Butterfly Bones
Genre: YA Sci-fi
Lakewater Press
Summary:
Bethany should be dead, just like the doctors predicted. But along
came the butterflies, altering the order of nature.
And now nature is hell bent on revenge.
Because when fate's path is disrupted, it's only a matter of time before balance must be restored.
And now nature is hell bent on revenge.
Because when fate's path is disrupted, it's only a matter of time before balance must be restored.
Inspiration for Butterfly Bones
The Birth of a Novel: Butterfly Bones
Five years
ago, while listening to The Cure, a song called “Caterpillar” came on. I’d
heard this song a million times. But for some reason, this time the music and
lyrics spoke to me. The title of a book emerged: THE CATERPILLAR GIRL. Before I
knew it, the idea for a short story revealed itself.
The earliest
version depicted a bullied teen girl with a rare bone disease getting revenge
on her tormentors. Blood and gore were at the forefront. So I grabbed a
notebook and jotted down my ideas. BETHANY KEATLEY, the MC, crawled from the
ashes of my imagination and evolved into a 3-D character. And it wasn’t long
before I molded and breathed life into JEREMIAH WRIGHT, Bethany’s best friend
and love interest. Along with many other characters, the story flickered to
life.
I
characterized and plotted until I knew every detail about my characters and the
story I wanted to tell. Time to write the novel.
But something
strange happened.
No matter how
hard I tried, Bethany refused to star in a horror novel. Instead, she pushed me
to pen her story—a journey through great
loss, tremendous change, and the harsh reality that Mother Nature and Father
Time can’t be cheated.
About a month
later, I finished the short story. But Bethany wasn’t happy. I hadn’t told her
whole story—not the way she wanted me to. So I set the story aside and listened
to my character.
Her wants. Her
needs. Her weaknesses. Her strengths. Her story.
Soon, the
short story morphed into a full novel, just over eighty thousand words. But
that wasn’t the end.
After
suggestions from contest mentors, I rewrote the beginning, switched the POV
from third to first person, and changed the tense from past to present. The
changes allowed me to see holes in the story where I hadn’t before and to make
Bethany’s journey even stronger. Like my MC, my story experienced metamorphosis.
Fast forward
to signing with Lakewater Press; the editor, Kate Foster, asked me how I felt
about a title change. My heart dropped and a lump formed in my throat. No way.
The title had always been The Caterpillar Girl—the title had inspired the book.
But as Kate
threw out ideas and BUTTERFLY BONES was born, I replayed the suggested title over
and over in my head, as well as reciting it out loud—growing fonder of the
change with every pass over my tongue.
And then it
hit me. BUTTERFLY BONES had a double meaning.
1. Butterflies are fragile, yet tough as
hell, and so is my MC.
2. Since her bones are strengthened from
butterfly DNA, Bethany literally has “butterfly bones.”
And
that was it. I agreed to the title change and haven’t looked back.
And
how does Bethany feel about the change?
She
thinks it’s the shizz—freaking shizz-tastic!
Rebecca Carpenter is a native of western Colorado. She is married
with two grown children and has been blessed with four amazing grandchildren.
She owns and directs a large childcare center where she shares her love for
books. In her spare time, she freelances as a copy editor, helping others
attain their writing dreams. She finds solace and clarity while spending time
with her husband exploring the beautiful mountains of Colorado.
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