Published: August 24, 2006 10:15 am      

Chick Lit goes sci fi in new novel

Chick Lit really got its start in the mid-1990s with books such as “Bridget Jones’ Diary” and “Sex and the City.” The term itself described the genre well: female writer, writing about contemporary female issues with female protagonists.

In the years following, Chick Lit has grown to encompass many things, and author Heather Hayashi has broken down another barrier with her break-out science fiction novel “To Save The World.” While the book has a sci-fi plot, the characters still fit the classic Chick Lit formula.

“I started writing a long time ago,” Hayashi said recently from her home in Austin. “Ever since I could pick up a pencil.

“Drawing was my favorite thing until third grade, but the way my third grade teacher ran her English class really opened me up to writing,” she said. “She split us up into groups, and in my group we got to write our own stories.”

Over the years, drawing and writing merged, Hayashi said, with writing eventually outstripping drawing.

“By the time I was 12, I was writing science fiction,” she said. “I was well on my way to writing novels by the time I was 14. A lot of the main characters were inspired by my parents’ divorce.

While she grew up in Michigan, the 23-year-old said the transition to Austin has been fairly easy.

“I’ve lived there since 2001,” she said. “I’ve been a college student most of that time. Being an author has given me the opportunity to be able to explore other cities.”

Romance novels in a Chick Lit format have been well accepted, but how could Hayashi know that a science fiction novel would do well?

“I actually have not had a lot of trouble being a female writer in this genre,” she said. “People have been surprised, but accepting.

“One of the obstacles I run into being a young female writer is time management,” she said. “Also, by being young I’m having a little trouble trusting myself.”

Science fiction is what she writes, but Hayashi said it’s not what she started out reading.

“I first started out in horror. I read the R.L. Stine ‘Goosebumps’ series,” she said. “My biological father got me into science fiction. Isaac Asimov, Tom Clancy — I loved military thrillers. Now, I’m into Orson Scott Card’s work.

“So far, I haven’t been compared to any authors, but I’ve been told by people they can imagine my book as a movie,” she laughed.

From the first page of “To Save The World,” one can tell there’s been a little “Dungeons and Dragons ” and other role- playing games in Hayashi’s past.

“I’m definitely a gamer,” she laughed. “Gaming has had a major influence on my work.

“Video games have actually had a positive influence on me,” she explained. “That’s not what the public is familiar with.”

Anyone who thinks science fiction isn’t for them should reconsider when it comes to this novel, Hayashi said.

“I tell people my book deals with a lot of present day issues,” she said. “If you like a lot of action, my book has a lot of action. If you like to be able to relate to characters, I tried to create a character-driven plot as well as action-driven.

“My personal background did shape the book a lot. I drew from my experiences for my main character’s sense of anger at her parent’s divorce,” she said. “I understood the struggle you go through trying to cope with the financial change and the family change. I made the divorce very real from my experience.”

Although she drew from her own experiences to create and shape the characters in her novel, Hayashi said the characters themselves bear little resemblance to the people they were based upon.

“My mother is actually very little like the mother in the novel,” she said. “My mother helped me through my anger. She talked with me a lot about my feelings and shared her feelings with me.”

For more information on Hayashi, visit her Web site at

www.dragonwriter.com.