Ellen O’Clover writes stories about finding your people, falling in love, and figuring it all out (or trying to, anyway). She grew up in Ohio and studied creative writing at the Johns Hopkins University before moving to Colorado. When she’s not writing, you can usually find her reading fiction about big feelings, trying new recipes with mixed results, or hiking in the Rockies. She lives near Boulder with her rocket scientist husband and two perfect bulldogs.
The author was a finalist of the Colorado Book Award in Young Adult Fiction.
SunLit: Tell us this book’s backstory. What inspired you to write it? Where did the story/theme originate?
Ellen O’Clover: When I got the idea for “Seven Percent of Ro Devereux,” I was working as a copywriter in the marketing department of a software startup. A lifelong humanities kid, this was my first real exposure to the tech world—beyond what all of us perceive it to be from popular media like “Devs” and “Silicon Valley.” I was surrounded by tech folks, completely submerged in that mentality and vernacular. And I was struck by the idea of a precocious young woman (most of the developers I worked with were men) who comes up with an app that goes viral and completely runs away from her.
That was the seed—a girl with a knack for coding who gets in way over her head in an industry that has a tendency to grow too quickly to keep up with itself. I wanted to balance the story’s strong tech elements with a heavy dose of emotion and groundedness, which is how I landed on the idea for Ro Devereux’s app: a modern version of Mansion Apartment Shack House (MASH), a paper-and-pen, future-prediction game that I played growing up. The final—and, truthfully, my favorite—pillar of the story was its romance: a friends-to-enemies-to-lovers meets fake-dating plot that was an absolute joy to write.
UNDERWRITTEN BY
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SunLit: Place this excerpt in context. How does it fit into the book as a whole? Why did you select it?
O’Clover: This excerpt comes from the very start of the book, as Ro is presenting her senior project—her app, MASH. I chose it because it grounds readers in the story’s most important components right away: the app, and Miller—a mysterious boy Ro runs into in the hallway at school who clearly can’t stand her. It isn’t until later on that readers learn who Miller is: Ro’s ex-best friend and worst enemy. The boy who her own app will, eventually, betray her by matching her up with.
SunLit: Tell us about creating this book. What influences and/or experiences informed the project before you sat down to write? And once you did begin to write, did the work take you in any unexpected directions?
O’Clover: I love writing about identity—about the great mess of trying to figure out who you are. It’s a lifelong process, but it really begins when you’re a teenager, and it feels so intense at that age. You’re figuring out so many things for the very first time: what the world is, where your place is in it, who you want to be as you move through it. How to love other people, and how to love yourself.
I knew that “Seven Percent of Ro Devereux,” like all my favorite YA reads, would be about that. An app that predicts the future and tells you exactly who you’ll turn out to be felt like the perfect plot device to get at identity: Who do we think we are, and what happens when that idea is challenged?
When I set out to write a book, I always go in with an idea like this—a theme I want to run with. And then, inevitably, I get surprised by another one (or five) along the way. In “Ro Devereux,” I found myself telling a story about fear and control that I hadn’t expected when I started drafting. “Seven Percent of Ro Devereux” is about a girl chasing her dreams of working in tech, but it’s also about how scary it is to be 18, standing on the precipice of the rest of your life. Looking out at the promise of adulthood and wondering what’s waiting for you there, and if the person you’ve been in the past will follow you into the future.
Ro creates an app that predicts the future—partly for fun, but mostly because she’s desperate for control over the next part of her life. But we don’t get to have that power, at least not most of the time. I found myself digging into this theme, along the way— that life is a messy, incalculable surprise that just goes on and on.
I hope young readers walk away from this book reminded that we don’t need to have all the answers—or even a solid plan—to be worthy or to find joy. That we can give ourselves the grace to make mistakes, and trust ourselves to figure it all out as we go.
SunLit: Are there lessons you take away from each experience of writing a book? And if so, what did the process of writing this book add to your knowledge and understanding of your craft and/or the subject matter?
O’Clover: Every book is an education! They all teach me something different. “Seven Percent of Ro Devereux” is my debut novel and, unsurprisingly, represents a steep learning curve for me. It’s the first book I’ve ever outlined from start to finish before writing, which sped up my drafting process tremendously and I recommend to anyone trying to write a book at any kind of reasonable pace. It’s also the first book I’ve ever put out into the world for public consumption, which has taught me all sorts of messy human lessons—that hearing from young readers who see themselves in my stories is the best feeling on earth; that there’s nearly nothing in publishing within my control and the only healthy choice is surrender. And I’m still learning!
“Seven Percent of Ro Devereux”
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SunLit: What were the biggest challenges you faced in writing this book?
O’Clover: Writing is hard, but it’s also my happy place. The hardest thing about “Ro Devereux” wasn’t the writing of it—it was everything that came afterwards. When you write a book, it’s this magical covenant between you and your story. You put in the work, and you keep showing up, and the story rewards you by slowly taking shape. It’s mind-bending and precious in equal measure, and it’s all completely under your control.
Once you pass that book off to a publisher, the rules change. That story stops being yours alone. I like to joke that the best news about publishing is that other people are going to read your book, and the bad news about publishing is also that other people are going to read your book. This is the requisite vulnerability, and I wouldn’t trade it for anything—but that doesn’t mean it isn’t hard.
The reception of a book isn’t up to the author to control, and it shouldn’t be. But it’s a challenge to weather the storm of decisions suddenly out of your grasp: how your book will be marketed, what kind of in-house support it will receive, which influencers and publications it will be sent to, and on and on. It isn’t you and your story in that covenant, anymore. You’ve entered a machine with a million moving parts.
This is good news! This is the dream. But like everything else in life, it’s complicated—and it’s hard to stick the landing of that transition between your story as private art and your story as a commercial object in the world.
SunLit: If you could pick just one thing — a theme, lesson, emotion or realization — that readers would take from this book, what would that be?
O’Clover: I touched on this a little already, but I want readers to know that it’s alright not to know exactly what’s next. It can feel so enormous and debilitating to be young, unsure of what’s coming or how the dots on the map of your life will eventually connect. It’s OK to explore, and mess up, and try again. Trust yourself.
SunLit: In a highly politicized atmosphere where books, and people’s access to them, has become increasingly contentious, what would you add to the conversation about books, libraries and generally the availability of literature in the public sphere?
O’Clover: Nothing lights a fire in my gut quite like book bans—especially book bans of young people’s literature. I’m always writing YA in the hopes of making young people feel less alone. When we’re young, we don’t know the world as well, yet—we have limited exposure to other places, ideas, types of people.
If you’re young and struggling, or feeling lonely, or feeling like you’re not enough, that feeling can seem big enough to fill up the entire world. Like you’ll never feel another way, or find your place. But reading has the unique magic of transporting you elsewhere. Introducing you to new ideas that you might resonate with in ways that curb your loneliness or assure you that you do belong. That your people are out there.
When we take away people’s access to literature, we take away their access to that potential lifeline. And it goes without saying—but I’ll say it anyway—that we take away that lifeline for our most vulnerable teens, including LGBTQIA+ youth. These young people more than deserve to see themselves in stories. To feel known, and accepted, and celebrated. To learn about the human experience and all of its facets.
One of my favorite Colorado independent bookstores, Second Star to the Right, collects LGBTQIA+ book donations for Texas—which led the United States in book bans last year. Second Star is collaborating with Carabiner Collections for the program, which you can learn more about here.
SunLit: Walk us through your writing process: Where and how do you write?
O’Clover: As I mentioned earlier, I’m a devout outliner. When I have a new story idea, I plot it using a beat sheet that follows the three-act structure, then make a bullet-point list of which plot points need to happen in each chapter of the book. It’s all very methodical—but it actually frees me up to be much more creative while I’m drafting.
Then I dig in! For me, a first draft typically takes 2-4 months. This looks like early mornings, late evenings, and weekends, as I’m also a full-time copywriter at an agency in Boulder and have to fit in my novel-writing around that work.
For a long time I thought that I had to write every day to be “serious,” but I’ve realized that working in focused bursts works much better for me. My process usually involves buckling down for a few months to crank out a draft, and then taking a few months off to become human again. I go long stretches without writing anything at all, which lets me charge up my creative muscles.
SunLit: If you could find out your future, like Ro in the book, would you want to?
O’Clover: No! So much of the beauty—the joy and the pain—of being alive is having to figure things out as you go. I can’t imagine who I’d be if I’d known all along that I’d eventually meet my husband, or eventually publish a book, or any of the other myriad things I’ve worried about never getting. I’ve grown so much through that uncertainty. Through trusting myself and taking care of myself during the struggle. It would be so tempting, to get that assurance, but it would strip away so much of what’s made me who I am today.
SunLit: Tell us about your next project.
O’Clover: My second novel, “The Someday Daughter,” came out on February 20. It follows 18-year-old Audrey during the summer before her freshman year of college, as she’s forced into the spotlight on a nationwide book tour with her self-help superstar mom, who became famous for writing a book about her, but who she secretly has a terrible relationship with. As her summer on the road unfolds—and she spends more time with both her mother and the unexpectedly charming tour intern, Silas—Audrey will uncover secrets about her family, and herself, that upset everything she’s so carefully planned for her future. You can find it now, anywhere books are sold!
Just a few more quick questions
SunLit: Do you look forward to the actual work of writing or is it a chore that you dread but must do to achieve good things?
O’Clover: I absolutely look forward to it!
SunLit: What’s the first piece of writing – at any age – that you remember being proud of?
O’Clover: A song I wrote in middle school that, on reflection, was a thinly veiled copy of one of my favorite Taylor Swift songs.
SunLit: When you look back at your early professional writing, how do you feel about it? Impressed? Embarrassed? Satisfied? Wish you could have a do-over?
O’Clover: Proud. Every word I’ve written—even and especially the unpublished ones—helped me build toward a career that I’m so thrilled to have.
SunLit: What three writers, from any era, can you imagine having over for a great discussion about literature and writing? And why?
O’Clover: Sarah Dessen—the author that made me want to write YA; Madeline Miller—the author who writes my very favorite books; and Rachel Lynn Solomon—the author who writes some of the absolute best contemporary YA and adult romances coming out right now.
SunLit: Do you have a favorite quote about writing?
O’Clover: It’s really about reading, but: “You think your pain and heartbreak are unprecedented in the history of the world, but then you read. It was books that taught me the things that tormented me most were the very things that connected me with all the people who were alive, who had ever been alive.” -James Baldwin
SunLit: What does the current collection of books on your home shelves tell visitors about you?
O’Clover: That I’m a mood reader! My tastes are all over the place.
SunLit: Soundtrack or silence? What’s the audio background that helps you write?
O’Clover: Silence, broken only by snores from my two bulldogs.
SunLit: What event, and at what age, convinced you that you wanted to be a writer?
O’Clover: That feeling of being eight years old in the back seat of a dark car, ravenously reading sentences by passing streetlamps—loving a book so much that you can’t bear to put it down, even when reading is almost impossible.
SunLit: What’s your greatest fear as an author?
O’Clover: That I’ll ever lose the motivation to keep doing this work. Publishing is a hard business! It can take a lot out of you. But I love it enormously, and I never want to stop writing books.
SunLit: Greatest satisfaction?
O’Clover: Hands down, bar none, hearing from readers.