Students at Sterling Middle School got writing tips, learned about the process to get a book published and were treated to some inside information about the latest book author Stephanie Douglas is working on, Wednesday when the author spent the day at the school.
Douglas is the author of “Callasandra Fractured,” a young dystopian novel about a 16-year-old girl named Cassi who, when disaster hits and a dark family secret is revealed, must come to terms with the terrible realization that nothing is as it seems. A dangerous secret and enemies everywhere, Cassi becomes Callasandra and must find the strength and courage to fight for her life and the ones she loves.
SMS eighth graders have been reading and studying the novel for their curriculum selection of the dystopian genre. Eighth grade language arts teacher Marybeth Skerjanec emailed Douglas questions related to the novel with the small hope of Douglas or staff answering and after many correspondences between the two, Douglas thought it would be quite an experience to meet the students.
Her visit to SMS, which was funded by the RE-1 Valley Foundation, Inc., included small group discussions with each eighth grade class, a full grade level presentation and lunch with language arts teachers.
During one small group session, she spoke about letting your creativity show, sharing that her creativity has been positively and not so positively received depending on the people she works with and is interacting with. She told the students there were times in the past that she used to hide her creativity and quirkiness, but finally she decided to just be herself in every setting and encouraged them to do the same.
She also brought up the importance of reading and encouraged the students to always make time to read.
In answering questions from some of the budding writers, she spoke about how she deals with writer’s block sharing that is something that happened to her multiple times when she was writing her book. She said it usually happens because the thing she’s thinking about is too big, “you have to kind of come in and see what is it that your writing,” Douglas told the students, explaining that when she broke it down and looked at what specific characters, like the leadership, for example, would want, that helped her be able to continue to write.
She also told the students that when they’re writing and they have a plot point there will likely be several different ways to get from point A to point B and if they don’t like the path they’ve chosen to get from one point to the next it’s okay to go back and pick a different option.
“There’s not a great risk of picking the wrong way to get there. I think sometimes we can put a lot of pressure on our self that this has to be perfect and I think sometimes it’s okay if there are imperfections, because also as you’re going through the editing process after, you’re going to clean it up and if there are holes you can fill those,” Douglas said.
Students also asked about character development, how she decided to make Cassi and her sister, Haley, twins, and why another character, Rainia, was in the story. Douglas said Raina was based on her experience when she was in the seventh grade and was bullied terribly by a girl who in sixth grade had been her friend, the bullying came out of nowhere and lasted for two years. That girl had the same kind of arrogance as Raina does in the book.
“I think having that friend that I had had all through elementary school go through a summer and have a completely different experience with her, the only thing that my brain could really come up with is there must have been some event in her life that made the switch. It may have had nothing to do with me, it’s very likely it had nothing to do with me or it could have had to do with me, I don’t know the answer to that question, but in the story, I think she really represents the pressure that all of these students feel to stay on top of it,” Douglas said.
The author got inspiration from other things too.
For instance, the sex trafficking part of the book came as a result of her getting jury duty when she was just beginning to write the book. The case involved a woman with a five-year-old daughter who was forced into prostitution by a man who at first seemed to be her friend, but then drove her away from her home, took everything she had – phone, driver’s license, clothes – and then threatened that he knew where she lived and would harm her daughter if she didn’t do what he wanted.
That experience helped Douglas write the helpless feeling that Cassi and other characters in the book had as they had someone else making decisions for them.
Douglas was also inspired by her time going to school in Seattle and learning about a large fire that occurred there in the early 1900s. After the city was burned down prostitutes contributed the funding to rebuild the city and they became heroes, something she tried to mimic in the book.
In addition to asking questions, students also shared their book report mobiles with the author. The students were tasked with choosing 10 symbols and characters that they felt were important to the book and providing support for why they choose them. While most students stuck to the mobiles, one made a movie poster for the book and another created a small trunk filled with outfits that Cassi wore in different parts of the book.
Douglas was very impressed with all of the projects, telling the students, “I love that, that’s excellent” and “that’s unbelievable.”
Along with the writing process, students also learned about how to get a book published. As a first-time writer, her book felt a little risky for publishers, but she didn’t want to give up, so Douglas self-published on Amazon Kindle and hired an artist to do the cover artwork. The book has done so well that she now has about three agents she’s currently working with to finalize who she wants to use for her second and third books in the “Callasandra” series and perhaps eventually a movie.
“I really see this book and this series as a movie, I feel like they are very visual, so my goal is to not just only publish but to turn it into a film,” Douglas said.
The manuscript for her second book is already finished and she is just working on completing the music that will be placed within the book via QR codes like was done with the first book.
Douglas shared some insight into the second book, which will be set in a different location. Cassi is again the main character, but readers will see a lot more of Haley too, and will be introduced to some new characters as well.
“There are some really, really fun characters and I’m really excited for this book, it’s like a totally different world,” the author said.
If you are interested in reading her first book, Douglas has made “Callasandra Fractured” free to download on Kindle through Jan. 15, so that “everyone can own their own copy.”
