Keeping the Story Plot Invigorated and Surprising.
Cooking the sequel in a pressure cooker.
We’re all
familiar with sophomoric sequels. The author makes a great start in the first
book, but then the story just coasts along with no inspiration or energy in the
second book. While we all hope that the second book will be at least as good as
the first, we know it must cover new territory, and there is always a risk the
author will lose his or her way. The challenge is to not just keep the story
alive, but to keep it growing in surprising, unanticipated, and even exciting
ways.
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| The Brothers Washburn with the owner of Red Rock Books Ridgecrest, California |
Pitch Green
and Mojave Green are the first two books in the Dimensions in Death young-adult
horror series. Based on a scary story we
told as kids to siblings and friends, these books combine horror, suspense and
mystery in a fast-paced battle with a monstrous evil presence, hiding in an
old, deserted mansion in a small mining town, located in a desolate part of the
Mojave Desert near Death Valley.
The mansion
was built almost a hundred years ago by an eccentric genius, who got funding
and specifications from a clandestine source of ancient knowledge
and wealth. One night the genius was mysteriously slaughtered, and ever after,
children and other defenseless animals in Trona and the surrounding desert have
been disappearing without a trace on a regular basis.
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| Hot off the press. |
In the
first book, Pitch Green, we meet two teenagers, Camm and Cal, who are destined
by wit, pluck and luck (not always good) to become the balancing force against
the unearthly predator, who calls the mansion home. Our heroes are
hurled from one scene of horror to the next. Though their intentions are good,
they don’t understand what they face. By the end of the first book, a
door has been left open to predations on an even grander scale.
In the
second book, Mojave Green, a call from her best friend, Cal, brings news Camm
had hoped never to hear. Children are again disappearing from Trona. Has the
unnatural creature they killed last year returned to life or has the ancient
Searles Mansion spawned a new menace? Ignoring dire warnings from federal
agents, the pair take a road trip home with unsuspecting school friends in tow
and discover the situation has gotten worse. With monstrous predators seemingly
coming out of nowhere, enigmatic forces tear the friends apart, pulling Cal
into another world, where his chances of survival are slim.
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| Just 25 miles from Trona, California |
Finally
coming to terms with her feelings for Cal, Camm desperately seeks help where
she can, even from the dead, but can a rogue agent and other misfits help
her uncover the long-lost secrets needed to rescue Cal and stop inter-dimensional attacks?
The
government will be no help. Federal agents on the case do everything they can to catch Camm and stop her. The destiny of her own world
may lie solely in Camm’s young hands.
Writing the
second book was a different experience for us as co-authors than was
the first. The first book was based on a childhood story that we had been
telling for years, and the basic plot elements already existed. The second book
is a brand new story that has never existed before. It was created from scratch
in the last couple years. As co-authors, we had to agree on a whole new plot.
In both books,
we were under pressure to make the story as thrilling as possible. We didn’t
think in terms of one story being better than the other, just different, but we
are definitely excited with the new direction taken by the Mojave Green story.
Our fans can expect a faster moving, broader ranging story in the second book,
which introduces new characters and covers more territory, both in terms of the
desert geography as well as in the depth of the character emotions.
In addition
to the careful research of applicable desert geography, which we try to describe
as accurately as possible, we had to do in-depth research of basic principles
of astro-physics and relativity theory since Mojave Green answers many of the
questions of seemingly supernatural happenings raised in the first book, while
at the same time raising new questions of its own. But remember, this is not a
science fiction series. It is horror based on scientific principles, rather
than on magic and mysticism.
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| Young-Adult genre is all-age appropriate |
Some of our
favorite scenes in book two take place as Camm and Cal confront the new
predators spawned by the collapse of the guardian systems that were originally
built into the Searles Mansion to protect the residents of planet Earth. In
solving life-and-death mysteries, our heroes find that mundane pieces of
furniture, like an old grandfather’s clock, take on roles of life-saving
significance.
Some of our
favorite moments in writing and selling the Dimensions in Death books have come
as we are able to interact with a few of our fans at book signings and other
author events. Initially, we thought that writing a cohesive, compelling story
would be the hardest part of the book-selling business. But, when we started
trying to find an agent or publisher, who would take our manuscript, we decided
that getting published was the hardest part of the business.
After
sending out more than 150 query letters, we found a great publisher, Jolly Fish
Press, and began the process of trying to sell our books. Now, we’re sure that
building a fan base is the hardest part of the business. It’s a good thing it
is also the most rewarding part.
As we get
ready for the third book in our series, Fatal Green, to come out later in 2015,
we’re excited not just for the saga to continue, but also for the opportunity
to continue learning and growing in a new business, in a dynamically changing
industry, in a world with disappearing boundaries and in a universe limited
only by one’s own imagination. It doesn’t get better than this!
