GUEST POST - Shiny Happy Horror: Why YA? Why Me? by Clay McLeod Chapman

Clay McLeod Chapman is one of my OG horror lit friends. We connected on social media, and he was kind enough to help me launch The Scares That Shaped Us last year. Now, in honor of his YA fiction debut with Shiny Happy People, I'm pleased to offer Clay's thoughts as he takes the leap to young adult horror, and what he hopes his new book will offer readers.

Time to shine, people… Don’t ask me how, but some publisher in their infinite wisdom thought it would be a wise idea to allow me to write a novel for younger readers.

Now I’m not one to look a gift horse in the mouth… Who am I to say no to an opportunity when it presents itself, particularly one as wild as this?

Hell yeah, I said yes. The result is a sci-fi horror pastiche of the body snatcher trope, targeting teens in our present social media era. Think Invasion of the Snapchatters.

What’s it called?

SHINY HAPPY PEOPLE.

The placeholder title—because I’m shitty with titles—was POD. As in pod people. Obviously. Folks felt it was bland, but I liked it. My editor kept thinking of podcast, so she nixed it. I countered with “well, why don’t we call it Shiny Happy Pod People?” It was meant as a joke… but guess what? It stuck. Most of it.

I’m not really anybody, but over the last few years I’ve been slowly carving away at a career, where I get to tell stories that tend to land on the off-kilter end of the literary spectrum. My stuff is horror, for sure, these stories rutting around in the genre like piglets.

Things I’ve been told about my material: It’s gross. It’s weird. It’s messed up. It’s bad.

No argument there.

So… imagine my surprise when I was first approached to write for younger readers. Teens, to be exact. My first reaction was—Heck yeah!

My second?

Should I be allowed to do this?

Why was I so worried about whether or not I was “allowed” to be writing for a specific age-range? I don’t know why, but I felt like someone somewhere along the way would eventually pipe up and say that this was crossing some kind of ethical line.

I guess I still am. Waiting.

Breath held over here.

We’ll see.

I don’t think I’m breaking any laws of decency or upsetting the apple cart of morality too-too much, but I’ve wondered if it’s appropriate for a fella like me to be allowed to write stories for an audience that still (in theory) needs a wee bit of gatekeeping on what it reads.

What’s the target audience we’re talking about here?

Twelve and up, apparently.

Okay, so… what was I reading when I was twelve? What were you reading?

For me, it was Stephen King.

Night Shift, to be exact. Then came Skeleton Crew quickly on its heels. I have the distinct memory of having King's collections open in my lap, buried beneath my desk, during 7^th grade English class. Whatever my teacher was speaking about up at the chalkboard wasn’t nearly as compelling as the horror show below my desktop, concealed by my arms.

Should I be reading Stephen King at twelve? Weren’t we all reading him then, anyway? What was stopping us?

I do remember the first time my parents discovered Stephen on my bookshelves. It was like sneaking a pack of cigarettes into our house. I had broken some kind of rule by reaching for the unreachable. But even more than that… I had done something unthinkable: I chose darkness. I chose the shadows over light as a form of entertainment.

I chose horror. A child.

Horror books have always had a bit of forbidden fruit vibes to them, if you ask me. When we’re younger, first trying to figure out what we want to read on our own time and on our own dime, horror seems to always be out of reach, dangling from the highest branch, where we can’t grab hold of it. But that just makes us want it—desire it—more. It did for me.

So here comes YA, a category that suggests a certain level of safety when it comes to what readers should expect… Right? What are we told about this particular category?

There will be less sex? Less violence? Less swear words?

Um… Have you read a YA book recently? Sweet Jesus, lord above, there’s some YA out there that out-does a hell of a lot of adult horror!

Have you read The Taking of Jake Livingston by Ryan Douglass? She Is A Haunting by Trang Thanh Tran? The Honeys by Ryan La Sala? My Dearest Darkest by Kiersten White?

These books blow the YA moniker right off the bookshelf!  What’s protecting our kids from these books? Nothing, that’s what. Nothing at all… and our young readers are so much better off for it. As a matter of fact, as an adult reader, I find myself gravitating more towards YA these days, because there are so many amazing, terrifying books just waiting for me to read: Adam Cesare’s Clown in a Cornfield series. Wilder Girls by Rory Power. The Lake House by Sarah Beth Durst. So many. Too many.

I don’t know “if” I should be allowed to write for younger audiences. I don’t know if anyone is really asking this particular question other than myself. All I know is the line that divides YA from adult horror is as thin as a bookshelf at Barnes & Noble. One novel goes here, another goes over there… but it’s all the same readership. You. Whoever you are.

Shiny Happy People is available November 11 from Delacorte Press.