Mailbag #1: Your questions answered...

written by Betsy Flak on 2017-11-16

In this first installment of the mailbag, I'll answer a few of the most common questions from readers.

Where did you get the idea for The Clan-Vampire Clash book series?

A few places. First, I've always loved vampires, starting from when I first watched Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel and continuing through Twilight and Vampire Diaries. So that's where the vampires come from, for the most part.

Secondly, my mom always tells me "write what you know." Well, I can't say that I know much about hunting vampires, but I do know high school--or at least I remember it well enough. Combine that with modern technology and you get the basic premise: what if modern teens fought vampires?

From there, it's inspiration from a variety of sources, whether that be books, movies, TV, my own life, or even dreams. In a nutshell, I'd say The Clan-Vampire Clash is "Twilight meets Harry Potter with a dash of Game of Thrones".

How many books will there be in The Clan-Vampire Clash book series? Can you explain which books you have coming out next and in what order?

This is a funny one. In my original plans, I thought The Clan-Vampire Clash would be a trilogy, starting with Lila's sophomore year in high school and ending when she graduates at the end of senior year, with one book per year. By the time I finished the rough draft for year one, it was clear that Lila's sophomore year needed to be two books with the sheer amount of stuff going on. So then I planned the series as six books, one for each semester.

Now that I'm most of the way through editing book 1 (what has been titled An Uncertain Death, though that will change), it looks like I'll split Lila's first semester into three smaller books of around 200 pages each instead one big one around 600 pages. This way, I can get hungry readers new installments faster. Instead of publishing one big book per year (and then readers waiting an entire year for the next one), I'll publish a smaller book about once every four months. I'll still package the larger books together for those who want to read one big book instead of three smaller ones (i.e. cover the whole semester at once instead of in pieces). It also works well for my style of writing since I tend to have large time jumps between parts.

And now that the explain-y bit is over, I can answer the questions. The current plan for The Clan-Vampire Clash book series is to publish 18 books of about 200 pages each. This is in addition to the two stand-alone prequels (The Unleashed Creation and The Impossible Creation) and in addition to the entire Meet Your Misadventure series (a choose-your-own-adventure-type of series set in the same world as The Clan-Vampire Clash).

The next books to come out will be the three books corresponding to Lila's first semester of her sophomore year (what was entitled An Uncertain Death but will be retitled soon). They're planned to be released in 2018. I also hope to add another installment to the Meet Your Misadventure interactive series. Since I'm prioritizing the main series of The Clan-Vampire Clash, I'm not sure if I'll add to the Meet Your Misadventure series in 2018, but I hope to.

Has the whole The Clan-Vampire Clash book series been planned out in advance or are you making it up as you go along?

Haha, NO. Lol. I'm not what people call a "pantser" (someone who likes to write by the seat of their pants) AT ALL. In fact, I have several outlines: one for the entire series, one for each semester, and then one for each book. That said, there's quite a bit of freedom for my characters to deviate from their planned paths while I'm writing the rough drafts. But there are certain things that must happen. And those are the ones that are written in the outlines.

And that's it for now! Tune in next time for more questions and answers.