Photo by Ordale

Now that my novel The Chronicles of What Happened, by Cam Hanson is in the submission stage (10 agent queries have been sent as of this writing, 1 request for the full manuscript thus far) I turn my attention back to the project I started last summer. It’s a new novel called The Shaded, the first volume in a supernatural horror trilogy for the young adult crowd. There’s an excerpt from an early draft on my website, located here.

However, after reaquainting myself with the story I’ve decided to take it into a slightly different direction, although the basic premise remains the same: A teenager discovers he is a demon-human hybrid, and the battle within himself and against a sinister occultist organization over how to use his newfound powers is just the beginning of an adventure where a young man’s ability to inspire a demonic force for good may be humankind’s only hope for survival.

In the early draft, the main character is stricken with a compulsion to draw/paint/create a series of particularly detailed grotesque images. He will not stop to eat or sleep, and his desperate parents ultimately decide to have him institutionalized. In that version the story opened with the main character already having undergone months of treatment, to no avail. I decided that it was better if the reader and the main character experience this compulsion together. So the idea of the compulsive creating still exists and the images themselves play a crucial role in the story, but now the main character is kidnapped by the aforementioned occultist organization before any medical doctors have the opportunity to try and treat what turns out to not be a disease or disorder, but a spiritual awakening of sorts.

The story is still being mapped out, and really my first order of business is to get a better handle on who my main character is. He’s my first-person narrator and I need to know how he thinks, how he talks, his behavior, etc. Once I find his “voice” I can move forward with more confidence.

I’m excited about the possibilities here, and this project hearkens back to some of the books I enjoyed as a younger reader, especially the supernatural tales of John Bellairs, the Three Investigators series, and Sport by Louise Fitzhugh. I’ve been reading some current YA titles, such as Feed by M.T. Anderson, Miss Peregrine’s School for Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs, and Dan Wells’ I Am Not A Serial Killer (although this last title is often kept in the adult fiction section).

Do you read YA novels? Let me know what’s on your shelf or stored in your e-reader. And I’m always on the lookout for other YA horror titles so if you’re reading one or can suggest one, I’d love to hear about those too.