The Humble Beginnings

I’ve always been a storyteller. In fact, I wrote my first book in the second grade.

You’re probably expecting that I wrote some sort of genius, inspiring book that would’ve gotten me onto Ellen at the time, but it’s not like that at all. Words cannot explain how much the book sucked.

I came across it a few months ago while digging through some bins in our family office. The twelve paged unfinished graphic novel follows a sixteen year old girl who enjoys boys, going to the mall, and wearing makeup. One day, she touches a crystal in her backyard, and turns into a fairy princess who has to attend fairy princess school. Of course, before she gets to go to her magical high school, she has to go on a shopping spree and get a makeover—scenes which take up about 90% of the story.

It’s probably for the best that I stopped writing that story before the main character ever even got to go to fairy princess school. The diary-style format, inclusion of a bratty little sister character, and the excessive use of the word “squee” was plagiarized straight from the award-winning graphic novel series Dork Diaries.

Fortunately, my Winx Club rip-off was neither finished nor published, but my writing career didn’t end there. During the years of COVID, I found myself with lots of time on my hands, a crippling urge to create, and unrestricted internet access. Instead of paying attention in my online classes, I found myself lost in the wonderful world of Wattpad. I soon discovered not only could I read stories about my favorite characters, but I could also write them.

Oh my God.

I never thought anything could beat the fairy princess story out for the worst thing I’ve ever written, but looking back, I think my first fanfictions easily wins the award for the cringiest piece of literature on the planet. In 2019-2023, a show following a team of superheroes fighting crime began trending among bored teenagers. Two of the main characters were stuck in what the fandom called a “lovesquare” in which the female superhero was in love with the male superhero’s civilian self, and the male superhero was in love with the female civilian’s superhero self.

The show was tragic. It was deep. It was so incredibly interesting to my middle school self. Unfortunately, it was also a show meant for toddlers. Yes, you heard that right. Miraculous: Tales of Ladybug and Chat Noir has a rating of TV-Y7. And if that isn’t humbling enough, I recently found out that my four year old cousin has recently started watching it and is just as invested as I was—and admittedly, still am.

I worked on my Miraculous fanfiction the entirety of my eighth grade year. I thought it was the greatest thing since sliced bread. Over the years, it has gotten almost 75,000 views. That has to mean something, right? Wrong. I recently reread the story and it is the most cliche, grammatically incorrect, cringe-worthy thing I have ever read.

I wrote a few more fan fictions in middle school, but once I started high school and focusing on things like drama club and show choir, I practically gave up on writing. Thankfully, my junior year, I had room in my schedule for a half-year creative writing class. I didn’t think much about the class at all. I was truly just excited to get back into writing. I never expected that class to change my life—but it did.

I wrote many, many pieces in that class. Some were romantic, others were set in an apocalyptic world. I didn’t get into writing horror until we were assigned a Halloween piece. I had already written something about ghosts and haunted dolls—things that I’m very afraid of—but for this piece, I wanted to try something different.

I decided that instead of basing the horror in my story off of an object, creature, or phenomenon, I would base it off of a location. I attempted to narrow down spooky settings until one felt right. Instead of choosing a setting that is considered universally unsettling, I decided to rewrite the narrative and choose a place that is associated with the exact opposite of horror. A place full of happiness, whimsy, and childlike innocence where the fear brims under the surface—the circus.

The original short story behind The Sideshow featured a pair of friends in an unmarked time period who attend the circus. The girls find joy out of teasing the members of the freak show, specifically, a boy with hands that look like the claws of a lobster. The ringmaster comes over to put a stop to their fun. Later, the protagonists are approached by a horrifying clown who presents them with a rose that reeks of blood. As the story progresses, the girls begin to find the bloodstained roses scattered across the circus and grow increasingly more unsettled. They are later approached by the ringmaster who forces them to watch the show and reveals himself as the clown who has been torturing them. They are chased throughout the circus until they come across a Hall of Mirrors and are suffocated in the ball pit by the members of the freak show. When they wake up, they find themselves sewn together at the hip and are introduced to the audience as the new Siamese Twins.

Looking back, I think it was strongly implied that all of the members of the freak show were all surgically created by the ringmaster to make profit, but I never finalized the lore. The story wasn’t anything too special. It was dumbed down to fit the word count needed for the assignment, and the gore had to be lightened. I never really thought anything of the story until I saw that a local library was doing a short scary story contest. My parents convinced me to submit my story, and by some miracle, I won!

I managed to win a few Halloween erasers, a Target gift card, and most importantly, a newfound desire to keep going with my writing. I decided at that moment that I wanted to be a writer. In October of 2023, I think I must have started writing about four novels. I got about twenty pages into each of them and then just stopped because nothing was clicking. I think The Sideshow novel was the first one I started writing, but I abandoned it pretty quickly. It took until January for me to finally get into it.

As I plotted, the novel version of The Sideshow became very different from its original source material. I decided to set the story in the 1920’s to convey the vibe of creepy vintage circuses, and challenge myself as a writer. I greatly expanded the cast of characters. Most of the characters were new, but both the ringmaster and the lobster claw boy were adapted to fit the novel. Benjamin Thompson became the ringmaster, and Charlie O’Neil became a parallel to the boy from the freak show.

In order to make the story more interesting, I reimagined both the plot and the genre of the novel. Instead of body horror and gore, I decided I wanted the story to be a thriller with character-driven horror. Instead of jumping straight into the conflict, the main character would slowly become disillusioned by the magical world around her.

As I was plotting, it was clear that The Sideshow had the potential to become something much greater than it was before. All it needed was a new narrator. I needed someone likable and interesting, whilst still having visible flaws. Soon enough, Annabel Lee Halston was born.

In the beginning, Annie wasn’t anything too special. I wish I could say she was a perfect, beautifully flawed character with an arc befitting her actions. Unfortunately, I didn’t quite know what to do with her when I first started. All I knew was that her main flaw was that she was ridiculously naive, but to the readers, that wasn’t enough. Later, I would dive deeper into her character and give her a well-deserved character arc.

In the following weeks, I would continue to develop a diverse cast of characters that Annie would encounter during her time at the circus. The original plot was messy, overwhelming, and underdeveloped, but I was still hooked. Little did I know,  this little story would become bigger than I ever would have imagined…

(Stay tuned for part 2!)