Journey with me through a magical world (Chapter 10 | Book 2)
The 11th excerpt (including prologue) from "Do You Believe in Monsters?"
Every Friday, I will send you the opening paragraphs from a chapter of Do You Believe in Monsters?. Then I’ll break down the excerpt with comments about context, themes, and conflict. Finally, I’ll include writing tips.
In mid-October, I finished book 1 with an excerpt from its Epilogue. I have now restarted the process with book 2, starting with the Prologue. Last week, I featured Chapter 9.
DARK CIRCLES (teen fantasy adventure series)
Book 1: Do You Believe in Magic? (debuted May 25)
Book 2: Do You Believe in Monsters? (debuted Oct. 30)
Book 3: Do You Believe in Miracles? (coming March 2024)
Though both books are appropriate for ages 13 and older, I’m finding that readers younger than 13—and many who are a lot older than 13—are enjoying my series.
Here is a brief synopsis of book 2: When Charlie Magus enters a fantastical world hidden deep in the forest, his life is turned upside down. The timid 13-year-old transforms into a powerful wizard wielding formidable powers.
Below are the opening paragraphs of Chapter 10 of book 2. My author’s breakdown follows this short segment.
Context: Charlie and his friends spend the night in a wilderness village. Charlie is reunited with his dog Blue, who brings along a pitbull named Killer who turns out to be anything but.
CHAPTER 10 | THE GRASSLANDS
The three boys shared one hut.
They lay upon beds of pampas plumes and succumbed to exhaustion. Virgil fell asleep cradling his backpack against his chest. Garrick snored. Charlie slept without fear or dreams. Maybe he couldn’t control the passage of time but sleep sure could. The night zipped by in a flash.
Voices outside the hut woke him, and he sat up with a gasp. The hut was empty. Why was he the one who slept later than everyone else?
He stumbled outside into blinding sunlight. The Dvi had returned to what he considered normal, and they were rushing about performing a variety of tasks. Charlie started forward, but something huge crashed into him, almost knocking him off his feet. Charlie staggered, then shouted with glee.
“BLUE!!!”
His loyal dog had returned to Pacchann and somehow found him.
“Blue! Blue! Blue!” he shouted. “Good boy! GOOD BOY!”
Smile!
Charlie turned toward the voice. It was Zola holding her phone and taking his picture with Blue.
“There’s no signal, of course, but the camera seems to work,” Zola said. “If we ever need proof that Pacchann is real, we’ll have it. I’ve already taken about 50 photos of the Dvi and their village. And there were even some strange-looking animals feeding on the flowers near the pampas grass.” She showed him a photo of a goat with green horns standing next to what looked like a toothy groundhog.
“I saw those the last time I was here,” Charlie said.
“They were cute!” Zola said. Her expression grew sheepish. “I hope that’s not what we ate last night.”
Virgil stomped over. “Speaking of cute, you’ve got to come see this, Charlie!”
Garrick shouted at them from across the field. “Hurry up! You’ve got to eat something quick and get moving. We’re already running late.”
“Yes sir!” Virgil saluted. “Quick Charlie, come look. You won’t believe it!”
Blue barked once extremely loud as if confirming that what Virgil wanted to show him was important. The Lab charged out of sight behind one of the larger huts.
Charlie followed. What he saw astonished him. Rolling playfully on his back in the flowers was a giant-sized version of Gord’s pitbull. The dog wasn’t as big as a horse like Blue, but he was about the size of a fully grown black bear.
“It’s Killer!” Zola said. “Isn’t that what Gord called him back in the cave? He came here with Blue. But he’s no killer. He’s just as friendly as Blue! Apparently, he just needed affection.”
When Killer saw Charlie, he leaped up and ran to him. Charlie backed up a step, but Zola stopped him with her hand.
“Let him sniff you and it’ll be fine.”
Charlie held out his open palm. Killer sniffed and his tail wagged excitedly. Then he pounced on Charlie’s shoulders and licked his face.
“Who would have thought this possible?” Charlie spluttered.
“Since you have Blue, can I have Killer as my dog?” Virgil said.
Charlie wiped his soggy face with his forearm. “Sounds great to me! And Zola can have the goat.”
“Funny!” she said.
Garrick stood next to them. “Enough play! Let’s get moving. We have a long march ahead of us and need to reach the western border of the forest before midnight. We’ll rest there until dawn. After that, it will take us a full day to walk all the way through Pa Cha Ray. Believe me, we won’t want to still be in that forest after dark tomorrow night.”
End of excerpt.
Themes: Fantastical characters; the quest; loyalty.
Between the lines: Over time, writers develop an almost innate sense of when they’ve drifted too far in the directions of happy-happy or doom and gloom. For example, my series started off with a really nice dog and a really mean dog. But the really mean dog became a bummer to me, so I figured out a way to make both dogs nice. This helped to relieve some tension that was, frankly, going nowhere. I hope you dogs lovers out there will agree I did the right thing …
Writing tips: … That said, the deeper authors enter into a multi-book series, the more important it becomes for them to remain true to the habits, behaviors, and physical descriptions of their characters. Think of it as a sitcom. The goofy guy who always spills his drink spills it on the next episode too. He doesn’t suddenly become Mr. Suave.
This doesn’t mean characters can’t evolve. Heck, one of my dogs did! But if they do evolve, it should be plausible and important to the narrative. It also doesn’t hurt to lay subtle hints early on that change is likely to occur.
Past episodes of Book 2 (Do You Believe in Monsters?)
Prologue | Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 3 | Chapter 4 | Chapter 5 | Chapter 6 | Chapter 7 | Chapter 8 | Chapter 9
Past episodes of Book 1 (Do You Believe in Magic?)
Prologue | Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 3 | Chapter 4 | Chapter 5 | Chapter 6 | Chapter 7 | Chapter 8 | Chapter 9 | Chapter 10 | Chapter 11 | Chapter 12 | Chapter 13 | Chapter 14 | Chapter 15 | Chapter 16 | Chapter 17 | Epilogue
Promotional notes
I haven’t done an official book signing in a while, but this past Saturday I appeared at the Southern Author Expo in Greenville, S.C. Though I only sold seventeen books (disappointing, to be sure), I did meet a lot of nice people and gave away a ton of free bookmarks. 😀
Do You Believe in Magic? was named November Book of the Month in BEST FANTASY by Many Books, a popular promotional site that was founded in 2004.
The ebook and paperback versions of books 1 and 2 can be purchased at this link.
As of Jan. 25, I’ve written almost 95,000 words of the first draft of book 3 titled Do You Believe in Miracles?. I was aiming for a late February release, but realistically it will be closer to late March. Book 3 is coming along beautifully, but it is testing my mettle.
All told, more than 7,800 copies of books 1 and 2 have been purchased, with more than 33,000 pages read on Kindle Edition Normalized Pages (KENP). Like all self-published authors, I’m still hoping for more ratings and reviews.