Not Going to Plan by Tia Fisher
On today’s blog, we have Tia Fisher talking about her latest verse novel, Not Going to Plan.
Standing up for what you believe in
To be honest, I’m a bit scared. Soon I’ll be standing in front of hundreds of teenagers in school halls, talking about the difficult themes of my new YA verse novel, Not Going to Plan. But honesty is essential. Year 10s can smell inauthenticity a mile off.
I’ll tell them there’s a lot of my own tempestuous teenage self in creative, rebellious Marnie. When she’s excluded from her all-girls school with only months to go before her GCSEs, my protagonist is moved to the local comprehensive, where of course there are boys. Boys. Boys! ‘Virginity’, Marnie says hungrily, ‘is an itch you can’t scratch by yourself.’ She’s flawed and impetuous; she gets drunk at a party and ends up in bed with a boy who has no respect for women. He only pretends use a condom, and Marnie – not much given to fact-checking – is left floundering in the AI-generated search results of her pregnancy symptoms.
In Not Going to Plan I wanted not only to defend a woman’s right to choose but also spark debate around the murkiest corners of coercion and misogyny, blame and shame. What is non-consensual sex? How do different cultures view abortion? Should Marnie feel guilty? Can the girl who bullies Marnie also be a victim?
The book is a two-hander between Marnie and the mistake-averse, utterly logical, completely delightful, physics-nerd Zed (named for the keyboard shortcut, duh). Zed is yin to Marnie’s yang: a non-partisan onlooker delivering facts and information to the readers. But Zed’s role is not only as a vehicle for opinions and information. He’s an undiagnosed autistic with his own narrative arc, and his experience of homophobic bullying and search for a gender identity broaden the themes of Not Going to Plan to encompass a wider range of challenges faced by young people.
Zed and Marnie’s bouncing conversations inject masses of humour into what might otherwise be a heavy read. Year 10s don’t like being preached at or talked-down to either, so I was thrilled when Stephen Dilley from the UKLA said of Not Going to Plan, “It never reads like a PSHE lesson but nonetheless imparts vital messages for young people.” I’ve tucked lots of practical information into the verse: how not to get pregnant, when the morning after pill might not work, the dangers of STIs and relying on AI, what coercion can look like, how to date a pregnancy and, of course, how to access an abortion. Brook, the sexual health and wellbeing charity said: ‘Not Going to Plan brings a fresh approach to the topic of teenage relationships, and identity, avoiding cliches, sentimentality or simple answers . . . threads of useful and accurate information are woven through an engaging, thought-provoking story.’
Accessible cohort reads are a great springboard to classroom discussion of sensitive sex-ed topics, not only because they can introduce a variety of contextualised issues in one hit, but because they add complexity and nuance. As any teen will tell you, life is a challenge. It’s muddled and scary and embarrassing, but we need to be open with our children and encourage honest debate. The new RSHE guidelines advocate cross-curricular reinforcement of learning outcomes, and I think there’s no better way to do that than through a story.
Wish me luck.
Not Going to Plan by Tia Fisher is out 28th August, published by Hot Key Books
BIO
Not Going to Plan (Hot Key Books, 2025) is a powerful verse novel about sexual consent, unplanned pregnancy and the breaking of taboos. Tia’s debut about county lines, Crossing the Line (Hot Key Books, 2023), won the prestigious Carnegie Shadowers’ Choice Medal, voted for by over 30,000 young readers. It also won the UK Literacy Association Award, described by the judges as a ‘life-saving book’ and is in the 2024 ‘Read for Empathy’ Collection.
