Under the Surface with D. Boyd

Denniveniquity is a darkly humorous coming-of-age graphic memoir by D. Boyd, creator of the award-nominated Chicken Rising. For this new tale, Boyd mined her old diaries and brought her 1970s teen years back to life, rekindling the excitement, joy, and anguish of these formative life experiences. Jump into our Q&A with Boyd to dive under the surface and learn more!

1. This book has an unusual title. Where does it come from and what does it mean?

Being a WWII vet, Dad’s favourite drinking hole was the Legion. Whenever he went, Mom always cursed “that goddamned den of iniquity.” As a kid, for years I thought it was one word, hence the phonetic spelling. Over time, our downstairs den became my realm for being bad, my denniveniquity.

2. Originally, I know you split the story into three parts, this being the second after the successful Chicken Rising, and covers the middle school years. Would you call this book a graphic memoir? Can it be read as a stand alone, without reading the first?

Yes, it’s a graphic memoir (that was supported by an extensive teenage diary so I could never replace the awkward truth with glorified false memories). And yes, it can stand alone. The focus has moved away from family (cause) to the social and personal realm (effect), but it also follows logically from the previous book. This was actually a big challenge. I didn’t want to bore anyone who had read CR with repetition, yet certain characters and thematic contexts had to be reintroduced for a new reader. Finding that balance was tricky.

3. The main character starts seeing the “bad boy” at school. But your characterization is so developed that the tables are turned and our main character starts to drink and smoke and become the “bad girl”. How do you develop these characters?

Wow, thanks for the compliment! I suppose that since this is a memoir, I’m just conveying how these characters did, in real life, behave and develop. One of the themes I wanted to manifest was to show how we become attracted to those who are reflections of ourselves, yet in contradiction, we also dislike traits in others that are actually traits we dislike in ourselves that we haven’t owned yet.

4. There are no cellphones so we know this story takes place in the past but it also gives it a universality. It could be any town in North America. Did you intend the story to transcend time and place?

Yes, in a way. I mean, I didn’t have to force that dynamic, but I find that when we focus on honest emotional experiences that we all share, it does transcend time and place. I try to keep a link to the past so it doesn’t become so distant as to be forgotten and therefore misunderstood.

5. In your work vernacular plays a huge role. It almost feels like it was written as a play. How do you script out the story? What is your process?

First, I re-read my diary and jotted down tons of notes while letting the nostalgia consume me. I went on to record as many other memories as I could squeeze out, minute or significant, then categorized them as logically as possible. (A list of parental, local and time-relevant vernacular was one of many.) After that, I wrote pages and pages of development notes, focusing on the themes I wanted to emphasize.

Then I started writing, letting the memories flow, writing everything I could, allowing myself to be clumsy, longwinded and boring. I found it mandatory to engage my nostalgic emotions while writing. I had to conjure the feelings to convey them. I think I listened to more Barry Manilow than I did in Junior High.

I do try to visualize the scenes as I write them. I’m more of a movie person than anything, so I see everything in terms of opening-and-closing shots, key frames, camera angle POV, and so on. The script is written like a movie script with dialogue and descriptive action.

Eventually, over the course of a year or so, continually massaging the scenes until they develop, ruthlessly editing– it starts to feel like a story instead of a bunch of disparate memories. I usually move on to storyboarding after about ten full script revisions. Many things will change in the next stages, but I must feel the script is final before moving on.

Denniveniquity is still available for pre-order!