As part of my “Three Weeks of Halloween” theme, I’ve been writing about inspirations and experiences surrounding my novel, Haunted Summer. The inspirations have been many, of course. You might see elements of The Haunting, Agatha Christie, and even a wink at Scooby Doo. It was a children’s series, but I still thought those scenes to teenagers driving through the foggy night in that van had atmosphere. It was also my first exposure, at age 6, to the horror/mystery genre. My character ideas came from a variety of places. Neal, one of the main characters, was based on a friend of mine. (His name isn’t really Neal, though I do have a friend named Neal.)
Since we’ve moved from Haunted Summer to Haunted Autumn (A title for the sequel?) I’ll be shifting to another book next week. This book, called Chinchuba, is the only Emporium Press book I’ve published for someone else (so far). Mike Casey and I were in the doctoral program together at Louisiana Tech. He’s a finance professor, but he’s also an excellent fiction writer. I published his first novel a few years back, and I’ll be happy to reintroduce it to you next week.
Meanwhile, I’ll tell you one last story about how Haunted Summer came to be. The ACFW writer’s conference was coming up (in Denver, if memory serves), and I wanted to have a book to show to the editors and agents who were going to be there. I struggled and struggled to get the manuscript up to 70,000 words which I had heard (wrongly, it turned out. They wanted 80,000) was the minimum length. I wrote my heart out for several months there, and finally had the book ready to go. I flew out to Denver with my book and my one sheet (a resume for books) ready to present. Writer’s conferences, for those of you who haven’t been to one, are partly educational conferences with dozens of “how to” workshops and they’re partly job interviews. Editors and agents sit at tables, and hopeful authors line up for 15-minute appointments in which they try to convince editors to publish their books or agents to take them on as clients. It’s like a combination of a job interview, speed dating, and Shark Tank.
I signed up to present my book to a guy named Jeff Gerke who had started a Christian science fiction and fantasy themed publishing company called Marcher Lord Press. Feeling pretty well prepared, I sat down and laid out my story for him with all the thrills, chills, and intensity. I had the rocky shores and lighthouses, the foggy rainforests, and my haunted mansion all in place. Innocent young girl comes to stay in a big, scary house with a dark history, meets a guy and they have adventures together and so on and so forth. Then he hit me with, “Yes, but what’s your story?” My story? I thought I told him that: An innocent young girl comes to stay in a big, scary house with a dark history, meets a guy, and they have adventures together. That was a story, wasn’t it? Jeff told me the story was the character’s emotional journey. What challenges was Lindsey facing in her life that her experiences that summer forced her to confront? I took the story home and made major rewrites to it. Lindsey’s problem was that she was a people pleaser. She was trying to be the perfect Christian woman, and people in her life were using that to push her around. I added a subplot about her being engaged to a guy who was really a jerk, but she had dated him since junior high and couldn’t bring herself to break up with him. Overall, it gave the story more emotional energy.
Later on, I found out that Jeff Gerke had had the same problem with his own writing. He tended to think of exciting external plots for his characters to experience, but was bad about neglecting the character’s inner journey. If I’d done my background research, I’d have known that he’d even written a book about that called Plot Versus Character: A Balanced Approach to Writing Great Fiction. That figures. Anyway, here’s the link to it if any of you are aspiring writers. https://www.amazon.com/Plot-Versus-Character-Balanced-Approach/dp/1582979928/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1508592401&sr=8-1&keywords=jeff+gerke+plot
