Writing a Beloved Real-World Setting into a Novel, a guest post by Zachary Sergi

I think most of us have one place on the planet we treasure more than anywhere else. When that place is somewhere we happen to go every summer, there’s a unique magic that coats the setting: bright sun, blue splashes, and green growth that we all know must be enjoyed before it fades into Fall; a blazing sense of freedom, of vacation release; and often the secret knowledge that we can be someone else for a bit surrounded by temporary summer people, freed from many obligations and responsibilities that define us back home.

I’m lucky enough to have one such place: Silver Bay, a stunning alcove on Lake George in upstate New York. Every August since I was five, my family joins dozens of others at a YMCA campus that feels somewhere between a summer-camp for families and a college campus. Over the years we all developed beloved traditions, summer activity hobbies, and most importantly, a tight-knit network of families who return year after year, decade after decade.

But what really makes our special places shine? Is it the fleeting beauty of it all, the sparkling few weeks of release? Is it the safety we find in unchanging traditions and familiar faces, ones who only appear one month a year?

And who has access to these beautiful places? Often there’s generations of privilege that come with the most stunning settings. And anytime there are questions of access and privilege, there are questions of fraught histories and bloody prices paid, often by the innocent.

These were all the seeds that grew into my third Young Adult novel, This Pact Is Not Ours. Deciding to set a novel at Silver Bay came right alongside the core thematic question: what prices do we pay to access our most beloved and beautiful sanctuaries?

Those questions are explored in the novel, but here I wanted to write a bit about what it was like trying to capture the magic of my own special summer setting. It’s a place I know in my bones, so writing there felt as comfortable as slipping on a favorite sweater. However, I also felt an immense pressure to get it right, to do this setting justice by capturing why just why it feels so magical. Part of that was left to capturing the people in the cast of characters…

But an equally big part of this task was capturing each of my favorite places on the Silver Bay campus, plot-point by plot-point. I wrote the entire initial outline on August while on “vacation” (a fraught word for someone who both loves writing for fun and has made it their job), so I painstakingly explored each of my favorite spots on campus to find the right vibe to capture. I also had an enormously gratifying time asking all my Silver Bay family/friends about their own favorite places and their own histories here, which opened this beloved campus up to me even further: with new treasures to unlock and secret spots to explore.

Then came the even more intimidating part: crafting some elements that were actually pure imagination. This Pact Is Not Ours is one-half grounded story about intergenerational-friend drama and trauma, and one-half supernatural haunting thriller (that strikes at the core of questioning what unknown family-history prices teens might be paying for seemingly-free summer magic). To blend the real with the unreal, I ended up changing some names (Silver Bay became Copper Cove, for example) and adding some fun dream-bits. My favorite is the core-friend-group having a secret headquarters in the belltower of my favorite building on campus, the Auditorium (which even made it into the background of the cover).

This novel has had a six-year publishing journey, and this past August was the first time I got to return to Silver Bay knowing that this book I set there was going to reach readers (thanks to Tiny Ghost Press). It was a really special trip—one where I actually felt I had effectively captured something essential about my beloved summer space. The first day we got there, while everyone went to the first dinner to enjoy year-apart reunions, I actually stole away (much like the main character in the novel) to explore campus and take pictures with an advanced copy of the novel (many of the photos you’ve seen here).

As it turns out, change had reached Silver Bay in 2023, as an onslaught of (positive, but deeply different) changes came to campus. So the idea that I had effectively captured the spirit of the summer sanctuary of my youth felt even more precious.

But what parts are Silver Bay reality and what parts are Copper Cove myth? Perhaps it doesn’t matter. To me, that’s the true magic of novels: a blender brew of the deeply real and the fantastically imagined that somehow, despite its very root in fiction, manages to somehow still capture the essential truth of an experience.

Meet the author

Zachary Sergi is a queer author of Speculative & Interactive Fiction, including the print novels This Pact Is Not Ours, Major Detours and So You Wanna Be A Pop Star?, and the digital Heroes Rise, Versus, and Fortune The Fated series. Zachary was raised in Manhattan, studied Creative Writing at Regis High School and the University of Pennsylvania, and now lives in Los Angeles with his husband, where he also writes for television. Learn more at zacharysergi.com or by following @zacharysergi on Twitter/TikTok or @zacharysergiwriter on Instagram.

About This Pact is Not Ours

The summer before college Luca Piccone returns to Copper Cove, the idyllic campsite he and his closest friends have visited every year since they were kids. To Luca, Copper Cove is like the setting of the fantasy movies he loves, a sanctuary, protected from the dangers of the outside world, where nothing goes wrong and everything stays the same.

But this year things are changing.

Desperate to make this summer the best one yet, Luca tries to ignore the freshly torn rifts within his tight friend group, the pangs of unrequited love, the anxiety attacks he thought he’d left back at school, and the shadows at the edge of the forest threatening to break free. Until he learns the terrible truth.

Every generation the children of four families are bound by a pact. A pact designed to keep the camp pristine and the monstrous force lurking beneath the campsite imprisoned. But in order to do this, an unthinkable price must be paid–a price that has soaked the previous generations in blood. Can Luca keep his friends, and his favorite place, from being ripped apart?

By the end of the summer, only one thing is for certain: Copper Cove will never be the same again.

ISBN-13: 9781915585073
Publisher: Tiny Ghost Press
Publication date: 10/03/2023
Age Range: 13 – 18 Years

Filed under: Guest Post