by Marisa Montes
The Genres and Subplots: I retired from practicing law and writing law books in 1994 and began writing children's books fulltime. In 1996, I sold my first picture book, Juan Bobo Goes to Work, published by HarperCollins in fall 2000. In 1999, the fifth novel I wrote, Something Wicked's in Those Woods, was the first novel to sell.
In writing Something Wicked, I began with the two genres I love most—mysteries and the supernatural. Then, I did extensive research in parapsychology, and loosely based most of the incidents in the book on documented cases of paranormal activities. Finally, I added a subplot that deals with a topic in which I firmly believe: the importance of being proficient in the language of the country in which one lives. Like my mother, I feel that Hispanics who live in the United States must be fluent in speaking, as well as reading and writing, English. Since people, especially children, learn a language best when immersed in it, I feel strongly that the concept of "English as a second language" in the schools is a detriment rather than a benefit to Hispanics. When children are attending schools in the United States, English must be considered their first language. However, since I also believe that holding onto one's culture is vital to a person's self esteem, I think it is important to retain the ability to speak the language of one's origin, either by speaking it at home or by studying it in addition to English. My family and I have lived by, and succeeded through, this philosophy. My brother, sister, cousins, as well as myself, have all become fluent in English, and each of us has gone on to U.S. colleges, then to law schools, medical schools, or other post-graduate schools. Yet each of us was brought up in a Spanish-speaking home. Through my writing, I hope to bring this message to my readers.
Challenges During the Writing: I began writing Something Wicked in February 1997, and it took me three months to write the first draft. I have severe rheumatoid arthritis, and during this time that my health deteriorated drastically. I had to find ways to force myself to get to my office on a daily basis. One thing that kept me going was the commitment I made to work with my mentor Barbara Steiner for three months—that was the main reason I did it, since I had already learned a great deal from Barbara in the previous year, and she didn't think I needed her anymore. Every two weeks, I sent her 30 pages to critique. The other thing I did was to record each day of work, and the number of pages produced each day, on a schedule in my writing journal. I hated seeing a great big goose egg next to a date. That horrible schedule helped push me on.
I also wanted to enter my novel in the California Writer's Club Conference Contest. Since the contest only required the first 1,500 words of a novel, at the beginning of April, I submitted the novel to the CWC Contest. Then at the end of April, when I had just finished my first draft, my right knee gave out completely. I could put NO weight on it at all. And of course I could barely put weight on my left knee, so I couldn't hop. I was basically an invalid. I couldn't even get from my bed to the bathroom on my own—that had been the one thing I could accomplish daily, even on the worst days. My husband David worked in town, only ten minutes away, and had to come home very two hours to carry me to the bathroom. I went to my doctor and found out I needed a knee total replacement on BOTH knees! And the best orthopedic surgeon in the area had a three-month waiting list just for the first visit!!
It never occurred to me to stop writing. I simply had to do it from bed for a while. So I asked my critique group to meet in my bedroom so I could give them each a copy of my first draft. As luck would have it, the husband of one of my critique group members is a surgeon. That night he called his best friend, the orthopedic surgeon I wanted to see—I was in his office the next day. Still, I had to wait one more month for the surgery. My HMO had to approve the procedure, it had to be scheduled, a special extra-small prosthesis had to be obtained, and the earliest it could be done was June 10, 1997. The next surgery, on my left knee would be performed three months later—in September.
That last month before the first surgery, I stayed in bed and revised my first draft and kept reading. When my first revision was ready, I gave it to my critique group and sent it to Barbara. She had a few minor suggestions. I finished those in one weekend. My book was done! On the morning of the first surgery, I got a call from the California Writer's Club informing me that my book, the book I had just finished, had won First Place in their annual CWC Conference Contest. Would I prefer to receive a check or would I like to attend the conference free of charge? I informed the nice fellow that I would be in surgery that day and would probably remain in the hospital for another month, so could I please have the check?
How I Got the Ideas: Something Wicked's in Those Woods is a perfect example of how reading other people's work can influence the writing of another book: I had the idea for this book for about 7 or 8 years before actually beginning the first chapter. The germ of the idea grew from reading Zilpha Keatley Snyder's The Headless Cupid and its sequels. In that series, the youngest child, Blair, is an unusual child, very quiet and introspective. Although, Ms. Snyder never came out and said so, it appeared that Blair could communicate with ghosts, or at least one ghost—or maybe it was just an imaginary friend—the family (and the reader) never knew for sure. It occurred to me—wouldn't it be wonderfully creepy if ALL imaginary friends were really ghosts—that these special children could see and speak to and play with ghosts? Or maybe, if not ALL children, maybe just one child, one very unusual child . . .
Some years later, I read another book, Stonewords: A Ghost Story, by Pam Conrad. The story was about a girl who had a ghost friend, and she later wondered if the ghost had been real or imaginary. I was even more compelled to write a story about a child's imaginary friend/ghost friend story. When very young children have such a friend, adults immediately assume that the friend is imaginary. Therefore, if anyone were to suspect the truth, it had to be another child—one just a little older, a child who had a good reason to keep a close watch over the younger child's activities—a recently orphaned older brother.
Just before I put one word to paper, I read another book that influenced my story: The Art of Writing for Children: Skills and Techniques of the Craft, by Connie C. Epstein (Archon Books, 1991). For some reason, I started the book by reading Chapter 3, "The Setting." Although I'd already read many books on the craft of writing, something about the way Ms. Epstein explained the importance and the mechanics of "setting" made something click in my brain—I got it! I really understood what she meant, and I was eager to test out my newly found knowledge.
I began by writing Chapter One of my book. I'd always been impressed by how dramatic the differences in the climate on either side of the Caldecott Tunnel of Hwy 24 between Oakland and Orinda, California, can be. You can drive from the thick, dark fog of Oakland and the moment you come out the other side of the tunnel you're almost blinded by the brilliant Technicolor view. It reminded me of the beginning of the movie "The Wizard of Oz" when, right after her house lands in Oz and everything is still in black and white, Dorothy opens and steps into a Technicolor world. Of course, since in my story, setting had to affect Javi so deeply, it was almost on a physical level, Javi felt the oppression of the fog deep in his pores, then he felt the uplifting brilliance of the Orinda-side of the tunnel, and then again the heavy oppression of darkness when they drove up into the Orinda woods. From then on the woods are so ever-present and sinister that they take on the importance of a supporting character.
Without having read Ms. Epstein's book, I don't think I could have gotten as much depth and texture in my story. In fact, when my editor, Karen Grove, asked to see more or my book (I had sent her a query and the first few chapters) she mentioned in her letter that it was the setting that had intrigued her.
Before writing the rest of the book, I actually researched some of the phenomenon of the supernatural. I didn't just make up a ghost story with weird, arbitrary occurrences. I tried to base everything that occurs in this story on documented paranormal experiences and occurrences. All the information that Willo and Javi discover and make known to the reader about poltergeists and telekinesis and the supernatural was researched—I didn't make it up. Although the study of paranormal psychology is still suspect, there is such a discipline, and I didn't want to ignore it and just spout made-up nonsense. Another book that influenced me in writing this story I discovered when doing my research: Psychic Connections: A Journey into the Mysterious World of PSI, by Lois Duncan and William Roll, PhD. (Delacorte, 1995).