Guest Post by Cliff McNish (Author of The Hunting Ground)

Back in January Cliff McNish wrote a short piece for The Book Zone about his then forthcoming book The Hunting Ground. Cliff has written some stunning YA books, and certainly deserves to be a household name by now. The Hunting Ground is no exception, and if you love really spooky, scare-your-pants-off ghost stories then this one is for you. Due to work pressures I have dropped behind a little with my reviews, so please watch this space as I will be posting my review for The Hunting Ground in the near future. In the meantime, over to Cliff.....

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When I wrote THE HUNTING ZONE I was really aware of a few things.

First, almost no one is writing what I would call genuinely frightening ghost stories of novel length for teenagers. Don’t get me wrong – ghost novels are being written, but the best of them tend to be fairly wistful mood-pieces like MY BROTHER’S GHOST by Allan Ahlberg – which is a wonderful piece about two brothers, one of whom dies (you’ll love it), but it’s a quiet contemplative piece. Nor do I have any objection to lighter ghost stories. There are loads of those – you know the type, where the ghost is more likely to go boo! from behind the fridge than scare anybody.

And there’s another point I’d like you to consider here – people THINK there are lots of ghost novels out there because they often appear as a secondary character in stories that are primarily not ghost stories. An example would be the minor characters Nearly Headless Nick/Moaning Myrtle (note they are funny ghosts again) in Harry Potter or, say, the creepy Victorian ghosts in the wardrobe in Coraline by Neil Gaiman.

But novels with a genuinely scary ghost at the heart of the story THAT ARE ANY GOOD are rarer than football books about kids secretly wanting to become ballerinas. The reason (having done two ghost novels now) is that ghost stories traditionally depend on suspense and tension, and it’s hard to sustain this over a novel. To combat that I turned both of mine into supernatural thrillers, with everyone being threatened with death.

Or worse than death, actually. One of the great things about a ghost novel, of course, is that as soon as you write something that supposes GHOSTS EXIST then automatically there must be an afterlife, a place where the dead, well, hang out. The really fascinating question for a writer or reader then is what is this place like? Is it like a traditional Heaven or Hell? Or something else?

In my last ghost novel BREATHE I wanted to create an absolutely terrifying afterlife place where you might end up – a region where you just get blown forever across a great plain by the wind, bits of your body slowly being destroyed. I called it the Nightmare Passage, and I’m pleased to say that many people remember that place more than anything else about the novel.

In my latest, THE HUNTING GROUND, I wanted to create another terrifying place, but this time one where the ghosts might trap the living. I came up with the East Wing – a huge part of a mansion house that is a labyrinth of similar rooms and corridors. You keep getting sucked in but you can’t get out – and it’s so dark you can’t see either. If you’re trapped in there all you can do is hold your nerve and try not to go crazy. I knew I needed a really strong boy to cope with that – so I created Elliott. But he’s not superhuman, he’s only a 16-year old boy who grits his teeth and gets on with doing what he has to do to survive and help his trapped brother.

It was obvious almost at once to me as well what sort of ghosts I was going to pit against Elliott and his younger brother, Ben. First, a male ghost of awesome power who exists only to terrify and hunt. He’s a classic bad guy, and I wanted him to be absolutely ice cold terrifying. But then what? As a contrast to him I knew what I needed – and I saw her right away in my mind. A little girl. A corrupted little ghost girl, bristling with terrifying power. Somehow it’s even more scary to wonder what a little girl might do if she can do almost anything to you, because she’s not going to think like an adult. She’s going to be more unpredictable, isn’t she? One minute she might want to play with you, the next she’s bored and dragging you to your death, and you can’t predict when that might happen. You end up talking to her very nicely, because you still think there’s a little girl in there you can appeal to – but is there? Or is she as bad as the male ghost who’s been developing her as his little protégé, his killer in waiting?

I very much enjoyed racking up the tension in THE HUNTING GROUND about as far as could. I hope you enjoy it.

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Huge thanks to Cliff for taking the time to write this great guest post for The Book Zone. I for one would love to see more chilling ghost stories published for young people, especially those who think horror is all about blood and gore. Yes, these elements might make you go yuck, and cringe a little, but that isn't real horror that chills you to the bone and has you jumping at every little bump and creak during the night. The Hunting Ground will definitely have this effect on you. Please come back tomorrow when I will be giving you details about how you can win a copy of The Hunting Ground.

Guest Post by Don Calame (Author of Swim The Fly)

Last Monday I posted my review of the hilarious Swim The Fly. Now the book's author Don Calame has kindly taken time out of his busy UK tour schedule to write this great guest post.

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Ideas and Inspiration

It’s the question you’re asked all the time at book readings: Where do you get your ideas from? Some writers will make a joke out of it and say they get their ideas from the Idea Depot on the corner near the grocery story. Other authors will say their ideas just come to them out of the ether. And yet others will try to avoid the question all together and change the subject.

The truth is, ideas for stories can come from anywhere. They can come from a news article that sparks your imagination in some way. They can come from an overheard conversation at the mall. Or from a song lyric that sticks in your head. From a funny story your friend tells you. Or a picture you see in a magazine.

In the case of my book, Swim the Fly, the idea came from something that actually happened to me.

For those of you who don’t know, Swim the Fly is the story of three fifteen year old boys who set a summertime goal of attempting to see a real-live naked girl for the very first time. Movies don’t count, magazines don’t count, the internet doesn’t count.

The goal proves quite difficult to achieve, especially considering none of the boys have ever had a girlfriend, and the three of them are the least athletic kids on the swim team.But believe it or not, the naked girl aspect of the novel was not the original germ of the story.

The swim team was.

When I was a teenager my mom would sign my sister and me up for the swimming team every summer. I was not a particularly strong swimmer (in fact, I have quite a few green fifth place ribbons to prove it) and I always chose to participate in the breaststroke events because I found the stroke the easiest.

One summer—when I was fifteen, coincidentally—my swim coach approached me and told me that, since our team’s butterflier had gone on to bigger and better things, I was to swim in the 100 yard butterfly event at our championship meet.

This absolutely terrified me. Partly because my swim coach was an imposing woman who you did not say no to. But mostly because I could not even complete a single lap of butterfly. Why she chose me to swim this event still baffles me to this day.

Anyway, I practiced and practiced the butterfly for the entire summer. As the championship meet approached, I was just barely able to complete four laps of butterfly without drowning.

On the day of the swim meet I stepped up onto the starter’s block and looked over at my competition. The only person I could see was this giant of a kid. He was the best swimmer in the entire league and he was enormous. Arnold Schwarzenegger enormous. With tree trunk legs, massive arms, and stone-cut muscles absolutely everywhere. I swear, this kid’s feet were ripped.

And here I am, this stick-skinny kid, a broomstick in a bathing suit, having to swim head-to-head with a gorilla.

Needless to say, I was terrified. And when the starter raised his pistol to signal the beginning of the race, I was hoping he would just lower the gun, point it at me, and put me out of my misery.

I’d written a very short piece about this incident at a writing workshop some time ago and promptly tucked it into a drawer. There it sat for several years until I’d decided (with some strong persuading by my wife) to write a humorous YA novel for boys.

I’d read over this two-page scribble and the seed for the book was planted.

And so, you see, ideas for stories can come from absolutely anywhere.

Even harrowing and embarrassing incidents from your teenagehood.

Maybe even ESPECIALLY from those times.

Book Cover Designs By My A Level Students

Most readers of The Book Zone and my followers on Twitter know that I am a teacher (or Assistant Headteacher if I’m showing off, but teacher is still the most important word in my job title). Many have assumed that because of my love of books I must therefore be an English teacher. Wrong. I teach Design Technology, which is a reply that tends to have me on the receiving end of blank, bored looks and can kill most conversations when I am asked what I teach. At GCSE Level and A Level I tend to specialise in delivering a course referred to as Graphic Products, which is possibly even harder to explain than Design Technology. The students I teach do a lot of work with Photoshop, and most of their practical work output is based around the design of things like perfume/aftershave bottles, gadgets, promotional material such as point of purchase displays and so on.

A couple of years ago, in their infinite wisdom, the exam boards changed their expectations for the A2 coursework, an extended project worth 60% of a Graphics student’s final year of studying the course. Whereas previously they had been ‘happy’ to accept projects that looked at all kinds of hypothetical design situations, they had become fed up with thousands of A Level students claiming they knew the head of design at Apple UK (or similar) and had been tasked by this person to redesign the ipod (or some other gadget). Instead, the exam board wanted students to work on more realistic projects with a real ‘client’. The first word that sprang to mind for my colleagues and me was “HELP!”, shortly followed by “Where on earth are our students going to find these clients?”.

And then I came up with my bright idea. I approached several aspiring authors that I had met through Twitter and asked if they would be interested in having a book cover and promotional material designed for their work-in-progress. To my greatest relief every one of them replied with a resounding “Yes please”. All they had to commit to was sending back feedback on the various stages of the project as it progressed, their thoughts on: research material; initial design ideas; developments and so on. Nothing particularly onerous, but their input was invaluable to helping these students complete the following projects (back covers have been cropped to protect the details of the authors’ works):

Ben for Liz de Jager
Ben designed and made a book cover and promotional point of purchase display for Liz’s Grimm Tales. Ben is a very talented artist, and his work reflects his skills in this area.

Alex for Sarah Bryars

Alex designed and made a book cover and promotional point of purchase display for Sarah’s Tattered. The photos do not do the display justice, with its sparkling LED lights.

Claudia for Lara Williamson

Claudia designed and made a book cover, slip case and promotional point of purchase display for Lara’s Haunting Grace, the display including a handmade tree and robin.

My huge thanks go to Liz, Sarah and Lara for the time they put in to writing this invaluable feedback for my students, all of whom have achieved good marks for their coursework.

In June we will have another cohort of students starting their A2 coursework, and following the success of this year I would be really keen to hear from any other aspiring authors who might be interested in helping us out. The project runs from June 2011 through to April 2012. All we would need from you is a commitment to giving feedback by email, and providing some details about your book such as themes, imagery and characters. I cannot guarantee that the students will produce work of this quality every time. Neither can I make any promises as to the quality of communication that they will engage in with you. They are after all teenagers, and much as I enjoy teaching them teenagers are not always the most reliable of young people. However, I am sure Lara will not mind me quoting her from an email she wrote to me about working with Claudia at the end of the project: “…. it has been a complete and utter pleasure. She was totally professional, hard working and carried out everything to a high standard. She is a credit to both herself and your school. I loved what she did and it was impressive considering she hasn't read the book.”

If you are interested in helping us out then please contact me at bookzone4boys (at) gmail (dot) com. Unfortunately if I have a lot of replies we will not be able to use everyone as we only have sixteen students in the group, some of whom will have their own ‘clients’ and ideas as to the project they choose to do.