Short Stories!

I HAVE BEEN WAITING TO TELL YOU GUYS THIS FOR MONTHS.

Short version: there are going to be Divergent e-shorts!

Four of them!

And they will be about…drumroll, please…

Four! 

(See what I did there?) 

And the first one will be out on September 24th!

Long version: when my publisher approached me hoping that I would be able to write some extra Divergent content from them, I considered a few options for what I might write about, or whose perspective I might choose. Over time it became clear to me that the character I was most interested in exploring further was Four. Two reasons: first, I know his perspective is the one a lot of you are interested in reading (I get asked if I'm going to write anything else from his perspective all the time!), and hey, you're my readers and I like to write things you want to read; second, I was excited by the idea of expanding my own understanding of him, the way I did when I rewrote the knife-throwing scene from his perspective for the Free Four e-short.

For me, Four has never just been Tris’s love interest or a way for sexual tension to enter the story. He has always been a whole person with a history that affects him (and Tris) in significant ways, and a co-mover of the plot along with Tris. These stories are helping me to delve into his character in a way I never have before, and to build up parts of the world that Tris never experienced due to her limited perspective. Interestingly enough, they also affected the content of Allegiant, giving me more to draw from—awesome, right?

These stories will be longer than Free Four (Four’s retelling of the knife-throwing scene, which was only thirteen pages), and the first one will be out on September 24th. You can learn more official info here, too. And of course, I'll keep you informed of the other stories as information becomes available, too.

Four is Free!

Yesterday (ish-- I'm not sure exactly when) we reached 35,000 Insurgent pre-orders! (I think my reaction was "...holy bananas!" which is one of those expressions that just popped out of my mouth once and then I started using it all the time, much to the annoyance of the people around me.) This is fantastic. When I first heard the official goal, there was a large part of me that was like "pssh. That will NEVER happen." And then suddenly, it did.

I've said it before, and I'll say it again, but this is because of readers. No marketing campaign or publicity stunt or book tour can possibly match the power of the reader. (Not that those things aren't great, or that they are useless, but I'm just saying, readers are the key.) I hear it all the time: "My friend forced me to read this even though I wasn't sure about it." "My teacher told our class to read this." "My librarian recommended this to me." "My mom played the audiobook in the car." So many stories about readers sharing their enthusiasm. So I know that we're at this number mostly because of you, and I'm so freaking grateful.

I wrote this "Free Four" scene for you, my darling book pushers. It was hard for me to pick just the right one. I thought about the Ferris wheel scene, and I thought about the fear landscape scene, and both of those would have been good options. But I really wanted to choose something that would change our (I say "our" because it changed mine, too) perceptions about the story, and show how limited Tris's perspective really is, though she is a reliable and observant narrator. And the knife-throwing scene was perfect for that--once I started writing, I discovered all kinds of things about Four that I didn't know, and I knew this scene was The One.

You can read it here. 

Yes, it's on Facebook, but I tried logging out of my facebook account to see if I could access it anyway, and I could, so I don't think you need to be on facebook to read it. It does not contain any Insurgent spoilers, but it does spoil some Divergent things, so if you haven't read Divergent you may want to hold off until you're done.

I've been getting a few questions about it, and I'm going to go ahead and answer them here:

Is the scene going to be available for download? No, I don't think so. Bummer, I know, but it's there online for you to read whenever you'd like. I think that link above works for mobile devices, too.

Are you going to write more? Here's the thing: I took about a week out of writing book 3 to get this scene done. Right now I MUST finish book 3, and I can't spare another week. Some authors are superhuman/mutants and can write two things at once, but I am just a lame-o regular human being and I have to do one thing at a time.

Yeah, I get that, but what about in the future? I can't see the future, so I try not to rule anything out. The best I can do is tell you that right now, I don't have any plans to keep writing Four!Divergent (Fourvergent? Difourgent?).

 I can't read it! It's not working! Try turning off your pop-up blocker or browser security temporarily. If it still doesn't work, try a different browser. If you're on your phone, try accessing it from your computer. If none of those things help, you have reached the limit of my technological knowhow and will have to seek help elsewhere. Alas. I am a nerd but not that kind.

I think that's all for now. I really hope you guys enjoy the scene-- you earned it.

<3,

V