Journey with me through a magical world (Chapter 7)
Another excerpt from my middle grade fantasy adventure "Do You Believe in Magic?"
Every Friday, I’m going to send you the opening paragraphs from a chapter of my latest novel Do You Believe in Magic?. Then I’ll break down the excerpt with comments about context, themes, and conflict. Finally, I’ll include writing tips.
Last week, I published a segment from Chapter 6. Today, I’ll continue with Chapter 7.
Do You Believe in Magic? is book 1 of a middle-grade portal/epic fantasy series titled Dark Circles. Though it is appropriate for ages 13 and older, I’m finding that readers younger than 13 are enjoying it too. But I believe adults will like this exciting adventure as much as teens.
Here is a brief synopsis: A grieving boy moves to his grandparents' farm in Upstate South Carolina where he rediscovers his passion for life in a magical world hidden deep in the forest.
Below are the opening paragraphs of Chapter 7. My author’s breakdown follows this short segment.
Context: In Chapter 6, Charlie, Blue (the white Lab), Zola, and Virgil discover a cave at the base of a magical waterfall. Inside the cave is a glowing portal. Blue enters first. A few minutes later, Zola and Virgil also enter. Charlie goes last. All of them are transported to a fantasy world. But at different places. Blue is gone. Zola and Virgil are together. But Charlie is on his own. Chapter 7 begins with the adventures of Zola and Virgil in the fantasy world.
CHAPTER 7 — ISLAND OF FEARS
Will wonders never cease?
Zola felt like she might faint when Virgil plunged headfirst into the waterfall. Had a demon possessed her best friend and made him brave? The Virgil she knew wouldn’t have dared such a thing. But brave or not, Virgil could hurt himself. She rushed to his rescue.
The water came up to her knees. She struggled to keep her footing on the slippery stone beneath the surface. When she reached the waterfall, she hesitated. It was powerful and intimidating. Not only could Virgil get hurt, so could she. Even worse, her claustrophobia kicked into gear. She had no desire to enter a cave of any kind. But her concern for her friend overcame her fear. It was now or never. She lowered her head, punched through the violent downpour, and fell onto smooth rock.
Zola crawled until she was fully inside a dark yet sparkly cave. She cast her backpack aside. Virgil sat on his butt about ten feet in front of her, his backpack already off.
“Virgil? Are you okay?” she said. Her friend didn’t answer.
She heard a commotion behind her and then Blue trotted past, his toenails clicking on the stone like a chorus of snapping fingers. He paused to shake a torrent of dog-smelling water on her face before proceeding even deeper into the cave toward a glowing light at its far end. Charlie’s dog moved fast!
“Blue!” She crawled past Virgil. Her friend was in a trance, but she didn’t pay him much attention. Her concern for the Lab drove her. She remembered Charlie’s story all too well and didn’t want a repeat of what happened before.
The cave narrowed until it became a rounded tunnel ablaze with light. Charlie was right! The scene was exactly as he described it, including glowing jewels in the rock that looked like they were worth millions. But her mind raced far too fast to give this further thought.
Her claustrophobia heightened, causing her to pause longer than she should have. But after about a minute, she summoned the courage to squeeze into the tunnel. The bright light hurt her eyes, and the humming made her thick hair float and dance. She crawled and crawled—until she tumbled out of the tunnel onto a bed of fluffy, white sand.
An ocean as blue as Charlie’s eyes appeared in front of her. She sat in the sand and stared. Where am I? How is this possible?
“Zola?”
This caught her by surprise, and she screamed as loud as a little girl on a roller coaster. Virgil sat beside her. He must have followed right behind her through the tunnel. But Charlie was nowhere to be seen. And neither was Blue.
“Where are we, Zola?”
Waves crashed about fifty feet away—gigantic waves like the kind you’d see in Hawaii, not on the beaches of South Carolina. Not that she was on a beach in South Carolina. The nearest one was a five-hour drive from Lowery.
“Where are we?”
The waves continued to crash.
“Zola!”
“What is it, Virgil?”
“You’re not talking to me.”
“What?”
“Zola!”
She got up on her knees and spun around. “What, Virgil? What? WHAT?”
He shrank before her. “I was just asking you where we are. Is there an ocean in Charlie’s backyard?”
She couldn’t seem to clear her mind. He was dazed too.
“Well, is there?”
“Is there what?”
“Is there an ocean in Charlie’s backyard? My mom and dad never told me about this.”
End of excerpt ……
Themes: Seeing is believing; the bonds of disbelief; survival of the fittest.
Between the lines: Renting a cabin in the mountains versus a condo on the beach are different vacation experiences. In a supernatural regard, going from the “real world” to a “fantasy world” would also be dramatically different. It’s not a coincidence that Charlie and the gang go from a forest (the real world) to an ocean (the fantasy world), with a waterfall (real/fantasy) serving as the conduit.
Writing tips: We’ve all been in situations that felt unreal. Maybe you unexpectedly came upon an extraordinarily beautiful place. Or you witnessed a terrible car accident. Maybe it’s the twilight confusion of waking up after a surgical procedure. Or it’s something as seemingly simple as a clear night sky teeming with stars. Experiencing these things and writing about them in a way that somehow generates the same kinds of emotions can be two different things. Stephen King is one of the all-time masters of pulling this off.
You walked down the hall, smelling wet plaster and rotting wallpaper, and mice would skitter in the walls. There would still be a lot of junk lying around, and you might pick something up, a paperweight maybe, and put it in your pocket. Then, at the end of the hall, instead of going through into the kitchen, you could turn left and go up the stairs, your feet gritting in the plaster dust which had sifted down from the ceiling over the years. There were fourteen steps, exactly fourteen. But the top one was smaller, out of proportion, as if it had been added to avoid the evil number. At the top of the stairs you stand on the landing, looking down the hall toward a closed door. And if you walk down the hall toward it, watching as if from outside yourself as the door gets closer and larger, you can reach out your hand and put it on the tarnished silver knob—
Excerpt from ‘Salem’s Lot by Stephen King
How does King do it? By blurring the line between reality and fantasy and challenging his characters’ understanding of the world around them.
How do I do it? By copying Stephen King. 🤣 No, just kidding! (Although I’m not entirely kidding. I’ve read just about every word King has written and have certainly been heavily influenced by his genius.)
I do it by carefully placing paragraphs within a scene that purposely slow things down and give the reader a chance to muse a bit.
Here is an excerpt from later in Chapter 7. In this scene, Zola—who is terrified of heights—has to climb a rope ladder on a towering escarpment to escape being attacked by monsters on the beach. While on the quivering ladder, her mind flashes back to a memory that has disturbed her for most of her life.
But oh boy, she was so scared that her mind bounded out of control. Unexpectedly, a memory from her early childhood took center stage. She stood inside an old wooden house with her adoptive parents. Her dad and mom talked to each other excitedly, using words like “potential” and “fixer upper.” She grew bored and wandered away, coming to the base of a steep set of stairs. Though part of her was wary, another felt compelled to see what was up there.
The stairs were so steep she had to crawl the last few steps. Her mom saw her and called for her to come down. But Zola, afraid she would fall, refused to come down on her own even after her mom got mad. For years afterward, Zola relived this scene as a recurrent dream, only in the dream it was her birth mother who was angry. She came to the revelation that her fear of heights had taken hold of her on that fateful day. Now, she clung to the ladder in a place even creepier than the old house.
Have I mentioned that I’m a fan of Stephen King? 🤣
More about the series: The cover of book 2 is complete—and I love it! Book 3’s cover is up next, though I won’t be needing it for a while yet. Look for Book 2 in late September of this year and Book 3 in January 2024.
Promotional notes: Do You Believe in Magic? is currently on promotion. The ebook has been discounted to $1.99. The paperback has been discounted to $8.99.
Journey with me through a magical world (Prologue)
Journey with me through a magical world (Chapter 1)
Journey with me through a magical world (Chapter 2)
Journey with me through a magical world (Chapter 3)
Journey with me through a magical world (Chapter 4)
Ha! That is a great point - kids versus adults and how they would handle it. Since there really are no such things as portals and magical worlds (at least not that I know of), the author has to make decisions about how much effort he or she puts into making it seem believable versus just telling a fun story.
And that would be awesome if King wrote that third book!!!
Speaking of King, I wrote the first draft of Do You Believe in Magic? several years ago, long before King's Fairy Tale came out. Turns out, his book has a teenager named Charlie and a dog who goes on adventures with him. But I have several people who read the first draft back then, so no one can accuse me of copying King. 😀
Enjoyed that Jim 👍🏼
Made me think of the start of Drawing of the Three with Roland waking on the beach.
Also been listening to the audiobook of The Talisman the last few days as King hinted in an interview that he was thinking of writing a third book in that series as Peter Straub had left him some ideas before he passed away
I remember King saying it was easier to transport kids between worlds as they can handle it much easier than old sensible adults who would probably just lose their minds!