Well, I couldn’t quite stay away from work over the holiday period and – despite the festivities – found myself sitting at my desk, cracking on with the second draft of Scream Street 10: Rampage of the Goblins (to be published here in the UK this Halloween, October 2010).  I finished last night and emailed the manuscript over to my editor for her comments.

With every Scream Street book I write, the plot becomes more involved as I made a conscious decision not to press what we writers like to call the ‘Big Red Reset Button’ at the end of each book and have everything go back to how it was at the top of page 1.  Everything that happens in a Scream Street adventure affects the next outing for Luke, Resus and Cleo and – with 9 books before this one – things are starting to get pretty complicated!

Of course, there’s no certainty that readers will pick up book 1 first and read through the series in order, so it’s quite a task to make each book follow on from those which have gone before, but also make each story readable as a standalone novel in case this is the first Scream Street you’ve ever chosen.  Dropping in what’s happened before and how the characters have come to be how they are is tricky – especially as I don’t want my readers to wade through pages of back story before they get to the action (nor would my editor allow me to do that!)

There will be 13 Scream Street books in all – and I’ve always known what will happen in the final chapter.  Creating the overall story arc for the series has been great fun, and I’ve dropped clues as to what will happen all along the way – many of which should only become apparent when you read those final pages.

I also spent some time over the last few weeks creating detailed synopses for the last three Scream Street books so that my editor and I can check that we’ve covered everything we wanted to include – and not get lost along the way.  It’s a strange feeling to be working on the end of the series already – 13 books seemed such a mammoth task back in 2007 when I signed the deal with Walker Books – but it’s come round very quickly.

However – even with the end of Scream Street now in sight – there’s still plenty more action to come from Luke, Resus and Cleo – and I’m enjoying every minute of writing the books!

Tommy

PS – and, yes, I do know what I’ll be writing next – I just can’t tell you yet!

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