Most-Read Stories Behind the Stories:
No. 3, Something Upstairs

This sum­mer and ear­ly fall, I’m re-post­ing the 10 Most-Read Sto­ries Behind the Sto­ries from this blog. I’ve rewrit­ten each essay some­what and includ­ed the most-often-asked ques­tion about the book. 

As we con­tin­ue our count­down, Some­thing Upstairs is #3 on the most-read list, my 20th book.

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1. I was liv­ing in Los Ange­les, one of the USA’s newest cities. I moved to Prov­i­dence, Rhode Island, one of the USA’s old­est cities. The city is like a muse­um of ear­ly Amer­i­can archi­tec­ture. It was rather like trav­el­ing back in time.
2. The Prov­i­dence house I moved into was a charm­ing old one, built in 1835.
3. The top floor was an attic that had been con­vert­ed into an apart­ment. It had old wood­en floors, and in the back was a small room. It had a stain on the floor.
4. I began to won­der who had lived in my house a long time ago.
5. I start­ed to read about Prov­i­dence history.
6. I was vis­it­ing a school some­where. A teacher took me aside and said, “I have a stu­dent who says it’s urgent that he talk to you alone. I don’t know what it’s about. But he’s very insis­tent. Could you spare a few moments?”
7. My curios­i­ty piqued I said, “Sure.” I was led into a small office and there was a boy sit­ting there fid­dling with a key chain. I sat down, intro­duced myself, and said, “I under­stand you want to talk to me.” He said. “I just want­ed to say hel­lo.” That was it. He had no more to say. But the moment becomes a key part of my book. It’s very believ­able because, in part, it is true.
8. I put all of this togeth­er and wrote a ghost sto­ry set in the house. 
   See point 3.
9. I had writ­ten the book, but had no title. On anoth­er school vis­it, I read the begin­ning of the book to a class. They liked it. Then I said, “I have no title for it. Any­body have a sug­ges­tion?” A girl raised her hand. She said, “Why don’t you call it Some­thing Upstairs?”
10. Done.

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Most often asked question:

“What parts of the sto­ry are true?”

If you would like to see the house where I set this sto­ry, go to Google Maps, and request a look at 15 Shel­don Street, Prov­i­dence R.I.