Upon invite, I wrote a young-adult horror piece with a playful turn for my readers. Better Off Graduated is a campfire-story contest piece I wrote for nothing other than fun and I hope that you find the amusement on your side of the page. Vocal gave me a campfire premise to work with that centered around the first sentence:

"The cabin in the woods had been abandoned for years, but one night, a candle burned in the window."

Better Off Graduated premises a YA-horror short about high school students in small town New Mexico, who find themselves telling horror stories around a campfire just a few nights before their graduation. The students’ night takes a ghostly turn as they encounter a main character from my debut novel, Better Off Guilty. The contest short doesn’t involve the deep and literary wordplay I usually write in tune with, which was an upstream level for me to write at, but fun nevertheless. Moving voices in lightheartedness and less introspective story-leveling was a challenge for me. Without ever writing young adult or horror, this piece was solely meant as an all-around experimental exercise for my creativity toward a completely different audience - and I hope it leaves you entertained and at the very least, with a smile. Especially if you’ve read Better Off Guilty.

(If you didn’t and plan to, no worries. There are no spoilers in this piece.)

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photo of bonfire — Photo by Robson Hatsukami Morgan on Unsplash

Lindsey Writes Books

Better Off Graduated: A Campfire Ghost Story