MORE monsters for Halloween and stay out of the woodpile!

Looks like 3 monsters to me

Stay away from the woodpile!!

Here are a few more AWESOME monsters inspired by my new book, Myles and the Monster Outside. 

Thanks to great librarians who introduce our books (however monstrous) to young readers, and share the results with the authors, we really love it. A dedicated Viking-librarian reading Jake and the Giant Hand at right...

Gruesome AND fashionable!

I never liked bears.

Halloween Draw your Monster Contest

Here there be monsters!

Monsters are arriving for the Draw your Monster Contest at local libraries. The drawings are imaginative, weird and it's great to see what kind of monsters kids dream up.

There's still time to enter before Halloween, see the details below. Winners will receive 1 of 20 copies of my new book Myles and the Monster Outside, courtesy of Dundurn Press. All entries receive a bookmark. Be weird, be creative, draw your monster and enter at participating libraries:

Newmarket Library
Aurora Library
Palmerston Library
Bloor-Gladstone Library

Follow the fun on twitter: #drawyourmonster
Review of Myles and the Monster Outside in Kirkus Reviews
More reviews on Goodreads

Writing horror for kids: love your monster

AVAILABLE NOW: 2 books, just $9.99

The #1 rule I've learned about writing horror stories for kids? Love your monster.

Today is the launch date for my new 2-book bundle of Weird Stories Gone Wrong: Jake and the Giant Hand (2014) and Myles and the Monster Outside (2015). It's a good deal, 2 books for 1 special launch price.
Check it out here.

It's been interesting to try my hand at middle-grade, quick-read horror, and the younger end of middle-grade at that. There are challenges for sure: what's too spooky, what's not spooky enough, how do you keep a younger reader engaged without giving them nightmares?

One way to keep the scare factor in the right ballpark is to hire a talented illustrator who understands the market. Shawna Daigle did the covers and illustrations for both books (and a third book coming in 2016, Carter and the Curious Maze) and nailed the tone for kids 8-12.

Another way to keep the right tone is to love your monster.

Myles & his monster, by Shawna Daigle

A few months after I finished graduate school, my brother-in-law took me to Robert McKee's fantastic, all-weekend scriptwriting course. I highly recommend it. I learned about story arc, character definition, subplotting, humour, horror, and a lot more. There were no MFAs in creative writing in those days, so I'd never actually heard a lecture on HOW to write. It was 36-hours well spent (and at $400 each, far too expensive for me to afford at the time, it was a graduation gift). I learned a lot that weekend, but the one thing that has really stuck out over the years was McKee's discussion of how to love your monster.


It means this: give your monster an eccentricity or recognizable human trait that readers/viewers can relate to. A slight humanity makes your monster more terrifying. Mr. McKee used the example of Peter Boyle as the monster in the movie Young Frankenstein. When he's dressed in top hat and tails, ready to dance with his master (Gene Wilder) on stage at Carnegie Hall, he tips his hat to himself in the mirror just before they go on.

There you have it, monster love. It makes the monster both human and horrifying (because he's not human). We see ourselves in the monster for a second and what could be scarier than that?

I have two monsters. The first in Jake and the Giant Hand, is never seen. He's a missing giant if you will, all we have left of him is the mysterious legend of his long-buried hand. But there's a secret about him you discover (and I can't reveal here!), which makes him very, very human.

The second monster in Myles and the Monster Outside, is a man of fog and mist, following along outside Myles's car as he and his family move to a new home. Myles is only one who can see him ... and once the monster starts to whisper Myles's name, he's the only one who can hear him, too. Is the monster real, imagined, a symbol of Myles's fears made manifest? Or just an annoying echo of the storm outside the car? It was a lot of fun to imagine the monster whispering to Myles whenever Myles was most vulnerable ... and to change his message each time, just enough to eventually become annoying. Kind of like a little brother whispering at the door...

He-he. It's been fun! Monsters are pretty lovable, I've discovered. Who knew?

Read Goodreads review of the series. Read Kirkus Reviews
New author Q&A about writing horror for kids on the Dundurn Blog
Book Trailer for Myles and the Monster Outside
Buy the 2-book bundle now

On writing horror for kids

Two-book bundle now available

My new book, Myles and the Monster Outside, is coming out this week. I answered a Q&A about the book on Dundurn's blog. We talked about monsters, writing for kids, and more. Here's a taste:

"What was the hardest part of writing your book?

Horror for kids takes a deft touch. What’s too tame, what’s too spooky, how do you strike the right balance between scary and believable, plus provide a satisfying ending that’s not just a Scooby-doo reveal (not that there’s anything wrong with Scooby-doo)? 

Because Myles and the Monster Outside is a psychological, road-trip thriller (which may be a first for a children’s book), much of the spookiness comes from the late night, and the blurred line between what’s real and what’s imagined. I had to keep the tension high inside the car, too – a tall order!"

We talked about audience, readership and more. 
Click here for entire Q&A.

Here are some reviews of Myles and the Monster Outside:  Kirkus Reviews  Goodreads

And hey, the book is the Dundurn FB title page this week!

Myles and the Monster Outside is now available on Amazon.

Check out the fantastic Myles and the Monster Outside Book trailer (that's me playing an original composition on guitar, btw) with all 6 spooky illustrations from Shawna Daigle (who also did the amazing covers).

A 14-foot gargoyle and a giant fly

Once in a while I get a totally unexpected surprise in my email. Like today. I received this wonderful picture of a 14-foot gargoyle in a Halloween installation last month. The artist (who asked to remain anonymous) sent it to me, because he loved my third book, The Gargoyle at the Gates, and it inspired him to build this wonderful gargoyle for his friends at Halloween. Did I mention that it's 14 feet tall?! (That's a little over 4.25 metres). Thank you to the artist for reaching out and sharing this -- I'm inspired, too!

In other gigantism news recently, I ordered this giant green fly off the internet (thanks amazon and Zymetrical), it's about 8 inches long. I've been taking it to events for my newest book, Jake and the Giant Hand, in which Jake has some interesting interactions with well, giant flies among other things. Kids really want, no NEED, to pick it up when they see it.

So, 14-foot Halloween gargoyles and giant, 8-inch flies, all in a day's work for this writer. Just one more reason to love the job!