Another trope, another dollar

One of the things I do differently (from the real SVT Super Chillers) in my plots is that Elizabeth still has to bail her twin out, even when the events are supernatural. Like, in SVT, they must've decided that Elizabeth always bailed Jessica out/ tried to rescue her anyway, so let's switch it up and have Jessica, the irresponsible twin, have to save Elizabeth. This is prevalent in #3 The Carnival Ghost (Liz is controlled by evil ghost who makes her forget her twin... too bad it didn't take) and #9 Evil Elizabeth* (Liz wears a haunted mask that she found in a dog's mouth and it makes her more like Jessica, horrors! And since there can't be *two* Jessicas, Jessica has to save Elizabeth and make her be saintly again).
I guess it's more fun to have Jessica be the one haunted/ cursed/ whatever so I can point out that no matter how annoying Jessica becomes from this transformation, it's par for the course for Elizabeth. She will always want to save her bitchy annoying twin and make her "back to normal" even if "back to normal" is awful. Dolt.
So I pushed that even further by having Jessica be turned into a vampire. This happens in Books 4 and 5 (a two parter) which I haven't published yet. I re-read them recently and I really rather love them. They are humorous. But they deal with pubescent vampirism, so maybe that's weird. Like I took the sexiness out of vampirism completely (because I had to).
Also, all my books take place on Halloween, because that's the best time for spooky things to happen in books for 12-year-olds. Various SVT Super Chillers took place around Christmas (Super Chiller #1, #3), on Spring Break (#2, #6), and Mysterious Summer (before or after 6th grade? No One Knows)(Super Chiller #4, The Ghost in the Bell Tower, the one I've defaced the most and have 3 copies of, all defaced slightly differently)(Also Super Chiller #8, another camp story, even though there already was a camp story with Super Edition #3), and were not as scary. Like they weren't even trying.
Plus, having it always be Halloween is a comment on how many times they've had various holidays in this series, and how they've been going to 6th grade for 10 years. In fashion terms, they've gone from jumpsuits to Doc Martens. I usually pretend my books take place in the 90s rather than the late 80s because that's when I was reading SVT, mostly.

*Elizabeth didn't really turn evil - she didn't go on a killing spree or anything. She was just mean/ bitchy/ a punk.

Book #2: The Witch

The second book in my parody-series is inspired by book 3 in the Sweet Valley Twins series, The Haunted House (They could have called it The New Girl, but that was book *6*, with Brooke Dennis). It takes place during the first of many Halloweens in the series... (and it is creepy because Elizabeth and her friend Amy both dress as CLOWNS, AAAGH WHY). Nora Mercandy moves to Sweet Valley to live with her grandmother, who all the kids say is a witch because her house is run down and because they have nothing better to do (Internet hasn't been invented yet) than make up shit about a harmless old lady. They taunt Nora mercilessly, calling her a witch too (no originality). Especially the Unicorns, the club to which Jessica (the more annoying twin) belongs. This was in the beginning of the series when the Unicorns were meaner. 

At the end, it is revealed that Nora's grandfather is a retired magician who had a stroke, not a zombie as previously thought (these 12-year-olds are dumb/ horrible). And all is forgiven, even though all the kids treated Nora abominably and she would likely have some post-traumatic-stress to deal with. To which I say WHAT THE FUCK? (To add insult to injury, Nora's character was barely mentioned in later books. Although I think she did join the school newspaper with Elizabeth.) Clearly, this book's message was: Outcasts Deserve to be Taunted, and Will Roll Over and Take It.

So I wrote my own version, with my character Piper disguised as the new girl (with a new name, Fallon Morrison, just to be random) and she really was a witch BWA HA (hence the title... all of my titles are deceptively boring/vague, to conceal the madness inside). So she could get back at her tormentors (with her supernatural powers), especially snobby Lila of the entitled club.* Because that was much more interesting and a lot less annoying. In my story, Piper-the-new-girl's grandmother is a witch too, her grandfather is an evil sorcerer, and her boyfriend from Book 1, Tobey, appears too, as a demon. (I like demons as well as witches. Vampires are #3 on my list of supernatural creatures. Don't care about zombies, werewolves, or ghosts).
Also I put in an inside joke from "The Office" (US) because I love Creed Bratton. (Sometimes I think of actors when I write these characters, and then think, Stop That, Because You Can't Cast a Movie of a Book You Wrote That Isn't Even a Real Thing. I mean, you can, but it'll never happen. Creed would play Fallon's grandfather, and be awesome).

*Lila makes Nora be her slave, they actually use that word, which made me think, they wouldn't have done that with Maria Slater, the Only Black Character (who appeared many books later, in #50), but she was conveniently a former movie star so that made it okay for her to exist in Sweet Valley. Sweet Valley was super white for a California town... shouldn't there have been more Hispanic characters (who weren't just the help)? This was acceptable literature for kids in the late 80s, which makes me furious now. Rarr.

I dedicated this one to my childhood best friend. We used to play Witches when we were little.