And now for something completely different...

No, I haven't given up on Dr. Jeremiah.  He's still out there in space, trying to make his way back to Earth.  And I'm still writing, still publishing one every month.

(Book 3 will be out in two and a half weeks, and I'm close to finishing the first draft of Book 4.)

At the same time, though, I'm trying to develop a YA series probably called "The Dreamtravel Chronicles" and I want to waste your time by sharing the frustrations I'm having with figuring out the first book.

I won't go into details about the setup of the series.  Basically, a group of six teenagers find that at night when they sleep they are together in another place and they wind up having to fight various monsters/villains.

Here's my issue, at the moment.

I want the first novel to have a story that focuses more on the mystery of everything than on the specific enemy. I.e. what is happening, why are we here, how are we here, what does it mean, who is responsible, etc.

This means that the enemy (who will still have to take up the reins of actually driving the plot, despite not being the primary focus) needs to be something instantly understandable to both the audience and the characters. Something that we get right away, and know what they can do and what needs to be done to stop them. (The plot will require more thinking on the part of the heroes to put a stop to them as a group, but individually we want to instantly comprehend the nature of the physical threat.)

So, we are left with the classics. To wit, your vampires, your werewolves, your zombies. Stuff like that. But then where is the originality? (Besides in the premise of the series.) Where is the hook?

Vampires are easy, and lend themselves to any number of plots. A good choice, but overplayed in fiction. And a group of teens battling vampires rather brings to mind a certain TV series that enjoyed a fair popularity.

Werewolves? Trickier due to their traditional lack of subtlety and complexity as a foe. But doable. (Have to say I'm not in love with the idea of right away arming my kids with guns - for the silver bullets.)

How about zombies, then? Also overplayed at the moment, but always popular. And the "who created them?" conspiracy element is an easy one to make work. I can't help but feel that, as influenced as I am by Gena Showalter's "White Rabbit Chronicles", that if I use zombies I'll just end up skewing too close to her plots.

What else is there? Ghosts are recognizable, but the method of their defeat is not immediately intuitive. Aliens are too broad a spectrum for the same reason.

Something less classic, but still understandable? The revival of "Doctor Who" wisely used a classic foe called the Autons because their premise was so instantly relatable: shop window dummies come to life and become murderous. Good shout.

So is that the route I should go? You know: tree creatures - we get it, and we know that fire will destroy them. Fire creatures - makes sense, and we know that water will destroy them.

The structure of the novel is going to be built around the shape of the story that's determined by the nature of the enemy - and I need to figure that out before I can go any further in developing the book.

Anyway, that's where I'm at.  Just needed to get that down on "paper".