The result is the new young adult novel, “Where Wicked Starts,” released this September.
The novel, which is about a group of kids’ efforts to rescue a young girl they suspect is being held captive, is meant to inspire girls to follow their intuition, Henley said.
To celebrate the release, Henley and Stuckey-French will have a book launch from 7 to 9 p.m. today at the Runcible Spoon.
Henley credits John Grisham’s book, “Theodore Boone, Kid Lawyer,” as inspiration for their story.
“I loved how empowering it was,” Henley said in an email. “The kid in that story just goes ahead and tries to solve the mystery in this small town. And he does. I wanted to do that for girl characters.”
The choice of genre was deliberate.
“Being a teenager is such a wild ride, which makes it potent subject matter for fiction,” Stuckey-French said in an email. “Also, adults have their own problems and don’t pay enough attention to what teenagers are going through. We wanted to write about basically good kids getting in over their heads, and basically good parents who are distracted.”
Henley said she also wanted to write a mystery so that it would have a strong plot line “to pull the reader through the book.”
At times, Henley said, the process of writing a book can be exhausting.
“The first 50 pages are like falling in love,” Henley said. “It’s fairly easy. The middle is like crawling across a desert. A writer friend of mine once said that as you get close to the end you’re like a horse getting close to the barn.”
As far as developing the story line and mechanics of the book, Stuckley-French said “it’s a lot of time spent in your head, with your characters, trying things out, putting down words you later have to change.”
Though both authors have written previous works alone, they agreed that co-authoring lowers the stress that normally comes with writing a book.
“It’s much more fun, and the burden isn’t all on you,” Henley said. “We were able to brainstorm the plot together.”
For writers hoping to get published, Henley said practice and craft mastery is vital.
“As with any art, most writers spend many years practicing writing without publishing,” she said. “You gradually gain mastery and, if you’re lucky, someone will want to publish your book.”
