s journey wound up being the most poignant in some ways because this is really a love story between him and Zack as best friends, as well as him and Brian. I love Josh’s integrity, Brian’s loving heart, Zack’s energy and drive, Missy’s resilience, and Chantel’s ability to keep her cards close to her chest.
You’ve said that you “cast” most of your characters based on actors you respond to. Who would you want to play Zack, Josh, Jamie, and Brian in your “Darts and Flowers” movie?
I’d need to spend a week in front of the CW! Zack was always Seth Green from Buffy and Family Guy, a Rumpelstiltskin figure. Josh is a young Harvey Guillen from Huge and What We Do In the Shadows. Brian is Logan Shroyer, the teen Justin from This Is Us. Jamie is actually the trickiest, because she’s evil but funny and has a core of loneliness to her. I’d need a young Meg Ryan, although Lili Reinhart from Riverdale is awfully good. Jamie needs some screwball comedy style.
Your book is also inspired by Shakespearean comedies. Which is your favorite of the Bard’s comedies to teach?
I love Twelfth Night, which is why Darts has a couple of references to it. Although Measure for Measure really should get more respect and play these days. Its takedown on hypocrisy, and once again the player getting played, are shockingly relevant.
As a high school English teacher, did your students inspire you and your work?
Only in the abstract—I wouldn’t be comfortable recycling actual conversations and personal dramas I was ringside for into fiction. But there are a few moments that are definitely drawn from life. I actually showed the film Kirikou and the Sorceress to a high school class when I was substitute teaching, and their over-the-top reactions to it informed Chantel’s reaction in the novel.
What about the Pacific Northwest made it a must for your novel’s setting?
The 90s was such a wild time in the Seattle-Portland corridor. Remember: Microsoft had happened, then grunge happened, then Starbucks, then Frasier. It’s a mixture of very granola-fed, down-to-Earth people, but also some very conservative rural strains, and then the “new money” in the urban areas.
I actually attended a private religious high school on scholarship, as Zack does, so there were a lot of kids with designer labels and sports cars, and then there was me in the flannel shirt and boots, driving a VW.
What do you hope readers take away from your new novel?
The more things change, the more they stay the same! There’s been huge societal progress on many fronts, but LGBT students still face discrimination—look at the current book bans!
Black girls are still wildly underestimated in our society; in some ways, Chantel became my favorite character to subvert that stereotype. Socioeconomic class and connections, largely through schooling, are huge determinants in later success in life. From zip code to zip code, town to town, state to state, our country is in wildly different states of reality. Yet ultimately, as Zack notes at one point, “bruised hearts are universal.” Everyone will hopefully experience love at some point in their lives in some form, as well as make some questionable decisions. The important thing is having good friends to get through the rain with.
What is your favorite book that you teach?
It’s actually a play – Cyrano De Bergerac - another story about a love plot spiraling out of control and people not being who they seem! It’s a trend!
I also love doing Secret Life of Bees. We’re also talking about adding The Perks of Being a Wallflower, a book and movie I adore more than life itself.
Do you read YA novels with your students? Did you get their input on Darts and Flowers?
Here and there. As I said, it would be great if we could add Perks. I showed the movie as part of a special “Oddballs and Non-conformists” class a few years ago, and let me tell you – every single kid in that room was crying the last 10 minutes. It’s such a beautiful, beautiful story.
My teacher next door does Anya’s Ghost with 9th grade, and the 11th-grade teacher does Dystopian Lit Circles.
I have a ton of YA books in my room on the shelves for kids to explore during silent free reading once or twice a week; it’s always interesting to see what they gravitate towards. Occasionally, I’ll get to offer some advice. I steered a reluctant reader to American Born Chinese last week; his mind is going to be blown to smithereens.
Who were some of your favorite authors growing up?
When I was young, I loved the 60s and 70s authors, especially Louise Fitzhugh (Harriet the Spy is still one of my all-time favorites), Judy Blume, Mary Rodgers (screamingly funny), Hope Campbell, E.L. Konigsburg, Scott Corbett, Ellen Raskin, and Nat Hentoff (yes, THAT Nat Hentoff). I also adored the magic books of Edward Eager and Ruth Chew and science fiction from Alexander Key and Madeline L’Engle.
What are some of your favorite YA LGBT books/authors?
Michael Barakiva’s One Man Guy is lovely. I’m knee-deep right now in The Prophets, and it’s at a whole ‘nother level than my own writing; it’s like poetry.
I was very intrigued with the historical fiction Courting Mr. Lincoln, as I’m a huge Lincoln aficionado, and his relationship with Joshua Speed still has a lot of question marks. Oh, Openly Straight was wonderful. I’ve heard great things about Red, White & Royal Blue, and The Boy With a Bird In His Chest is supposed to be amazing. I also like Brent Hartinger and David Levithan, and I need to read Rainbow Rowell and Rachel Cohn.
What does the growing popularity of queer YA fiction mean to you?
Oh, it’s beyond words. I literally remember only three queer YA books from my adolescence: I’ll Get There, It Better Be Worth The Trip;Annie On My Mind, and Tunes For a Small Harmonica, which featured a transgender boy protagonist even though it didn’t quite articulate him in that way. That book is ripe for rediscovery! I’m so grateful to the bounty of new, talented writers who are pushing the boundaries of YA in all directions, some of them wildly experimental and representing completely unheard voices and stories. And I also love that now we have so many more happy endings, because a lot of the early stories veered towards the tragic, even if they were realistic for their time.
What’s something you’ve wanted to do in your writing but haven’t yet?
I’m already thinking of what happens if/when the second book gets published—there’s interest. And then I’m thinking of another YA set in the 1980’s, right as the AIDS epidemic was striking, as that’s my generation. Gen X marks the spot, as they say. I’d love to see something filmed.
Finally, what advice—besides writing every day and getting a literary agent—would you give someone who wants to write LGBT YA?
Gonna quote my diva Madonna here: “I believe in the power of love.” You have to, too. Scratch the most jaded cynic, there’s a romantic underneath. Don’t be afraid of that. Don’t be afraid to put your heart out there, and your characters will show it.