'Beautiful Darkness' authors Garcia, Stohl in tune with complexities of teenage life

The story of how Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl became authors is as unique as the characters and story lines in their paranormal series the Caster Chronicles.

When the friends were dared by Stohl's teenage daughters to write a book, they had no idea it would turn into a New York Times best-seller or that Warner Bros. would option its film rights.

The two never really planned on getting their book published in the first place. They just wanted to prove they could follow through and write it.

Stohl's daughters didn't back off either. Garcia and Stohl wrote the novel, then called "Sixteen Moons," like serialized fiction, giving the teens, who pestered them constantly, a bunch of pages or a new chapter every couple of days. "We were writing as fast as we could," Garcia told the Deseret News. "And when we finished, it was virally going through two or three high schools."

"After 12 weeks, we had accidentally written this 600-page book," Stohl said. "We were so happy to have won the bet, we didn't really care what happened after that."

The pair decided to put the entire novel on a website so more people could enjoy it. But Stohl's oldest friend, middle-grade writer Pseudonymous Bosch (The Secret Series), put the kibosh on that. Instead, he secretly sent the book to his agent, and the rest fell into place.

Soon the book, and its yet-to-be-written sequel, were up for auction, and a number of publishing houses were bidding. The authors couldn't believe their luck. They signed with Little, Brown, and "Beautiful Creatures" became a full-fledged reality. … and it became the Amazon top teen novel of 2009, and a New York Times best-seller, and the winner of the American Library Association Morris Award.

It was one shock after another for the debut authors.

"Every time they'd call us with something like that, we'd get off the phone and I'd be like 'Don't get excited, it could be a mistake,'" Garcia said. "We never believed it. It was too ridiculous. How could we possibly get all this good luck when we weren't even trying to publish the book?"

The duo kept preparing themselves mentally for when the luck ran out, but by the time Warner Brothers optioned the books the day before their release date, Stohl "just gave up and started to roll with the snowball. I remember checking e-mail every morning to find out what new country had bought the book while I was asleep. For a while, it was that crazy, every single day."