By Michelle Pitcher
Editor-in-Chief

Coppell resident and mother Ellie James* awoke from a vivid dream one night and was struck by inspiration. She knew immediately she had just stumbled upon her next great adventure as an author.

With the enormous success of books like The Hunger Games, Twilight and novels by John Green, the audience for Young Adult (YA) fiction has grown exponentially in the past decade. James, who had previously published 22 novels in the adult fiction genre, decided to foray into this new frontier. She recently published the third installment of her YA suspense trilogy Midnight Dragonfly.

The trilogy chronicles the adventures of a 16-year-old psychic living in New Orleans. The opening scene of the first book, The Shattered Dreams, which depicts a group of teenagers breaking into a purportedly haunted mansion, is almost exactly the scene James witnessed in her dream.

“When I sat down to write the proposal for the book after I had the dream, I didn’t have a formula I was following,” James said. “I really didn’t know what I was going to do with it. I was just writing what I was seeing. It was very intense to me.”

James, who was writing short stories and novels while still in high school, grew up in Baton Rouge and attended Louisiana State University, majoring in journalism. She then went on to pursue a career in market research, a job that brought her to Coppell 20 years ago.

“I had a corporate job; I wore suits to work,” James said. “Whenever I was on an airplane and I would read a book or watch a movie, I would rewrite the ending in my mind. I was constantly coming up with stories, and after a while I started writing them down. When my first book sold, I realized I wanted to leave the corporate world and pursue a career in writing.”

About 12 years and 25 published books later, James is still taking chances with her writing. Before the publication of her YA trilogy, James wrote exclusively suspenseful adult mysteries. The hardest part about her transition, she says, was not coming up with the idea; the hardest part for James, who has a 9-year-old daughter and 4-year-old son, was to quit thinking like a mom.

“I had a hard time getting into the mindset of a brave teenage girl,” James said. “My first instinct would always be to call the police, but my editor would have to remind me that my characters would take action. I had to teach myself to quit protecting her.”

The transition from adult novels to YA fiction has not only challenged James’ writing style, but it has introduced her to an entirely new readership as well. Around the time James published her first YA novel, social media were beginning to take the world by storm. The change, she says, has made all the difference.

“The experience with these books has been so different because social media has changed everything,” James said. “Suddenly there is a much louder platform for readers to talk about books and writers to interact with readers. Everything is so much tenser now than it was ten years ago. It’s forcing me to do a lot of growing up.”

James’ Facebook page has provided her with the opportunity for direct contact with readers. Several of her fans post feedback on the wall, and James does her best to respond to all of her feedback.

“I just finished, Broken Illusions,” reader Terri Coleman said. “My mind is racing. I keep retracing my readings. I am so crazy about this trilogy. I am dying to get my hands on Fragile Darkness. My breath was simply taken away.”

Before she had contact with fans via social media, James sought out a teen writer who could serve as a mediator and give her insight as to how teenagers today think and talk. James contacted the coordinators of the Coppell Gifted Association writing competition, and they led her to senior Aimee Hyndman.

“I got to read the manuscript of [James’] books before they were published,” Hyndman said. “She wanted to be completely sure she was representing the teenage voice well.”

The experience was good for Hyndman, who is an aspiring writer herself. While she plans to major in creative writing in college, she looks to pursue a career in editing or publishing while continuing to write in her spare time. Hyndman, like James, believes that there is a lot of potential for the YA genre, although she refers to the market as “crowded.”

“I definitely think YA is a more popular genre right now,” Hyndman said. “I think I’ll stick with it because there are a lot of tropes and themes that I like to cover with teenage characters and young adults. I do think I’ll try to transition more to adult stuff as I get older. I like to sample in every genre.”

James’ editor has advised her to stick with YA thrillers as she moves forward. The market for this type of book, however, is difficult to predict. The market seems to center around one series at a time, typically those that are to be made into movie adaptations.

James points out the difficulty book stores have predicting the popularity of a book or series. Stores tend to feature popular authors, but those franchises take up shelf space that could go to new authors.

“There are a ton of good books out there that come and go,” James said. “People give so much attention to trendy books that they ignore all of the other material out there.”

Despite the arduous search for “discoverability,” James says that any young authors who are looking to enter the market should pursue their goal with all of their passion.

“My biggest piece of advice is to do it and follow your gut,” James said. “Believe in your ability, and don’t let anybody tell you what you can’t do. The things you feel most passionately about are the ones that are most compelling when they come out.”

*Name used is author’s pen name