Interview with Lauren Thoman, Author of “I’ll Stop the World”

Back to the Future meets The 7 1/2 Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle in this compelling mystery about a teenager who stumbles into the 1980s and must solve his grandparents’ murder before it is too late. Both a riveting mystery and a thoughtful coming-of-age story, I’ll Stop the World expertly combines suspense and time travel to create a moving story about friendships and inexplicable second chances. Released just last week, I’ll Stop the World is already one of my favorites, and it is sure to captivate readers of all genres.

When did you start writing I’ll Stop the World, and what inspired the idea? 

I actually started writing I'll Stop the World in 2014, although it looked very different back then (the original version sent Justin to 1968 and had him drafted for the Vietnam War, if you can believe it). I worked on it on and off between other projects, and it got a number of makeovers over the years. The basic inspiration came from my love of time travel stories, and my realization that in most of them, the time traveler tends to have a clear idea of how they traveled through time, and what they're supposed to do while they're in a different time. Marty McFly uses a DeLorean and has to get his parents to fall in love while also figuring out how to power the time machine to get back. Bill and Ted use a phone booth and have to round up historical figures to help them pass their final. The Avengers use the Quantum Realm and have to collect the Infinity Stones to stop Thanos. It seems rare for the time travel element itself to be a mystery. I started wondering what a story might look like where the time traveler has no idea how or why they traveled through time in the first place, and therefore can only guess at what they have to do to get back. And I thought it would be fun to focus that sort of story on a character who is completely unequipped for it--Justin isn't a sci-fi nerd, or a physics prodigy, or a history buff, or a true crime aficionado. He's not ambitious or motivated. He isn't even a good student or a particularly deep thinker, and his ADHD makes it really difficult for him to even begin to problem solve. I thought putting the sort of kid who rarely gets tapped as a protagonist into an impossible situation, where the stakes are unbelievably high, would be interesting. 

I love how the book alternates between perspectives and timelines. How did you approach the writing process, and what was the most challenging part?

Prior to writing ISTW, I was never able to really plot or outline effectively before writing a book, and every book I've ever completed, including this one, has at least twice as many words in the "deleted scenes" folder as are in the final draft. But I learned the hard way that that's a terrible way to write a mystery! You kind of need to know the destination if you're going to be able to effectively plant clues along the way! So I figured out my ending, and then worked backward. I actually wrote the last few chapters of I'll Stop the World years before I ever wrote the middle, and they've remained largely unchanged. The middle was by far the most challenging part--after the time travel happens, but before we've hit the climax. I wound up writing the modern scenes completely separately from the 1985 scenes and then moving them around until it felt like a coherent story. That was easier for me than jumping back and forth in time.

When it comes to the different perspectives, first I just wrote a lot from each character's point-of-view, trying to keep within the basic framework of the plot (which I was still discovering at the same time--a lot of those scenes wound up getting tossed out). That helped me get a feel for whose voice was really needed, and who was just a supporting player. Once I had a feel for which characters would be most important to the story and why, I plotted out each character's individual arc to make sure it made sense on its own and also intersected in a pivotal way with the main storyline, then put them all on a spreadsheet together so I could see that the timeline worked. I also color coded it so I could see at a glance whether the perspectives were relatively balanced. Then I broke that spreadsheet down scene-by-scene, and added a column where I could check off a scene once I'd written it. After that, it was just a matter of checking off each scene until the draft was done.

I read that you were inspired by Back to the Future and noticed that you included hints to the film throughout the story. What are some of your other favorite time travel movies and books? 

I'm so glad that you picked up on some of the Back to the Future Easter eggs! I definitely took a ton of inspiration from that film, but I'm a big fan of all sorts of time travel stories. In movies, Interstellar and Arrival are two of my favorites from recent years, which both focus on love and connection being able to transcend the laws of time and space. I have a weird soft spot for Donnie Darko, which isn't a traditional time travel movie, and definitely influenced I'll Stop the World in a few key ways. And all the time loop movies--Groundhog Day, Edge of Tomorrow, Palm Springs, Happy Death Day--are always so much fun in how they play with the idea of second chances, and how a character may change if they were faced with the same choices again and again and again.

In books, my favorite time travel novel is All Our Wrong Todays by Elan Mastai, which is simultaneously thrilling, surprising, and hilarious. I love the unconventional, bittersweet romance of The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger. As a kid, I adored all the books in Madeline L'Engle's Time Quintet, particularly Many Waters, which I read over and over. Michael Crichton's Timeline has also been a favorite for many years, and his books in general have been a huge influence on my own writing. I recently read Kindred by Octavia E. Butler, which was so brilliant and powerful. I wish I'd read it years ago. And I'm biased, but I also have some good friends who have written amazing time travel books: Myra McEntire's Hourglass trilogy, M.G. Buehrlen's The 57 Lives of Alex Wayfare, and David Arnold's The Electric Kingdom are all fantastic.

If you could spend a day in any decade, which would it be and what would your ideal day look like?

Oof, that's hard. Honestly, I think I would go back to the '80s and visit my grandparents, and ask my grandmother for cooking lessons. Both of my grandparents on my father's side passed just before the pandemic; my grandfather was 102, and my grandmother was 98. When I was little, I remember my grandmother was a fantastic cook and used to prepare all sorts of delicious Chinese dishes whenever our family would visit. I never thought to ask her to teach me how to prepare them until I was an adult, and by then, she was too old to cook like she used to. So I think I'd go back to visit her when she was in her 60s--prime Grandma cooking age--and ask her to go over all her favorite Chinese recipes with me. I'm a decent cook now, so I think we could get through quite a few in a day.

The references to 80s culture throughout the book were so fun to read about! Which songs from the 80s would you use to describe Rose and Justin? 

I do think "I Melt With You" by Modern English is the perfect song to describe the two of them together and their story in I'll Stop the World, but if I had to assign each of them their own individual song, hmm...

I think "Don't You (Forget About Me)" by Simple Minds is a great one for Rose. We all associate it with the motley crew in The Breakfast Club, but I think the lyrics are also really appropriate for her. She wants to be noticed, she wants to matter, and she's super supportive of the people around her, but she worries that she's going to be left behind while everyone she cares about moves on.

As for Justin, his could be "Here I Go Again" by Whitesnake. After the more melancholy opening, it seems pretty upbeat and carefree, which is sort of the persona Justin puts on for the people around him, but the lyrics are actually pretty lonely and aimless. Justin tries to give off the impression that nothing really gets to him and he doesn't care about anything, but that's a defense mechanism. The reality is that he's scared that he's not going anywhere because he doesn't have anything to offer, and that he's therefore destined to be alone. I think that song helps capture that dichotomy of seeming empowering while covering up some deeper insecurity.

The side characters in the story were so compelling and I loved having the opportunity to read from their perspectives. If you were to write another book about one of them, who would you choose and why?

I think poor little Karl has the most story left to tell. At only 12, he's the youngest of the main characters in the book, while the rest of the characters are finishing up high school or already adults. I feel like he's been through a lot already, but probably also has a lot still in front of him. I was trying to channel Stephen King and the Losers Club from IT (whose story is told in two timelines, one when they were 11, and one as adults) while writing Karl's chapters, which may be another reason I feel like there's more to his story--I know what happened to him as a kid, but his adult chapters haven't been written yet.

I loved reading about all of Rose and Justin’s adventures! What is your most interesting story from when you were a teenager?

Oh man, I was such a boring teenager. Most of my high school drama revolved around marching band. My friends and I got together on Saturday nights and played Boggle and Magic: The Gathering. But I polled my group text with my best friends from high school (we still share our Wordle scores every morning; I was not kidding about the Boggle) and my best candidates for things that might be somewhat interesting are:

· the time we filmed a Catcher-in-the-Rye-themed musical parody of The Hunchback of Notre Dame called "The Cynic of Pency Prep" for English class (I played a gargoyle) 

· the time we won a blue ribbon (and a check for five dollars) at the county fair by making a series of cakes and arranging them on a giant board wrapped in blue saran wrap to look like the Hawaiian Islands. (We never cashed the check.)

· the time we got kicked out of a grocery store for filming a documentary about my friend Adam

· the time we started a band and it broke up, Fleetwood Mac style, because of relationship drama, approximately two hours into its first rehearsal

What would be a dream project for you? 

In books, I would love to work with another author or group of authors on a multi-point-of-view genre-bending something-or-other. I love ensemble stories and I think collaborating with another author to create one would be a lot of fun, especially if we have different writing styles and different ways of viewing character and story. I would also love to take a swing at a Marvel character at some point. And one day, I'd like to partner with a fantastic illustrator and write a graphic novel.

Outside of books, I dream of writing for TV someday. I love movies (and would also like to tackle a screenplay at some point), but the long-form nature of TV really appeals to me. I'm used to working with words, and I would love the challenge of having to also consider visuals and sounds and actors when crafting a story. I think it would be awesome, and even if it proves to be not for me, the experience would almost certainly make me a better writer overall.