by Sarah Archer
Let’s do it!!
Too strong. She sounded like she was already hurtling through the streets of San Jose to arrive at their date, panting and desperate.
That sounds fun. I’d love to hear about what you do too.
That could work. What was wrong with that? Nothing was wrong with that. Okay, let’s go, let’s push that Enter button like the goddess of love that you are—
But Kelly’s finger froze over the key. She couldn’t do it, and it wasn’t because she was waffling over the wording of her message. Something else was holding her back.
Kelly was not prepared for this. All she had been looking for was a tiny gear. She had a hunch that this instrument would allow her to give Confibot the newest advance she was working on—the ability to ever so slightly raise his ears. A small thing, literally and figuratively, but humans could do it, and so should he. But if her hunch was right that this particular gear was the missing ingredient, it would require some digging, as this particular gear was so specialized that it was rarely used.
And so Kelly found herself down a deserted, vaguely creepy hall, looking for the fabled second storage closet. She had never actually used this closet before; the closest room that got any real traffic was the small bathroom that, by virtue of its out-of-the-way locale and by unspoken agreement of the whole office, was reserved strictly for laborious poos. Her journey took her past the bathroom and down the following hall to the end. When she unlocked the door to the closet, she shrieked.
There was Ethan. Turned off, he was stuck between a plastic shelving unit full of overordered screws and a stack of cardboard boxes so old the cardboard had started going soft and pulpy. He was exactly the same as when she’d last seen him on the day of the presentation, a good month ago—hair neatly combed, even wearing the same clothes. But somehow, he was changed. To Kelly, his skin looked oddly dull under the closet’s single bare bulb, like a plant that had gone a few days without water. The gloss of his hair was doll-like. Foolishly, her first thought was that she wished she were wearing a cuter shirt, and that she’d shaved her legs that morning. She shook herself out of it. After glancing quickly behind her to make sure no one was coming down the silent hall, she stepped a little closer to Ethan. “Hi,” she whispered, as if whispering made it less weird. She ran the tip of a single finger down his cheek—it was soft, with the give of collagen, but cool. When she brought her finger back, it wore a thin scrim of dust.
Hands at her sides, she leaned in on tiptoes, shut her eyes, and kissed him. She almost missed, catching just his bottom lip. Without him participating, it was hard to handle all the navigation herself with her eyes closed. For a moment, she paused. She realized she was waiting for something, but she didn’t know what. His eyes—those eyes that she had selected herself, months ago—only met hers if she situated herself just right within his gaze. Whatever it was she was waiting for, it wasn’t going to happen.
Oddly, she felt almost as if she were seeing him for the first time, not as a person or as her personal opus, but as an object—a work of art, really. He was beautiful, and exquisitely human in every detail: the plushness of his skin around the perimeter of his fingernails, the fine hairs that feathered down to the nape of his neck. She felt a surge of pride in knowing that this was her creation. But that was all she felt. That was all he was: a creation, and he could never again be anything more to her. Perhaps he had been a projection all along—someone to love being in love with. Finally, Kelly felt the full force of the loss she had suffered, with all its permanence and weight. Ethan had died, she realized—the part of him that could die, which was the part that had been alive to her. Something had been torn away from her, but something had also been lifted. She felt equal parts sadness and relief. There was a hope, fragile but lively, like a newborn bird, in knowing that the space he left behind in her heart was open now for new things.
With a hand, Kelly gently closed his lids.
That night, Kelly did what she had done every night for the past week: she opened the dating app and stared at Michael’s message. There it was. No, it had not changed. No, it had not become any less intimidating.
At this point in the routine, Kelly typically exited the app and found a sensible distraction for the rest of the night, like drinking too much wine and going on an internet deep dive that ended in her donating sixty dollars to a Flat Earther society. But tonight, something was different. The message was still intimidating, but not unapproachable. She sensed that a door had been opened, and she was ready to walk through.
Hey, Michael, sorry for not replying earlier, I’m just seeing this.
Kelly wondered if it was wise to start a relationship with a lie. Then she wondered if this was a relationship. Then she told herself to stop wondering and start writing.
I’d love to go out sometime.
Fifteen minutes later, while she was nervously dipping a Cheez-It in Nutella, she got a notification that Michael had written back.
Awesome! I’m free this Friday if you are. Is there anywhere you’d like to go?
This was Kelly’s opportunity to micromanage the moment. By mandating the date’s location, she could mitigate the risk of overpriced restaurants, thumping club atmospheres, or—the horror—bowling. She could eliminate any unforeseen eventualities and allow herself to predict the entire night’s course of events and prepare for any pitfalls that might arise.
Instead, she searched her mind, smiled, and typed.
Surprise me.
acknowledgments
I set out to write an offbeat love story and along the way, I received a fascinating education in robotics, product design, and AI. Thank you to Professor David Heaton of the University of Chichester, Dr. Luis Ponce Cuspinera of the University of Sussex, and Dr. Suzanne Gildert of Sanctuary AI for so generously sharing their time and insights with me.
The whole publication process started when Abbie Greaves of Curtis Brown plucked my manuscript from the slush pile. Then Sheila Crowley jumped in with all her warmth and wisdom, and together the two have been the best agents a writer could ask for. Their brilliant reshaping of Kelly’s story continued in the hands of Tara Singh Carlson of Putnam, whose precision, thoughtfulness, and dedication beautifully transformed the book and gave me a new love for my own characters. A big thanks also to Helen Richard of Putnam for all her work to help make this book a reality.
Along the way, several others have contributed their time and expertise to help me improve the book, most notably Zac Allard, Kelsey Lahr, Jules Hucke, and Chelsea Hawk. Thank you for the notes and the writerly commiseration.
Last but not least, thank you to my family: to Gunnar, for being my champion through the high points and the low; to Lewis, whose presence on my lap while I work is always the greatest part of my job; and to Mom, Tom, Dad, Lana, Elyse, Jason, Sheyenne, and Zivon, for your support and never questioning my (probably questionable) decision to be a writer.
How to Build a Boyfriend from Scratch
SARAH ARCHER
A Conversation with Sarah Archer
Discussion Guide
A Conversation with Sarah Archer
1. This novel is so fun! How did you come up with the idea?
I was living in Los Angeles at the time, so the idea came to me when most ideas did: while I was sitting in traffic. It was an inspiration that immediately grabbed me, so that I thanked the red lights for giving me snatches of time to scribble down notes. At first I thought of it as a reversal of the John Hughes movie Weird Science. But I knew right away that I wanted this story to be more relationship-driven, less of an out-and-out comedy. So as I started to think about what kind of character might gain something meaningful from a relationship with a robot, Kelly came to the surface.
2. Kelly’s voice is very relatable. Do you identify with her character? Is she based on anyone you know?
Kelly isn’t based on anyone real, but I can relate to her introversion and passion for her work—though I don’t think I would ever cut it as a
robotics engineer! Personally, I’ve always been inclined to the humanities and gray-area, artistic thinking, so one of the fun challenges of writing this book was getting inside the head of someone who approaches life and relationships in a concrete, logical way. Thinking in terms of things like the scientific method or the order of operations as applied to solving equations helped me develop her voice.
Some facets of Kelly’s voice and humor do overlap with my own, but really, I think she’s an amalgam of so many people of her generation. Something about living in the internet age has pushed many of us to be equal shades of neurotic, overly analytical, and sarcastic, but ultimately durable.
3. As a robotics engineer, Kelly is a successful woman working in the sciences. Why did you decide to set the story within this world?
Artificial intelligence is a topic that fascinates me, so while I wasn’t actively looking for an idea set in the world of the sciences, when one came to me, I jumped on it. I loved exploring what a robotics company in Silicon Valley might look like and what sorts of projects the people there might be working on.
I’m a firm believer in giving characters as much conflict as possible, so by creating a female protagonist working in a competitive, male-dominated industry, I could believe that Kelly’s career would be that much more hard-won and she would be even more afraid of doing something to jeopardize it. Anita, Kelly’s boss, is slightly older than she is, so her trajectory would probably have been even harder. I like to think that the difference of even a decade or so allows Kelly and Priya to feel more at home in the tech industry than Anita might have felt when she started.
4. What kind of research did you do for the novel?
I was fortunate to speak to several experts in the robotics and product design fields about their education, the work they do, the challenges they face, and how they think about their contributions to the world. These conversations were so illuminating. I’m an English major to my core, so I’m still a long way from truly understanding Kelly’s work, but these interviews gave me a window into her world. Then, as with everything in my life, I turned to Google to fill in the gaps, consulting journal articles, interviews, and blogs to answer questions that arose along the way, including those about life in Silicon Valley. The latest developments in AI and robotics are intriguing, intimidating, and exciting—it was tough to avoid getting lost in research rabbit holes on the internet.
5. Before writing the novel, your background was in comedy. Why did you decide to write a novel? Did anything surprise you about writing fiction?
I began writing this book at a transition period in my life. I had just relocated from Los Angeles, where I was working crazy hours in the entertainment industry, to St. Maarten. Even after moving to a Caribbean paradise, I managed to overcommit myself with work immediately, but I still had more time in my day for writing. So I finally decided to attempt a novel, something I had always wanted to pursue. On a creative level, I wanted to try this idea in novel form because I sensed that Kelly’s voice could be a major part of the story and I was eager to play with that on the page.
Having focused on screenwriting for years, I found writing fiction delightfully freeing. I still sometimes feel guilty when I just come out and say what a character is thinking. Poetry is another passion of mine, and I relish the chance to really climb down into the language and walk around among the words, something that’s harder to do in screenwriting. But writing humor definitely requires an adjustment for the page versus the screen: you can’t rely as much on the visual and on the manipulation of timing.
6. As you portray it, the modern dating scene—particularly in Silicon Valley—is a bit grim. Have you lived in Silicon Valley? Why is it so hard for Kelly to meet relatable men?
Here’s my confession: I’ve never actually been to Silicon Valley. San Francisco is as close as I’ve gotten, but I did live in Los Angeles for years, and I think LA and Silicon Valley are similar in that both are industry towns. In terms of the social and dating scene, that can be a negative: many people care only about what they can get out of you professionally—they care more about knowing you for the sake of knowing you than about really knowing you. There’s a tendency to flex and talk oneself up, and there’s an atmosphere of artificiality, where image rules. But on the plus side, when you live in that kind of area it’s easy to meet like-minded people, people who are so passionate about the things you’re passionate about that they were willing to uproot their lives and move there to pursue their dreams. I met my husband at a networking event for writers in LA—it’s not all bad!
7. Without giving anything away, did you always know how Kelly and Ethan’s story would end? How did their relationship evolve as you wrote their characters?
The central arc of the story line came to me pretty much fully formed and never altered, even while so much around it did through various drafts. The place where Kelly and Ethan end up felt right to me from the beginning, but how they got there evolved. I think their relationship became deeper, more passionate, and more human, ultimately challenging Kelly at a more elemental level. My focus was always on her character arc, so it helped to play with Ethan’s arc as well, and with how he might force changes in the relationship through his own evolution.
8. How to Build a Boyfriend from Scratch is terrifically funny, but it also tackles serious questions about love, loneliness, work/life balance, honesty, and the power of expectations—both our own and those of our fami-lies. What was it like to keep up this balance while writing?
I like to include both drama and comedy in almost anything I write, because life has such a mixture of both. It just feels natural. But balancing the two and maintaining a consistent tone is always difficult. It helped me to use Kelly’s voice as a sort of filter—thinking about how she would view a situation, what she would find funny and in what ways, or where she would be emotionally in different moments. Thinking about your audience is another useful filter. I wrote the first several drafts of this book just for me, with no audience or commercial concerns like genre categorization in mind. As I advanced in the process and fixed on a more refined sense of who might actually read the book, I was able to make some appropriate adjustments.
9. What do you hope readers will take away from Kelly’s story?
First, I hope they have a good time with it! But on a deeper level, for me, the heart of the book is the idea that love is a choice. I believe that one of our greatest gifts as humans is our inalienable ability to love, and our greatest responsibility is to decide how we exert that power. When Kelly comes to make different choices about how she loves, her relationships are transformed, not just with Ethan but with family and friends too. As artificial intelligence evolves into the future, I think we’ll face many questions about AI beings’ ability to “feel” emotions (and about what that even means) and to make choices. I’m so curious to see how we as a society will approach these issues.
10. What’s next for you?
I have some screenwriting projects on the back burner, but my focus is on diving into my second novel. I can’t wait for it to come into the world!
Discussion Guide
1. When we meet Kelly, she’s struggling to make her voice heard, both at work and at her family dinner. Why do you think this is? Do you relate to Kelly? Why or why not?
2. Why do you think Kelly hasn’t found love before? What changes as she gets to know Ethan?
3. Kelly’s mom is certain she just wants what’s best for Kelly (p. 11). Do you agree? Why do you think Kelly feels she has to lie to Diane to make her happy? Is their relationship different at the end of the novel?
4. When Kelly tries online dating, she finds herself limited by the qualifications she thinks she’s looking for in a man (p. 56). Is this kind of profiling helpful? Does Kelly come to understand differently what she’s looking for? What qualifications in a partner would be on your list?
5. Why does Kelly struggle to finish Confibot? How does Ethan help her think differently about her career
?
6. Kelly teaches Ethan to eat Nutella and Cheez-Its, her favorite snack. Do you have a surprising favorite treat? Is there a particularly memorable time you shared it with someone?
7. Priya is Kelly’s best friend, but things become complicated after Kelly creates Ethan. Why does Kelly feel she has to lie to Priya? How does their relationship change? Have you ever felt that you had to lie to a friend? What happened?
8. Were you surprised by how Kelly and Ethan’s relationship evolved? How did you think their love story would end?
9. If you were in Kelly’s shoes, what would you do with Ethan? Do you think you would make the same choices she did?
10. What do you think the future holds for Kelly?
About the Author
Sarah Archer’s writing has been produced for Comedy Central and published in numerous literary magazines. She has worked in literary management and film and television development on projects including House, Concussion, Roots, and Girls Trip. How to Build a Boyfriend from Scratch is her debut novel.
About the Publisher
Australia
HarperCollins Publishers Australia Pty. Ltd.
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HarperCollins Canada
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HarperCollins India
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New Zealand
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