Almost exactly a week ago, I had the pleasure of meeting Jordyn Taylor, author of the newly released The Revenge Game, at her hometown launch for the book.
In an intimate setting held at a local indie bookstore, it was an amazing opportunity to hear insights into her writing process and the excitement of her first in-person book tour when her previous novels were launched during the pandemic. Even sweeter was the fact that many of her family members, high school friends, and even teachers came to support someone they knew and loved for such an amazing milestone.
About Jordyn Taylor
Jordyn is a Canadian author (!!) now living in New York with 3 YA novels out, the most recent being The Revenge Game. Her debut novel, The Paper Girl of Paris, weaves a wonderful story across time about heroism and courage during Nazi occupation in Paris. When she is not working full time at Men’s Health magazine, she’s busy crafting the plotline of her next novel that is sure to combine interesting things she loves (bomb shelters, anyone?) and timely narratives such as toxic masculinity. I loved all of her books so far, with The Paper Girl of Paris making such an impact on me in 2020, and Don’t Breathe A Word similarly hitting all the right notes. I cannot wait to see what else she comes up with.
Highlights from her talk
In conversation with another author, Danielle Young-Ullman, I loved how Jordyn dived into her writing process, especially when she also holds a full-time job and cannot dedicate as much time for drafting. As an aspiring writer myself, I felt she provided some tips that I could apply into my own stories.
While everyone writes in their own ways, it’s interesting that she’s heavy into plotting the draft first and then adding in the details of character personalities (known as the “personality edit”) later. Her analogy is of building a house. You first need to lay down the foundation (the plot) and then you can go and add back the trimmings (such as secondary character personalities).
In her writings, she also focuses heavily on an underlying theme she wants her characters to work with. For her latest novel, it’s all about tackling the idea of toxic masculinity and what feminism really is (no, it’s not about man-hating).
Jordyn is also impassioned about being more open to love things like love and romance without shame. It shouldn’t be chalked up as “guilty pleasures” but simply as pleasures because we enjoy them and want a happy ending sometimes. I personally resonated with that a lot and hope to be a better advocate for loving what we love without judgment.
What’s to come from Jordyn?
Since all of these novels are standalone, I think it’s always a little more nerve-wracking to pitch the next book idea and see what lands. I know Jordyn has more ideas for future stories so I am sure there will be more coming from her yet!
Last thoughts
Since it was such an intimate gathering, I loved getting a chance to just talk with Jordyn for longer than I usually get with authors. It felt so down to earth and she kindly signed even her backlist title for me.
As this is her hometown, I know she will be back someday on another tour when her next book launches, so I will be happily waiting until we meet again.
Down the Rabbit Hole 