Avi

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Scary stuff

scary storyI’m close to fin­ish­ing a new nov­el, a ghost sto­ry. I’ve writ­ten them before, Some­thing Upstairs, The Seer of Shad­ows, and even short sto­ry ghost tales as in Strange Hap­pen­ings. Upon read­ing them, some­one inevitably asks me, “Do you believe in ghosts?” My answer, “No, but I believe in ghost stories.”

In west­ern lit­er­a­ture, ghost sto­ries have a very long and dis­tin­guished his­to­ry. You’ll find them in Homer, the Bible, in Roman plays. Shake­speare won­der­ful­ly begins Ham­let with a notable ghost, Hamlet’s father. Edgar Allen Poe did much to make the genre pop­u­lar. And on it goes, into the mod­ern era. In a pre­sump­tive­ly sec­u­lar age, they still exist, and cer­tain­ly, they do in books for young people.

Just recent­ly, I was talk­ing to some fifth graders, and asked them why they liked such sto­ries. A girl answered, “I like ghost sto­ries because they give me the shivers.”

I don’t think that young peo­ple like to be tru­ly fright­ened, but shiv­ers in the con­text of a safe envi­ron­ment, sure­ly must be deli­cious. It is the jux­ta­po­si­tion of safe and scary that makes such sto­ries attractive.

Writ­ing them is hard, the task being to make the unbe­liev­able believ­able. You have to lead the read­er to a place that cannot—in reality—exist. It’s all about craft, not belief. If ever there is a genre express­ly writ­ten to meet the reader’s desire, the ghost sto­ry is it.

Scary stuff.

Scary Stories

29 thoughts on “Scary stuff”

  1. An emo­tion­al response is always what leaves us com­ing back for more… We get shiv­ers, we get feels, we throw the book across the room and turn into the Incred­i­ble Hulk. But not every book can do that, which is why we trea­sure the ones that do the most.

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  2. Dear Avi,
    I have just fin­ished the sec­ond book of the Crispin series, and I checked out the third one from my school library today. It got me won­der­ing: What would it be like if a movie direc­tor offered to turn one of your movies into a book? If you had the choice of what book, which one would you choose? My per­son­al rec­om­men­da­tion would be the Crispin tril­o­gy. I think that this would turn into a great blog post. Thank you for your time.

    Sin­cere­ly, your fan, Connor.

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    • Pop­py — for sure! My fourth graders fell in love with the char­ac­ters when I read it aloud to them. After speak­ing like Ereth, my throat sure felt scratchy — I guess it was just what I thought he’d sound like. Lat­er in he school year, I could say some­thing in Pop­py’s voice or Rag­weed’s voice and the kids would imme­di­ate­ly guess who was speak­ing. I’d LOVE to see her sto­ry on the big screen! She’s a hero! Maybe even 4D — the smells would be … Interesting!

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  3. I would love to see True Con­fes­sions of Char­lotte Doyle made into a movie!! (As long as they would use your ending). 

    With the resur­gence of female leads, I think it’s an oppor­tune time for Char­lotte to have her movie! 🙂

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  4. My vote is with Char­lotte Doyle for a movie–strong girl char­ac­ter! But I’d go to any of your sto­ries made into a movie!

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  5. My vote is for THE FIGHTING GROUND. It made for a pow­er­ful read­ers the­atre script, and I’m sure it would play out just as well on the big screen.

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  6. I vote for Char­lotte Doyle but only if they stay true to the sto­ry, espe­cial­ly the end­ing. But I agree with Leigh — I’d see any of your books on the big screen!

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  7. True Con­fes­sions of Char­lotte Doyle, Mid­night Mag­ic, or the Crispin: The Cross of Lead, those were some of the first books I read by you that had me hooked on his­tor­i­cal fiction.

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  8. Def­i­nite­ly The True Con­fes­sions of Char­lotte Doyle. It would make such an awe­some movie and is one of my all time favourite books.

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  9. I’ll echo the votes for CHARLOTTE DOYLE, but I’d also love, love, love to see CRISPIN on the big screen (a bit of my New­bery bias, per­haps?). You’ve writ­ten so many ter­rif­ic books that cre­ate movies in read­ers’ minds. So you’ve already one-upped Hol­ly­wood, Avi!

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  10. It is a hard choice between True Con­fes­sions of Char­lotte Doyle and Crispin the Cross of Lead (book 1 — 3). I would like to see them these books turn into movies. =)

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  11. Your books have been so dear to me through­out my life. It would be thrilling to see any film adap­ta­tion of your work but my top choice would be The True Con­fes­sions of Char­lotte Doyle. Actu­al­ly its a tie between Char­lotte Doyle and Some­thing Upstairs, anoth­er of my absolute favorites:) Of course, I’m not sure any film could do your sto­ries jus­tice but they would still be amazing!

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  12. Char­lotte Doyle, there need to be more films that fea­ture strong, young female pro­tag­o­nists who break out of the mold soci­ety has set for them. I read that book as a young girl (I’m 35 now) and was total­ly inspired by Char­lotte. I have giv­en more copies of that book away to young women than any other.

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  13. I have always longed to see The True Con­fes­sions of Char­lotte Doyle as a movie. I was always able to imag­ine every­thing so clear­ly as I read the sto­ry and I would love to see how it would be inter­pret­ed in film.

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  14. I would love to see The True Con­fes­sions of Char­lotte Doyle as a movie (as long as they fol­low the book). It is my absolute favorite book and it’s the rea­son why I read now. It would trans­late to the movies real­ly well. But I would watch any movie from your books!

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  15. You did get your idea for Some­thing Upstairs from one who believed the sto­ry, and you indi­cat­ed you believed it, too! 🙂

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