USC alum writes new chapter with book

Victoria Aveyard graduated from the School of Cinematic Art’s BFA screenwriting program in 2012. A year later, she sold a three-book deal to HarperCollins and subsequently the rights to Universal for the first feature film in the series. Her young adult novel Red Queen is about a world where the color of your blood determines your place in society.

Aveyard grew up loving films and constantly writing, but said she never thought the two could be combined. Then, she happened to watch the broadcast of George Lucas receiving his AFI Lifetime Achievement award and learned he went to film school at USC. Aveyard admitted she never knew film school was an option until then, but afterwards went “full throttle [towards] pursuing a film education.”

Once at USC, Aveyard dove headfirst into her program, choosing to dedicate most of her time to her chosen major and writing, rather than picking up any other studies or extracurricular activities along the way. If anything, she said she “minored in internships” but also found time to audit Professor Leonard Maltin’s Film Symposium class twice because “you can’t beat it.”

Yet, Aveyard never thought she’d come out of USC with a novel as her first work. In school she said she only ever thought about screenplays, though she admitted she had fantasies of writing “knock-off” Lord of the Rings when she was young, and cites George R. R. Martin’s A Song of Fire and Ice as a major inspiration in college. But the real encouragement for writing Red Queen came from her literary managers at Benderspink, whom she’d signed with after the writing program’s annual First Pitch event.

Aveyard credits USC with her success.

“I wouldn’t be where I am without SCA,” she said.

Not only did the department connect her with her managers, but it also provided an education where “each course feeds into the other” and gave her the tools to write a novel from everything she had learned in school. Yet, she still faced the scary reality of life after graduation, and the choice she would make immediately following commencement would impact the rest of her life.

The lease was up on her apartment off-campus and Aveyard found herself living on a friend’s couch as she tried to find a job and a new place to live. She realized she couldn’t live and write in Los Angeles’s environment. “I knew I would be a terrible assistant,” Aveyard said. So, she asked her father if she could come home to Massachusetts for a year to work on Red Queen. Aveyard, of course, knew that not every story in Hollywood had a happy ending.

“It was really, really scary,” she said. “I had four years of an education, a lot of college loans and possibly the worst failure of my life riding on this.”

Yet, she returned to the New England countryside and basked in the change of seasons as she attempted to focus on her writing.

“There were weeks where I didn’t get anything down,” she said. “And, weeks where I wrote tens of thousands of words. Being at home was just that security blanket I needed to switch off and focus.”

By January 2013, she had finished her manuscript. By February, she had a literary agent. By April, she had signed a three-book deal with HarperCollins, and three weeks later, Universal Pictures optioned the rights for the novel.

Exactly a year after graduation, Aveyard had more achievements under her belt than she could have ever imagined.

“I thought I was in a coma, hallucinating this turn of events,” she said.

Yet, that wasn’t all for her career. This past February, Aveyard sold her first screenplay (called “Eternal”) to Sony Pictures. “It’s nice to know I’m not a one-hit wonder,” Aveyard confessed. Currently, she’s finishing the first draft of the second installment of the Red Queen series, as well as outlining the third novel and working with a couple ideas for both television and film.

Aveyard advised aspiring filmmakers and writers to learn about themselves.

“Know your limits. I know how much I can handle and how much I can’t. It’s not a weak thing, it’s powerful.”

Also, Aveyard advised that everyone should keep in touch with pop culture.

“Go see popular television. See what’s working. You can marathon foreign films all you want, but that’s not going to help you write something sellable,” she said.

Though she’s come a long way, Aveyard has not left her USC roots behind.

“I still try to get to as many [football] games as possible, or at least the tailgate,” she said. “My team and I are gearing up for the release of Red Queen on Feb. 10, [so I’m] hoping to be at Festival of Books, mainly so I have a reason to go to Traddies.”