Veronica Roth (Weinberg ’10) spoke about her new book, “Seek the Traitor’s Son,” in Norris University Center as a part of the Chicago Humanities Festival on Sunday.
Known for her 2011 “Divergent” book series, the Northwestern graduate returned to her alma mater to give the audience a taste of her thought process on her new book, a romantic dystopian fantasy released May 12.
“Seek the Traitor’s Son” dives into the world of protagonist Elegy Ahn, a soldier in a small town who finds herself caught in a prophecy that will determine the fate of her world.
“I realized by writing this that I should just embrace the writer that I am, instead of trying to be everywhere all the time,” she said during the talk.
Roth said the book, her longest so far, took six years to complete, adding that she wrote one million words throughout the writing process. She said her style of writing involves “wasting lots of words” at first and then finding the gems in between.
After facing backlash for the “Allegiant,” last book of the “Divergent” series, Roth said she began to join in on the negative jokes and critiques, and found herself wanting to “prove” her craft by writing what other people wanted.
In contrast, Roth described “Seek the Traitor’s Son” as a culmination of everything “silly” that she loves in books, finding a way to write what she loves again.
“You can either descend into despair, or you can decide to fill your life with as much joy as you can possibly grab, and that’s where I’m at,” Roth said.
Roth, who wrote “Divergent” during her senior year at NU, said her advice to aspiring writers is to always chase joy.
She said the writing business is hard, so to get through the difficult moments, writers should make sure they are doing something that makes them happy.
“I’ve seen a lot of people struggle in this business, so you have to love it,” Roth said. “If you can do that, then it’ll flow you through the really hard parts and you’ll cope with the hard parts by writing some more.”
Roth said loving the profession was how she persisted in writing after receiving criticism for “Allegiant” and “Seek the Traitor’s Son.”
Attendee and Weinberg first-year Jadyn Yaskin said she related Roth’s point about finding happiness in writing.
“I think it can be hard, coming from a writer’s perspective, especially when you feel like you have to live up to a certain standard,” Yaskin said.
Similarly, Weinberg junior Lakshmi Sunder said she resonated with Roth’s point about writing with joy. She said she is currently working on a novella for NU’s creative writing program, which Roth also completed.
Sunder added that she enjoyed seeing Roth as a person outside of her author identity.
“She’s so funny and has a lot of wisdom to share at the same time,” Sunder said. “I love seeing the people that wrote the work bring it to life in that way.”
Throughout her career, Roth said she’s taken inspiration from other authors in how they use resilience as fuel.
Learning how to juggle finding success and overwhelming criticism at a young age has continued to push her in her writing, not hinder her, Roth said.
“It’s changed my mental health forever, because I was like, ‘You’re right, I have gone through hard things, and so if there’s a fire, that’s beautiful,’” she said.
Email: [email protected]
Email: [email protected]
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