The Escape of the Odd Girl: Inside Look
I think I put way more thought into this story than I did with any other. Besides using two things that I am passionate about (Panic! at the Disco and Rent) in order for the main character to connect to her desire to live the way she wanted to, I put bits of my own life into her surroundings, such as using my friends (or acquaintances) as characters and mentioning things that I feel in her narration. As a writer and a person who loves reading books and watching TV, I like to think that I know foreshadowing when I see it, but I've never really had a chance or a reason to use it. In "The Escape of the Odd Girl", I used it a lot. I also used symbolism and the analyzing of escapism to make Sarah not only a relatable character, but a person who is very obviously intelligent.
First, some questions I've been asked:
1) Why did you name her Sarah?
I had no idea what I was going to name her, so I asked my friend Elizabeth what she thought and she told me to describe her. When I did, Elizabeth told me to name her Sarah.
2) How did you come up with the title? / What were other title options you considered?
I picked it out of my list of possible titles. I thought it fit the best.
The other ideas I had were:
Everything at Once
Finding the Odd Girl
A Materialistic Collection of Memories
The Odd Journal
3) What characters are based off of people you know?
Sarah is kind of a mix of Elizabeth and me.
Henry is based off of someone who I thought was my friend but who decided to judge me for things I wanted to do and be.
Jez is based off of my friend Lauren.
James and Cale are both my sister--the two different sides of her. We both love Rent and P!ATD and sometimes she likes me, but other times she's just really not into who I am.
4) Was that always the ending?
The original idea was for Sarah to die, and I planned on having the final chapter narrated by James but I didn't know how she was going to die, just that it would be on the road and before she reached New York. I had a moment of weakness and started to write an ending where she did reach New York but then I realized that it just didn't fit. Elizabeth gave me the idea of the train accident.
5) Is "The Escape of the Odd Girl" at all connected to your other stories?
This story occurs, theoretically, in the same world, but Sarah is not aware of any of my other characters, unlike how the characters in It Gets Better and The Truth of Life in Lyricism know each other.
6) Why did you use "Northern Downpour" instead of a different Panic! song?
"Northern Downpour" fit with Sarah's idea of the universe. She is the girl in the song. I never considered using another song.
7) Did you base Sarah off of yourself?
Not completely, no.
Foreshadowing:
(most of these foreshadowing details refer to the ending, meaning Sarah's death.)
-At the beginning, Sarah talks about the journal being passed on, as it is later to James and then Taylor.
-When Walt talks about how his wife died very young, it foreshadows Taylor losing Sarah.
-How, in "Northern Downpour", winter separates the lovers, Sarah dies on the morning of December 1st.
-"They call what they have home, but they know home is really with the other person." (Chapter 1)
vs.
"In The Wizard of Oz, Dorthy clicks her heels to wish for home. The second I was on that bus, even though I knew it was stupid, I squeezed my eyes shut and clicked my heels." (Chapter 4)
Taylor becomes her home, just like Sarah talks about in the song.
-When Sarah talks about the books and musicals she and James love, she mentions Harry Potter, Spring Awakening, Moulin Rouge, West Side Story, and, later, Looking for Alaska. In Harry Potter, death is a constant theme; Harry even dies (even though he comes back to life.) Wendla dies in Spring Awakening, Satine dies in Moulin Rouge, Tony dies in West Side Story, and Alaska dies in Looking for Alaska--all them main characters, foreshadowing Sarah's death.
-Henry mentions The Picture of Dorian Gray, which is about morality and living a hedonistic life...in which the main character dies. Sarah's actions are decidedly hedonistic--while not malicious or egotistical--and are the eventual cause of her death.
-In Chapter 2, Sarah introduces the line "Northern downpour sends its love," which appears multiple times later.
-The singer of "Sarah Smiles" that Sarah considers turns out to be Taylor.
-How Sarah compares Santa Fe and New York using the song from Rent foreshadows her eventual decision, just like how she mentions Roger going to Santa Fe foreshadows her decision to return and remain there with Taylor.
-In Chapter 4, Taylor feels like Sarah is going to leave him, foreshadowing her death.
-When Taylor mentions that his parents are uncomfortable that Sarah will not be returning to school--rather than "not returning yet"--which foreshadows her inability to return.
-Sarah talks about "Trade Mistakes" and how the boy in the song dies and doesn't want to leave his girl, wants to save her from feeling so horrible over his death. She relates her leaving--to go home to Seattle--to the boy's death, which eventually becomes her death.
-Sarah discussing how if she died in her sleep she would be content with her life is a way of giving the audience closure before they learn that she has died.