I always knew I wanted the twins (and their brother Steven) to deal with a witch. I like witches. They was never really a witch in Sweet Valley Twins, though. Unless you count the fairy tale witch in Elizabeth's very linear dream in The Class Trip, Super Edition #1. Noted because she wasn't even dreaming... she had gotten knocked unconscious. But, a nice fantasy dream sequence would be okay for younger readers, the author/ghostwriter must have supposed. Snort. (NEVER MIND THE POSSIBLE BRAIN DAMAGE... and the fact the Amy Sutton must have a SUPER head, because Elizabeth bumped her head on AMY'S head and Amy didn't get knocked out too[!!??]).
Here's the cover image for that book, which conveys"field trip" but not so much "random fantasy sequence" (also, either the twins switched their usual hairstyles or Elizabeth decided to be mistaken for a Unicorn by wearing tons of purple):
There were ghosts in the other Super Chillers, so why not a witch? And by witch, I mean a fantasy-person with magical powers, not a Wiccan. Jessica and Elizabeth at age 12 wouldn't know what to do with a Wiccan. (The Unicorns would probably make fun of a Wiccan, and Elizabeth would befriend her out of pity, but be a little bit scared of her... or condescending, "Magic isn't real," FU*).
Anyway, supernatural powers are more fun in this instance. Because we're all 12 and shit (or were, back in the day).
I reference some of the real Sweet Valley Twins books in The Babysitter:
- #15 The Older Boy, in which Jessica (age 12) goes on a date with a HIGH SCHOOL JUNIOR and doesn't get forced into sex because the book is for 10-year-olds (how handy);
- #54 The Big Party Weekend, in which their parents go on a trip and leave them with a strict older woman, who they immediately hate and play tricks on, and eventually have a wild party (because all 12-year-olds should be horrible to their elders... that's what all the cool kids do);
- and Magna Edition #3, Big For Christmas (basically the movie "Big," Sweet Valley Twins style). That last one is important because it sets up my character Piper's backstory, and reason for wanting revenge. (It couldn't be because I personally found them, and their series, annoying. That would be too meta. Although I did consider it).
So, it helps if you remember reading these when you were younger. My books are essentially for women in their 30s who either liked or hated (or both) Sweet Valley Twins books as kids. But I market them as kids books... because they're parodies of kids books. No blatant sexuality or violence; everything is (mostly) like it was in Sweet Valley Twins. But lots of dark humor, natch, that would be better appreciated by adults. (It's kind of weird that my first 3 books are showing up on kids' books/reading sites. Like, whoops. I keep setting the reader age as 13 and up.)
I also reference the miniseries The Frightening Four (SVT #97-100), which was scary (intermittently, and painfully unfunny/boring all the other times) for three books and then ended with *another* instance of Halloween (Halloween #4, by my count), and the ending made no sense, like the ghostwriter just gave up. Suddenly the "villain" of the story wasn't supernatural, even though we thought she was for three books previous (and even though we've dealt with supernatural elements in other books [see ALL the Super Chillers], so that would have been permissible??), and also, if it was twenty-five years later, wouldn't she be 33 instead of a girl?? Or at least 33 and not still the same size to fit in the same raggedy nightgown. Since she's revealed to be (DUMB SPOILERS) a real person and not a Freddy Krueger-type dream-invading monster. Lame. (That was about when I stopped reading these books "seriously" because I felt like I was too old for them. You insulted my intelligence, SVT. I also wrote a scathing review on Amazon in the early noughts that somehow got lost in the early internet abyss). Oh also, the non-monster girl (the "non-sequitur" girl, cos she was so random, haha) wanted "revenge" on the twins' mom, Mrs. Wakefield, for something that happened back when Mrs. W was 12 (referred to as Alice Wakefield even though she was 12 and not married yet... ALICE ROBERTSON, WE KNOW HER MAIDEN NAME from other books)... so naturally she went after the twins, who had nothing to do with it seeing as how they weren't born yet. Um, that's not how it works. (The supposed "backstory" addressing this just popped up incidentally.)
I wanted to make a story that was scary (well, scary in Sweet Valley world, which means scary at a Fourth Grade reading level) and ACTUALLY MADE SENSE. (Well, mostly. If you have any issues with Book 1's magic "rules," just chalk it up to lazy ghostwriting, a hallmark of the original series).
If you're interested, you can buy this book using the links at right. Createspace for paperbacks and Amazon for Kindle (the Kindle versions are cheaper). Summaries/ blog entries of the other two books (and the ones after that, if I decide to publish them) to follow.
*well magic isn't real but witchcraft is the use of natural forces to effect change in one's life... bitch (calling Liz a bitch, not you)
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