In recent years there’s been a new wave of young adult horror titles from creators who grew up reading the likes of Goosebumps, Graveyard School, Strange Matter, and other assorted titles. Many of these creators have taken to publishing their works on their own, including A.D. Aro. Under the handle Bumps In The Night, Aro’s promoting his own line of YA horror novellas with covers by artist Nicolas Rossius as “Goosebumps with teeth.”
As of right now, Aro has two books in the works. The first, In The Mall Of Madness, focuses on a small town losing its very soul to a monstrous mall and the young girl who might or might not be able to stop it. The second, Nostalgic Nightmare, focuses on the dangers of living in the past and two children whose lives have become a ‘90s-tinged nightmare.
I sat down with A.D. Aro after reading In The Mall Of Madness to ask about the creation of Bumps In The Night and his creative process.
WH: The premise for this first book is about a small town suddenly falling siege to a mysterious corporation and the construction of a new mega mall. The town of Plainfield is haunted by slogans of “SHOP TO LIVE, LIVE TO SHOP” and those who protest are powerless. Tell us a bit about what inspired a mall as the first setting for your series.
Aro: The whole mall idea derived from a short story I had written years earlier for a podcast episode that never materialized. A friend from high school had a children’s story podcast that was doing well and he wanted to add some horror stories to the mix and asked if I would contribute. I wrote a 4 page story about these two girls that decide to hide out in the local mall and wait for it to close so they could steal some cool, expensive clothes from a store. Instead, the girls find out the mannequins in the store are alive and one of the girls is turned into a mannequin, forced to wear the clothes she was trying to steal forever. When I finally decided I wanted to make my YA horror series a reality, that story popped back into my head.
WH: Sam’s an intriguing protagonist in how quickly she sees the scope of the mall’s corruption on her best friend Lizzie and those around her. From how they succumb to tempting sweets and great bargains, Sam’s efforts to get to the heart of the mall left me on edge as I hoped for her to succeed.
Aro: Thank you. I wanted Sam to be a smart character, almost a “final girl” type in some ways.
WH: It was a bit of a gut punch during the sequence where Sam reminisces on her childhood and how she and her friends are as much a victim of Share Offering Umbra Limited as their parents. Especially during the part where she ruminates on the local park and playground being destroyed.
Aro: I really strived to show how the mall would affect the entire town population. The kids are just as important as the adults, probably more so in this case as it’s aimed towards a middle grade audience. While writing those scenes it made me think back to all the places and things that have changed since I was a kid and all the memories tied to them.
WH: Morrigan Nyx is a fun villain from her unnatural design and penchant for spiky outfits as she extols the virtues of mall trawling. What makes her even more unbearable is the fact she genuinely believes she’s doing a moral service in her work despite her utter lack of humanity.
Aro: Morrigan was SO fun to write. In the first draft of this book, that character was initially called the “Grinning Man”. But halfway through the draft, something clicked in my head and I thought the character would be much more effective as a woman. I wanted Morrigan to be as different from the folks in Plainfield as possible. I loved writing her snarky dialogue. Morrigan was my favorite part of writing this book.
WH: I was surprised by the shared perspective divided between Sam and her parents as they both rally against the mall in different ways. In a way it sort of highlighted the usual “Adults are Useless” trope by showing just how outclassed they are against Share Offering Umbra Limited alongside their children.
Aro: That’s the beauty of third person perspective! Initially this was a first person book but I changed it to third person specifically for this reason. I wanted to be able to show multiple points of view and really bring the town to life. I wanted the reader to be able to feel the tension between the town and the mall.
WH: You really did not hold back when you showed us exactly what the mall is capable of.
Aro: My whole mission with this series is basically Goosebumps with teeth. As a kid, as much as I loved the Goosebumps books, I was never scared by them. To me they were cheesy and fun, but what I wanted most was to be scared. These books are for kids like I was, kids (or nostalgic adults) looking for nightmares.
WH: I don’t want to spoil anything, but, I’ll say again I wasn’t prepared for that ending. Considering the title harkens as a reference to both In The Mountains of Madness and In The Mouth of Madness, I should’ve expected better.
Aro: I was stuck on the title for this book for so long! The short story I mentioned above for the podcast had been titled “The Midnight Mall”, but I wasn’t feeling that for a book title. For the longest time the only thing that came to me was “Shop ‘Til You Drop Dead”, but that seemed too on the nose AND it’s also the title of a Give Yourself Goosebumps book. Once I finished the second draft of the book, “In The Mall of Madness” popped into my head and it was a direct nod to H.P. Lovecraft’s tale.
WH: You’re working on a second book in the series right now. Nostalgic Nightmare is about two kids whose parents throw themselves into ’90s nostalgia to a terrible degree after a near-death experience. What can you tell us about the trials poor Zelda and Mario will endure?
Aro: Is there anything more horrifying than having to go back to 56K internet?
WH: After Nostalgic Nightmare are there plans for a third book? Do you have plans for writing beyond Bumps In The Night?
Aro: Oh yes! And a fourth…fifth…sixth, etc. My head is brimming with ideas! I plan to go as long as people are interested and reading the books. I can tell you that the third book is going to be a clown book and the fourth book is going to be a cool vampire concept. The covers I have in mind are insane. But I definitely have enough ideas at the moment for at least twenty books.
WH: What are some of your favorite YA horror books and authors, and what are you fond of regarding horror in general? How much do you think the genre’s changed and grown since you were a young reader?
Aro: Obviously I’m a big R.L. Stine fan, otherwise Bumps In The Night wouldn’t even exist. I also really loved the Strange Matter series from Engle & Barnes. I love the Point horror books and even though I remember seeing a bunch of the covers as a kid, I actually didn’t read much of them back then. It’s been fun collecting and reading them now as an adult. I also really love Bebe Faas Rice. Her book Class Trip was such a fun read and I’m trying to track down all the books in her Doomsday Mall series, but some of those are very, very rare. When I read horror, what I’m looking for is dread. I want that stomach dropping from a rollercoaster kind of feeling. As far as how the genre has changed since the ’90s, I feel it’s definitely become more popular and more accepted. Horror used to be looked at as second rate and not “true literature”, but I think that opinion has changed in the past thirty years.
WH: What made you decide to write and publish your own stories and what can you tell us about your process in completing a book?
Aro: It was not easy, I’ll tell you that much! What made me want to take this particular path though was control. I had a very clear vision of what I wanted this series to be, how I wanted it to look, etc. I didn’t want a publisher taking my stories and me not having any say with the covers/layout. I financed this book myself, I hired the cover artist myself, I designed the layout and the series logo. I wanted to be able to make this series exactly the way I wanted to. I didn’t want to compromise or have to share any of that. Now if a publisher approached me, would I accept a deal? Sure…as long as I could continue to have complete creative control.