How to use this Page

I haven’t read this one yet, by the firm of Bird, Danielson & Sieruta, but it’s high on my reading list.

Writing “scary” has been liberating. A blast. In the past, I’ve mostly written realistic fiction. But for these stories I’ve tapped into a different sort of imagination, what I think of as the unpossible. The trick is that once you accept that one impossible element—a zombie or a ghost in the mirror—then the story plays out in a straightforward manner.All storytelling has its backbone in realistic fiction.

The response to Bystander has been incredible—and humbling. Many middle schools have used it as their “One School, One Book” community reads, which is such an honor.I attempted to write a lively, unsentimental, informed, fast-paced story. I hope that I’ve given readers something to think about, while leaving them to draw their own conclusions. I didn’t write a pamphlet, 10 steps to bully-proof your school. Robert McKee, in his book Story, says that stories are “equipment for living.” I believe in the power of literature to help us experience empathy.

“Two weeks before Morgan Mallen threw herself off the water tower, I might have sent a message to her social media page that read, ‘Just die! die! die! No one cares about you anyway! (I’m just saying: It could have been me.)”

I was guided throughout my writing by a powerful quote from the great lawyer and activist Bryan Stevenson: “I’ve come to understand and to believe that each of us is more than the worst thing we’ve ever done.”

THE ONE-EYED DOLL. Copyright © 2014 by James Preller. Illustrations copyright © 2014 by Iacopo Bruno and used by permission of the publisher, Feiwel & Friends, New York. 

Julie Danielson (Jules) conducts interviews and features of authors and illustrators at Seven Impossible Things Before Breakfast, a children’s literature blog primarily focused on illustration and picture books.

Quick excerpt from ONE-EYED DOLL (October, 2014), art by Iacopo Bruno:

     “Do you like it?”

     Tiana was pleased. She stood in her pretty new dress. A real smile on her face. Another glimpse of what she used to be like.

     “I asked Mama to make it for me,” she said.    

     Malik dug his hands into his pockets. His eyes moved from his sister to the doll in her arms. Their dresses were now identical. Blue-and-white checkered. Both girl and doll wore a red ribbon in their hair.

     “What’s wrong with your eye?” he asked. “It’s half closed.”

     Tiana shrugged. “Mama says it might be pink eye. Or maybe I got a spider bite. Now I look like Selena. Don’t you think?”

     She smiled a Mona Lisa smile.

     “I guess you do. How about you leave that doll at home for once?” Malik suggested. “Come outside with me. We could shoot baskets. Play horse. Or we could pack a picnic, go fishing by the river. What do you think, Selena? I mean, Tiana!”

     Malik caught the error immediately. It was a simple mistake, calling his sister by the doll’s name. But it haunted him just the same.

     “Selena doesn’t like those things,” Tiana replied. “She says they’re dumb.”

     Malik’s mood darkened. “Suit yourself.” He wheeled and made for the front door. “I’ve got something to do, Tee. I’ll be back in one hour. Okay? One hour. You and that doll can sit around all you want. Just don’t leave the house, you hear? Daddy’s home. If you need something, just wake him. But if I was you, I’d wait unless it’s a real emergency.”

     Tiana didn’t answer.

     She was already gone.

Be afraid, be very afraid . . .

Coming in October, in time for those traditional All Hallows Eve stocking stuffers!

When I think of the five books I’ve written so far for the “Scary Tales” Series — currently working on #6 now — I sometimes consider their relative “fear factor.”

I have been open about my debt to Rod Serling’s “The Twilight Zone.” Many people mistakenly think of TZ as a horror series. It was not, almost never. The stories were strange and always came with a twist. I’d call them intellectually ticklish. What I’ve tried to do with ST is capture some of that strangeness while still delivering the goosebumps.

This upcoming one, The One-Eyed Doll (September 2014), might be the scariest, creepiest of all. I’d put Home Sweet Horror in second place in terms of traditionally “scary,” Good Night, Zombie in third, with Nightmareland fourth. The least scary, but possibly most surprising, more in the thriller mode, is I Scream, You Scream. Of course, we all react differently. Some folks are afraid of spiders, others jump on chairs at the sight of mice.

When I started this series, I had big ambitions. I imagined — this is true — a painter working on a large canvas. I told my editor, “I don’t know if people will really see what I have in mind until I’ve done 20 titles, a color here, a splash there, because I want this to cross genre, move the “Horror” into Science Fiction, Fantasy, Thriller, Realistic and even Historical Fiction. I am most eager to do some Sci-Fi with this series, because in space they can’t hear you scream. But that’ll have to wait for now.

Here’s the new cover. I am so grateful for the opportunity given to me by Jean Feiwel and Liz Szabla to write these books. Don’t they look great? Aren’t I lucky? And what do you think of Iacopo Bruno’s latest cover? I love it!

Here we go, folks. It’s time for Fan Mail Wednesday — and it’s actually Wednesday, a first for the entire staff here at Jamespreller.com!

I’m reaching into the big box of letters . . . ah, here’s one from Seth in Iowa!

Dear James Preller,

Hello, my name is Seth. I am a fourth grade student in Iowa. Our class is writing letters to our favorite authors. I chose you. You write Scary Tales. What do you do when you get stuck? Also, what book are you writing now? Here are some suggestions; Scary Tales: Slenderman’s Eye because it is really scary. My favorite book is Good Night Zombie. It is captivating! You keep me into the book and the characters. I liked your book because it’s scary and fun to read. What book did you make and like the most? I obviously like GOOD NIGHT ZOMBIE!!! It’s really scary. You also give me courage to read your books. You give me the chills when I read the books. You inspire me to read and write. Thank you for writing stuff like scary books!

Sincerely,

Seth

I was speaking to a large audience of students, at one point explaining my writing process for an upcoming SCARY TALES book, titled The One-Eyed Doll.

The first image that came to me was the discovery of a door, or a hatch, in a bedroom floor. An old rug had been pulled away and there it was. Strangely, the door was padlocked.

That image got me thinking. Why the lock? Over time, I played around with the idea, moving the hidden door to a basement and, later, to the woods, obscured below the leaves. It evolved into a locked box buried behind an abandoned house and discovered by three children.

By the way, I love the idea of characters believing they found something — that they acted upon an object — when the truth is the exact reverse: the object had acted upon them.

So: What was inside the box?

A crummy old doll.

Why was it locked inside a box, nailed shut, padlocked, and buried?

Well, there must have been something strange about that doll. Right? We all know that. Every kid knows it, too. This isn’t our first rodeo.

Now as the writer of this story, I had not yet figured out the issues surrounding this doll. The whys and wherefores. I had not yet answered the essential question a writer must answer for every character, in every story: What does this doll want?

At that point in my presentation, an excited boy raised his hand and said, “Like Chuckie!”

Well, yes, I guess. Like Chuckie. There are not many original ideas left. So, sure, absolutely, the evil doll is like Chuckie, though I’ve never watched those movies. Chuckie, of course, is not the original evil doll. Twilight Zone had several, the old Bat-Man comics — often a ventriloquist figures into these things — and so on. It’s a familiar conceit, a cousin to the Gingerbread Man and even Pinocchio. This is not depressing to me, as a writer. It’s inspiring.

Likewise, the secret door has been done a million times, most notably in Lewis Carroll’s Through the Looking Glass, C.S. Lewis’s “Narnia” books, and just about every time-travel novel ever written. Stephen King used a storage closet for his “secret door” in the terrific novel, 11/22/63. The door is just a device that gets you to the other world — or get the reader (and writer) to the story. Just push on through and don’t worry too much about how that door got there in the first place.

On and on it goes. We stand on the shoulders of giants.

Now it is fair to ask: If you can’t come up with your own ideas, why bother?

And I’m here to say that is exactly the wrong way of looking at it.

Because I am talking today about tradition, ladies and gentlemen, specifically about writing within a tradition — an awareness, conscious or not, that we’ve inherited a rich past. All those stories mining the same turf. Every storyteller throughout history with a pick axe and calloused hands.

The Japanese artisan Kaneshige Michiaki said it well: “Tradition is always changing. Tradition consists of creating something new with what one has inherited.”

It’s not copying. It’s creating a new thing using familiar elements. In that respect, it’s a lot like cooking. Here’s a chicken, here’s an oven, here’s some herbs and spices and all the vegetables ever invented. And, sure, if you are like my mother, here’s a frying pan and a can of Campbell’s Cream of Mushroom Soup.

The challenge is to cook up something new.

Something satisfying and delicious.

I experienced this same thing when writing the Jigsaw Jones mystery series. That same sense of jumping into a river, pushed on by the current. And then, treading water, I start to move my arms, kick my feet for fear of drowning. The water of tradition — Chandler and Hamitt, Connelly and Sandford, Sobel and Christie — whomever! — carrying me along (so long as I kept swimming).

Did I ultimately make something new? I can’t be the one to say, but I’ve sure enjoyed getting wet.

I just handed in the revised manuscript for my SCARY TALES series, which is chugging along. I have to say, I love writing these books, it’s like a faucet has been turned on all the way. I’m just gushing words, plot twists, stories.

This next one, the fifth in the series, will be titled either “The One-Eyed Witch” or “The One-Eyed Doll.” Honestly, doll is more accurate, but witch might be more appealing, especially to boy readers looking for any excuse NOT to pick up a book.

When I wrote the story, I paused early in the action to cast around the internet for images that would help me, and perhaps help the artist, Iacopo Bruno. It’s a new part of the process for me, which I started on the previous as-yet unpublished manuscript (that was set on a distant planet).

I have to admit, I feel a touch pretentious whenever I talk about “my process.” But at the same time, I find it interesting and know that others do, too. If there’s a take-away, maybe it’s that I published my first book in 1986 and that my methods of working are in constant evolution. It’s not like I’ve figured anything out yet. I’m still groping in the dark, searching.

Here’s the one image that really stuck in my head for the fifth book. Check it, people:

Don’t you love her? Don’t you want to hold her tight?

Or does she spell trouble?

Now maybe I shouldn’t do this, exposing my warts, but here’s a sample from the UNEDITED, UNCORRECTED manuscript I just handed in. The raw material. I think the scene explains itself, three kids, Malik and his little sister, Tiana, and a boy nicknamed “Soda Pop.”

———-

“Whatchu guys up to?” Soda Pop asked.

“Treasure huntin’,” Malik drawled. “You can come if you want.”

Soda Pop scratched his round belly, thinking it over. He said, “Got nothing else to do.” And he followed along.

Tiana skipped to the lead. The boys talked about baseball teams and how the all-star game didn’t mean nothing any more. “My dad says it ain’t what it used to be,” Arthur said.

Malik mused, “I can’t think of anything that is.”

“Take a look what I got,” Arthur said. He pulled out a thick stack of baseball cards from his back pocket. The two boys paused there on the ragged sidewalk, dandelions popping up from the cracks, flipping through the cards and commenting on each one.

After a while, Malik lifted his head. He looked up the street. He looked down the street. “Where’d she go to now?” he wondered aloud.

Soda Pop shrugged, unworried. “Off somewhere’s, I suppose.”

Malik peered down the road and there it stood in the distance, like a beaten fighter after fifteen rounds in the ring. The old place. A shivery feeling squeezed Malik’s heart like a sponge. “Come on,” he said, hurrying in the direction of the old place.

“Hold up,” Soda Pop said. He had dropped his cards to the curb.

“Not waiting,” Malik said. “Catch up if you want.” Off he went, walking fast, half running, in the direction of the old place. He called as he went, “Tiana? Hey, Tee? You holler if you hear me! Tiana, I’m not fooling around.”

There was no sign of his sister.

Malik walked the length of the block and now stood staring at the old place.

The dusty yard was overgrown with tall grass and untrimmed bushes. The front was closed up –- no easy way inside – and Malik figured it was unlikely that Tiana was in there. But his heart still had that squeezed-out feeling.

“Tiana!” he hollered. “You best not be inside that house.”

Malik’s nerves jumped like live wires on the street. An inner voice told him, This is no place for a little girl. Find your sister right now.

Pasty-faced Soda Pop pulled up, bent over and wheezing, short of breath. “Anybody –“ pause, gasp – “ever told you –“ pause, pant – “you walk too fast?”

“Let’s check around back,” Malik replied, all business.

“I ain’t going back there,” Soda Pop said. “Not for a bag of gummy worms, I wouldn’t. You know what folks say. A widow lady went crazy in there, before we was born. They took her away, loony as a jay bird. Place is haunted. Nope, I’m not going back there.”

“Suit yourself,” Malik shrugged.

And he went off, careful not to pass too near the old place, still looking for his lost sister.

——

He found Tiana squatting in the dirt about fifty feet behind the house. The edges of her dress were dirty and soiled.

“Tee,” he called out. “You shouldn’t be back here.”

“I found something.”

“Nevermind that, let’s go,” Malik said.

“For real,” Tiana said. “Come see for yourself.”

The girl held a short, thick stick. When Malik stepped up, he could see that she had scraped a gash about four inches deep into the earth. And sure enough, something was buried down there.

Malik got on his knees for closer study. “It looks like a piece of wood or –“

“It’s a box,” Tiana said.

Malik turned to look at her. “How would you know?”

Tiana shrugged and blew a wild strand of black hair from her eyes. “I just do.”

“Soda Pop!” Malik shouted. “Best come back here right now.” He waited, listening. He called again, “Tiana maybe found treasure.”

That got him moving.

It took some digging, but the work went faster after Malik fetched a small hand shovel from home. Twenty minutes later, they unearthed an old wooden box about the size of a loaf of bread. There was a padlock on it.

The three children sat wilting under the sun, staring at the box.

“Why would anybody bury a box?” Malik asked.

“Locked shut, too,” Soda Pop said. “Must be something valuable inside.”

“It’s been nailed closed, too,” Malik said. “See here?” He pointed to the nail heads, two on each corner of the box.

Tiana grew quiet, eyes shut. When she opened them, the little girl said, “She wants us to open it.”

Soda Pop snorted. “What are you talking about, Tiana?”

Tiana blinked, mouth shut. There was a far-away look in her eyes. “Nothing,” she answered. “I didn’t mean nothing by it.”