I love a good scare. Terrorize me with your haunted houses
and chase me with chainsaws through your corn mazes. Since early childhood,
I’ve loved scary movies, gruesome monsters and anything that made my pulse race
too fast. I loved reading (and writing), but when I was a young reader, R. L.
Stein and his Goosebumps series wasn’t around yet. Very few frightening books existed
for young readers. I devoured the Nancy Drew and Hardy Boy mystery series, but
while interesting, those stories were too clean, too neatly wrapped. The
characters used no curse words, never even considered drinking a beer or
stealing a bit of dad’s scotch, and death was never bloody or messy. Like all
good stories, they each had their dark moments, but the threshold to true
terror was never crossed.
Then came Stephen King.
Reading Carrie changed my entire outlook on books, and cemented
my intense, lifelong love affair of everything spine chilling and macabre. I
loved being terrified of the vampires in Salem’s Lot and the Werewolf in Cycle
of the Werewolf (the book that inspired the movie, Silver Bullet). I hated the
clown in IT, yet I couldn’t stop reading the book, praying those poor kids
survived its evil reign. Pet Sematary disturbed me so badly, I set the book
down and didn’t finish it for eight years. Yet I still continued to read his
books, despite falling asleep many nights with the light on. Oh, and the
nightmares. I’ve always suffered from bad dreams, but reading King planted
seeds in my brain, which sprouted in my sleep and ripened on the pages.
Needless to say, my books are dark and a little frightening.
I love writing urban fantasy and horror, and anything gloomy and provocative.
Yet over the past few years, I have been more and more drawn
to young adult books over adult novels. Of course, I had to wonder
why? I also wondered, when had “YA” become
a rigid designation? Carrie is a novel about teens, as are several of Stephen
King’s books. (IT, The Body, Christine) Many of his books also have teen
characters and adult characters who play equally important roles, such as Under
the Dome, Needful Things and (again) Cycle of the Werewolf.
I was told a few years ago that teens would never read books
with adults in them. Teen books should only have teen main characters, and this
had become the solid thinking of the big NY publishers. NOT TRUE! Millions of
readers, young and old, have enjoyed Stephen King’s stories. Yet Carrie hardly
resembles the YA books of today. The Hunger Games, with their violence and
oppression, come close. So do the later, darker Harry Potter books. And while
these are the exceptions, their wild popularity should send a message to the
world – teen readers love a good story as much as adult readers. And while I
agree that teen books should have teen central main characters, they can also
have Hagrids and Dumbldores, and Haymitchs and Effie Trinkets. And would Under
the Dome have been nearly as interesting without the dynamics of Big Jim Remmie
and his lunatic son, or the delinquent, out of control teen police force? And
let’s not forget the brave, yet flawed kids, Angie and Joe McAlister, and the
brainiac, Ben Drake, who figure out the mystery.
I love writing scary stories, and I love writing about teen
characters. But the teen years are messy and filled with explorations and
self-discovery. Drugs, sex, drinking, swearing and bullying are real issues
that kids face every day. These are the years of raging hormones and out of control
testosterone. Where breakups feel like the end of life itself, and emotions run
hotter and more volatile than the lava bubbling in Mt. Etna’s steaming crater. I
want to tell stories that reveal true teen life. I want to awaken people’s
emotions, make them uncomfortable with stories that are scary and raw and
relatable.
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And more than anything, I want inspire a new generation to
sleep with the lights on.
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