As a literary agent early in her career, Jandy Nelson was attracted to “voice-driven work.” A poet and YA reader, she saw a path for herself in the subgenere of verse novel. “That’s when I wrote The Sky is Everywhere and fell in love with fiction.”

In The Sky is Everywhere, the story follows a shy, teenage musician who tries to keep things together after the death of her older, outgoing sister. Nelson has a solo writing credit for the screenplay. “At first, we tried to make it a movie ten years ago, but ultimately, I realized I wanted to adapt it myself.”

To understand this new craft, Nelson read all of 101 books on screenwriting and everything else she could get her hands on. “I found it to be a combination of novels and poetry because it has a strict structure and every word counts.”

In this interview, Nelson talks about voice driven work, how to bring out an interior world, why every word counts, why she loves YA, how she invented Lennie-scapes for the film, and how to create leverage with personality-driven work.

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