JOPLIN, Mo. — Every fiction book usually features a disclaimer in its opening pages.

Check out your favorite Charlaine Harris, Lauren Hamilton or Christopher Moore vampire book -- you’ll see it right underneath the copyright information. In a nutshell, it says that the story inside is made up and has no bearing in truth, fact or other forms of correctness.

“Dark Side,” the self-published novel by CC Brown, has a similar disclaimer. But the three writers involved with the book are happy to admit that there’s a little bit of fiction in that disclaimer.

“They all knew exactly who they were,” said Schyrlet Cameron, one of the book’s three authors. “We tried not to write anything that bad, and we made the characters show the underlying strength of that person.”

“Dark Side” is technically a story about six women fighting a brood of vampires over a precious pamphlet. But the story behind the story is that “Dark Side” is about the friendship between six women in the Mount Vernon area, and some of the crazy adventures they’ve had together.

 

Three-headed author

CC Brown is the pen name for Cameron, Carolyn Craig and Kathy Brown. The three put their heads together and wrote the 151-page book as a testament to their other three friends, Lori Dodson, Connie Dean and Jean Reynolds.

The six longtime friends have toured the nation and come back with stories stranger than fiction, and meet regularly for holidays.

One of their traditions was to put together a calendar, Cameron said. Each page would picture one of the friends for every month of the year. After doing that, and making CDs, the friends tried to think of something else they could do.

And that’s where the idea of a story was born. “Dark Side” was originally intended to be shared only among friends.

Cameron and Craig are former teachers at Mount Vernon Middle School and write curriculum packages for Mark Twain Media Inc. The two of them are very familiar with the writing process and know how difficult the publishing business can be.

But experiences in school got them thinking they could do it.

“Our principal saw how we’d come back from a trip with all kinds of pictures and stories,” Cameron said. “He said, ‘Why don’t you write a book about that?’”

Cameron and Craig looked around school and saw several students carrying around “Twilight” books by Stephenie Meyer. Knowing that Brown, a home day care provider, knew vampires like the back of her hand, they quicikly came up with an idea for the story.

Writing process

“Dark Side” is the story of six women in a group called the Black Widow Society -- each member of the group lost her husband. The six of them head to San Antonio and quickly find themselves in a mess involving a lot of vampires.

“We wanted our characters to the get the best of the vampires,” Cameron said. “In a lot of the vampire books we’ve read, most women are victims. And if you knew us, you’d know we aren’t victims.”

The three used an assembly-line process to write the book. All three worked on a basic storyboard. Cameron wrote out skeletons and rough drafts, Craig added more substance and proofing and Brown added comedic touches.

The process involved plenty of giggles and grief. Sometimes they’d get personal, as each character got into certain predicaments. Nothing good friends can’t handle, Craig said.

The plot also borrows heavily from a trip the six friends took to San Antonio --and no, they didn’t run into vampires in real life. But they did have fun picking out new identities for themselves, Craig said. On one trip they went as rodeo stars, for instance.

“On each trip, the underlying game is that we’d be someone else,” Craig said. “We’d have to say our fake names.”

Because they knew each other’s personalities, it was easy to write actions for the six women in the book’s Black Widow Society, Cameron said. The three would all edit carefully, and decide which parts were true to the spirits of their friends, and which were, well, fiction.

One of the challenges, Cameron said, was making sure that the book had one “voice.”

Once the three started looking at publishing costs, it became clear that this would be an expensive gift for friends and family. So they also became book publishers -- working with Xlibris, they printed a run of 100 copies for about $1,500. As part of the package, they received promotional posters, signs and a website.

The trio have already held book signings in St. Louis, Kansas City, Tulsa, Springfield and San Antonio. The book was chosen by the Springfield News-Leader as a No. 1 summer read, and also won an award in the Northern Oklahoma Literary Festival.

To date, the three have sold more than 600 copies of their book. They also give workshops to aspiring authors about the self-publishing business.

“We knew how difficult the publishing business is,” Cameron said. “This way, we cut out the agent and we’re willing to promote ourselves.”

Story lines

Some of the lines in the story are É colorful. Based on some of the conversations the friends have shared, some of the dialogue is downright riotous.

Some of these lines aren’t for kids:

“I think you went overboard on the garlic perfume. You smell like a garbage pail in an Italian restaurant!”

“They sent me to kill vampires with wooden stakes and two imbeciles!”

“Impale me, baby!”

“Bess, his widow, held an annual Halloween seance, hoping to contact her beloved Harry. After ten years of no show, she put an end to the ritual by saying, ‘Ten years is long enough to wait for any man.’”

“He undressed me like a June bride ... he made my entire body tingle!”

None of these lines are based on truth, Craig said. But they capture the kind of conversational style shared by the six real-life friends.

In fact, the rough draft of the book had even better zingers, Cameron said -- but that was before they had decided to print for more than just family and friends.

“We had so much fun writing this when we were doing it for our friends,” Cameron said. “Once we decided to get it published, we thought we better clean it up a little.”

The process has been so rewarding that they are writing a second book. This one will have werewolves in it, Cameron said, and more truth-or-fiction antics of their friends --including Jean Reynolds, who died in February.

They won’t keep writing for major profits or writing acclaim, Cameron said -- only for the love of each other.







Book signing

The three authors will sign copies of their book, “Dark Side,” during a book signing from 1 to 5 p.m. Saturday at Hasting’s.