I loved To Break a Covenant – even though Silent Hill gave me serious nightmares. So I knew I had to ask if I could interview Alison Ames. Ames delivers such an atmospheric and gripping story. Perfect for those who want just a bit more of the spooky!
To Break a Covenant
Moon Basin has been haunted for as long as anyone can remember. It started when an explosion in the mine killed sixteen people. The disaster made it impossible to live in town, with underground fires spewing ash into the sky. But life in New Basin is just as fraught. The ex-mining town relies on its haunted reputation to bring in tourists, but there’s more truth to the rumors than most are willing to admit, and the mine still has a hold on everyone who lives there.
Clem and Nina form a perfect loop—best friends forever, and perhaps something more. Their circle opens up for a strange girl named Lisey with a knack for training crows, and Piper, whose father is fascinated with the mine in a way that’s anything but ordinary. The people of New Basin start experiencing strange phenomena—sleepwalking, night terrors, voices that only they can hear. And no matter how many vans of ghost hunters roll through, nobody can get to the bottom of what’s really going on. Which is why the girls decide to enter the mine themselves.
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Find To Break a Covenant on Goodreads, Amazon, Indiebound, Bookshop.org & The Book Depository.
Author Interview
I’m not going to lie, TO BREAK A COVENANT gave me serious “Silent Hill” vibes. Am I imagining it? Do you have some favorite horror films?
you are not imagining it at all! i have never played silent hill but i LOVE horror in all its forms, especially video games, and i saw the first movie and although its quality is debatable the setting absolutely haunted me. i got very into researching the town it’s based on, which was then the model for moon basin! as far as favorite horror, my all-time beloved is THE DESCENT, which i just really think is horror at its finest. there are very few horror movies i haven’t seen at least once, but i would say my faves in terms of enjoyment and rewatching-ness are that, andy muschietti’s IT, grave encounters, the taking of deborah logan, the grudge, the shining, the scream franchise, and mama.
How do you immerse yourself in the creative space to write? Do you have a process? A routine?
i have adhd, so a lot of my process is creating enough background noise to block out that i can then focus. i have been using criminal minds as “my writing show” for a few years now, and it has gotten me through more than one MS! other than that, the process is basically coffee, stare at page, stare at outline, coffee, repeat. having deadlines has forced me to sort of work even when i’m not “”””feeling it””””” which has been helpful in terms of discipline. i also have friends that will do writing sprints with me, which i love because it’s a finite amount of time and you just slam stuff out and then you get to text your friends, which is a nice reward.
What do you do to get over a bout of writer’s block?
i say this a lot and i recommend it to everyone who is experiencing writer’s block–fanfiction. write it, read it, think about it. i write a lot of fic myself but i also sometimes write fic of like, my own characters, which really helps me understand them more and connect with them and then hopefully find my way back to the story. it doesn’t have to end up in the book, you know? but it’s like, maybe we all need to take a break from the horror and go to a farmer’s market or something, see what that shakes out. it’s low-stakes, and it doesn’t ever have to see the light of day if you don’t want it to, but it’s a way to make it fun and still technically be creating something at a time when Creating maybe feels like it’s beyond you.
How did the inspiration for TO BREAK A COVENANT come to you? Did the idea, a character, a scene come to you first?
nina came to me first, and originally she was a murderer, and it was a Very different book, but i always knew i loved her and i wanted clem to love her, too. the first scene i ever wrote was the girls leaving a body in the sugar bowl as the ash fell around them. it’s changed a lot (a LOT) since then, but the girls have always been the constant. the plot had so many different iterations! i put them through so much! but as we edited and whittled it down to the one narrative that actually mattered, the one thread we were going to follow, i could sort of tell we were on the right track because it felt like they became clearer, like the focus was really on them where it should have been. so it wasn’t ever like, one spark of inspiration, it was just me throwing a million different ideas at the wall of like, “what MIGHT happen in this small creepy town?” and then eventually paring it down to what it is now. i wrote it over the span of like ten years, so i don’t think that helped at all.
Did you always know how it was going to end from the beginning?
i knew how it was going to end in that i knew it was going to make people cranky, and i’m still not totally sure i’ve pulled it off, but one of my favorite horror novels of all time is of course shirley jackson’s the haunting of hill house. shirley is really, really good at this sort of… not quite ambiguous ending, but interpretable, and hill house is one of the best examples. was eleanor haunted, or mentally ill? both? you can argue it both ways, and it means different things to everyone, and i admire that so much. a lot of horror, at least to me, loses its scariness when it’s too clearly shown. nothing is as scary in the light as it is in the dark. so i tried my best to hit that note. i personally really like the ending, and i find it hopeful.
Was it always going to be a mine?
it was always going to be a mine because there always had to be the ash, the like, shadowy ghostlike carbon copy of the town. i also grew up in a place with a fair number of mining/ex-mining/ghost towns, and i’ve been on several like, childhood field trips where they take you literally into a mine, and i find them so deeply upsetting even when they’re just tourist traps. i don’t like being underground! i don’t think people should be down there! so the idea that i could have this thing that creates the environment that i want above ground and also that thing is fundamentally hugely stressful and bad to imagine for me… dream combo.
How did you create the pieces of videos and interviews in the book? Did these come easily to you?
all of the transcripts/footage in the book were VERY easy to create, that was probably the easiest part for me — i love ghost shows, and reality tv in general, and i find it really easy to capture that specific tone for some reason. i also did a lot of theater throughout my life, so writing things like a script is second nature. most of them are nods to real ghost shows that i have seen, or inside jokes with myself (space ghost coast to coast, anyone???). it was also fun to break away from the plot for a minute and figure out how to provide info/background without seeming like that’s what i was doing. i also got to decide how the haunting would manifest for people other than the girls, which was very fun. it kind of goes back to the fanfic thing actually, i was sort of writing like… haunting fanfiction for the entire town. so it was a nice break from like, “how do i fix this timeline issue” type worries.
Find To Break a Covenant on Goodreads, Amazon, Indiebound, Bookshop.org & The Book Depository.