ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: Where did the idea forInstructions for Dancingcome from?
NICOLA YOON:My mom has been very sick since 2017.
Do you still want to keep loving people, is it worth it?
Penguin Random House
It’s one of the questions I always ask myself.
it’s possible for you to’t help but loving people but what if you could?
[Laughs] Would you choose to love anyway?
Well, I don’t know about that.
So how does that question translate to Evie’s story?
She is having a hard time because her parents have gotten divorced.
She used to think of her parents as being the ultimate couple.
They were her inspiration for her own imaginings of what her own love life could be like.
The thing she notes to herself is that everything always ends.
Then of course she meets this very cute boy because you have to.
[Laughs] Seeing people’s endings leads her to a ballroom dance class where she meets this boy.
He calls himself X.
And they have to dance together and that is where I shall leave it.
Is X a dancer or also just in the class?
He’s just in this class.
[Laughs]
How does Evie compare to your other leading ladies?
She’s a little more cynical and sarcastic.
She’s skeptical of the world, which is how I was feeling.
And Natasha, her world was being taken away from her so she was trying to hold onto something.
You’re coming off two very successful books, both of which have become movies.
Did you feel a sense of pressure when writing this one to do something a little different?
How do you balance staying true to what people love about your writing while still surprising them?
It was mostly one emotion and that emotion was grief.
I worry about it now, but I wasn’t worried about it during the writing.
Now I’m kind of like, “Oh God, I hope people like this book.”
[Laughs]
This interview has been edited and condensed for length and clarity.
