Sarah Bloom
In seventh grade, Sarah Bloom ‘24 had her initial idea for a book, but never got around to fleshing it out until she wrote 15,000 words during National Novel Writing Month in eleventh grade. Bloom is currently taking a gap year, and her main project is writing “A Harvest of Sparks and Steel,” a young adult dystopian sci-fi novel based on her original idea from years ago. Her interest in the genre of sci-fi in middle school was influenced by her fascination with mechanical engineering.
“I was a very inventive seventh grader,” Bloom said. “I liked to try to solve the world's problems by making little inventions in my room. Obviously, the world wasn't saved but I thought it was fun. And one of the things I was always thinking about is, what if you made photovoltaic sunscreen that you could use to charge your phone when you were sunbathing? And I thought that was just the coolest idea ever.”
Bloom still continues the same thought process when brainstorming ideas for the sci-fi aspect of her novel: asking herself what-if questions. This helps her in the first step of writing, which, for her, is setting up the rules of her world. Before she considered the characters and the plot, Bloom created a “World Wiki,” a Wikipedia-style hub of information about the different rules of her world
“In writing, I think there's a lot more inventing than people often give writers credit for,” Bloom said. “Especially in a book that's dystopian or sci-fi, as the author, maybe you're not inventing the science or the actual technology, but you're inventing some idea that may not have been thought of before or put in a certain context or played out in a certain way. And that's one of the things that I love the most about writing, as I do it.”
Drawing inspiration from society, Bloom takes real-world problems like automation, worker treatment and big tech to the extreme in her writing, and finds possible solutions in ideas of sustainability. In “A Harvest of Sparks and Steel,” Bloom creates a machine that can harvest energy from human neural activity, representing the “harvest” part of her book title. As for “sparks and steel,” she says these motifs correspond with the two female leads of the book and their characterizations.
“It’s told [in] a dual perspective,” Bloom said. “It's told from the perspective of one girl who is an escapee from the research and development lab of one of these energy corporations who doesn't really know who or what she is. And the other perspective is a girl who you basically know nothing about her background, other than she is reporting to somewhere else than where she is. And so just the interaction of these two young women, as well as how each of their goals in life, just manifest throughout the story.”
According to Bloom, both women share traits of being smart, socially aware, and determined to accomplish their goals. However, one is driven by status and prestige, while the other is motivated by her relationships with people around her. Bloom says she relates to both characters in some ways, especially the characteristic of being goal-oriented, as she has embedded some of her own qualities into the characters — be it positive, negative or changing qualities.
“I used to be much more driven by prestige than I am now,” Bloom said. “I think I've also realized a lot, what are the costs of just following prestige? And what are the costs, personally to myself and maybe my own relationships, but then also just to the world? Because I think it's really easy just to see the gloss and the shine of prestige and not to see on whose backs it's resting on. So I think that's one of the things that I am really hoping to explore, especially in the character arc of one of my characters … So she comes to somewhat of the same realizations — perhaps, we'll see — as I have come to.”
“I was a very inventive seventh grader,” Bloom said. “I liked to try to solve the world's problems by making little inventions in my room. Obviously, the world wasn't saved but I thought it was fun. And one of the things I was always thinking about is, what if you made photovoltaic sunscreen that you could use to charge your phone when you were sunbathing? And I thought that was just the coolest idea ever.”
Bloom still continues the same thought process when brainstorming ideas for the sci-fi aspect of her novel: asking herself what-if questions. This helps her in the first step of writing, which, for her, is setting up the rules of her world. Before she considered the characters and the plot, Bloom created a “World Wiki,” a Wikipedia-style hub of information about the different rules of her world
“In writing, I think there's a lot more inventing than people often give writers credit for,” Bloom said. “Especially in a book that's dystopian or sci-fi, as the author, maybe you're not inventing the science or the actual technology, but you're inventing some idea that may not have been thought of before or put in a certain context or played out in a certain way. And that's one of the things that I love the most about writing, as I do it.”
Drawing inspiration from society, Bloom takes real-world problems like automation, worker treatment and big tech to the extreme in her writing, and finds possible solutions in ideas of sustainability. In “A Harvest of Sparks and Steel,” Bloom creates a machine that can harvest energy from human neural activity, representing the “harvest” part of her book title. As for “sparks and steel,” she says these motifs correspond with the two female leads of the book and their characterizations.
“It’s told [in] a dual perspective,” Bloom said. “It's told from the perspective of one girl who is an escapee from the research and development lab of one of these energy corporations who doesn't really know who or what she is. And the other perspective is a girl who you basically know nothing about her background, other than she is reporting to somewhere else than where she is. And so just the interaction of these two young women, as well as how each of their goals in life, just manifest throughout the story.”
According to Bloom, both women share traits of being smart, socially aware, and determined to accomplish their goals. However, one is driven by status and prestige, while the other is motivated by her relationships with people around her. Bloom says she relates to both characters in some ways, especially the characteristic of being goal-oriented, as she has embedded some of her own qualities into the characters — be it positive, negative or changing qualities.
“I used to be much more driven by prestige than I am now,” Bloom said. “I think I've also realized a lot, what are the costs of just following prestige? And what are the costs, personally to myself and maybe my own relationships, but then also just to the world? Because I think it's really easy just to see the gloss and the shine of prestige and not to see on whose backs it's resting on. So I think that's one of the things that I am really hoping to explore, especially in the character arc of one of my characters … So she comes to somewhat of the same realizations — perhaps, we'll see — as I have come to.”
Listen
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to an excerpt from the second chapter of “A Harvest of Sparks and Steel”:
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Shouts echo through the hallway. A short man in a lab coat sprints towards us, yelling some unintelligible at the top of his lungs. He is a bullet of motion in a sea of shocked stillness, then his words become clear and the silence is shattered.
“The subject! We’ve lost eyes on the subject!”
The lab coats around me mobilize like a flock of white birds of prey, taking off as one down the hallway the man had come from. Unsure what else to do, I fly with them through the darkness. It’s impossible to tell over the thunder of our footsteps, but I think I hear a man’s voice speaking hurriedly and with great emotion. We turn a corner and—there he is.
A mechanical wail tears through the compound and a red light flickers on, illuminating a face burned into my memory. Even with his dark hair mussed and glasses askew, even with his grey eyes hidden by shadow, I know him.
Dr. Kole, head of experimental research at BioMe Labs.
If you only remember one thing, it’s this: avoid Dr. Kole. At all costs.
I shiver at the memory of Intel’s instructions and shrink into those around me. A shove sends me to the front of the mass as a man in a gray suit pushes roughly through the crowd from behind me. I duck my head in fear. I cannot let Dr. Kole see who I am.
“The subject! We’ve lost eyes on the subject!”
The lab coats around me mobilize like a flock of white birds of prey, taking off as one down the hallway the man had come from. Unsure what else to do, I fly with them through the darkness. It’s impossible to tell over the thunder of our footsteps, but I think I hear a man’s voice speaking hurriedly and with great emotion. We turn a corner and—there he is.
A mechanical wail tears through the compound and a red light flickers on, illuminating a face burned into my memory. Even with his dark hair mussed and glasses askew, even with his grey eyes hidden by shadow, I know him.
Dr. Kole, head of experimental research at BioMe Labs.
If you only remember one thing, it’s this: avoid Dr. Kole. At all costs.
I shiver at the memory of Intel’s instructions and shrink into those around me. A shove sends me to the front of the mass as a man in a gray suit pushes roughly through the crowd from behind me. I duck my head in fear. I cannot let Dr. Kole see who I am.