Around the Fire Book & Author Blog with YA writer Dan Rice.

Welcome back to Around the Fire. Here in Northern New Jersey, it's been feeling a bit like fall. I love the colors, the smells, and the crisp, warm days followed by cool (sometimes cold) nights. Even though the trees are still green and the crickets and frogs set up nightly concerts, some of my Autumn decorations have been making their way out of storage. Pumpkins, orange and yellow leaves, scarecrows, and mums. Driving around, I see some others looking forward to fall. Halloween is right around the corner, and boy, do I have a great guest today on the blog just in time for the season. Dan Rice is a fellow Wild Rose Press author. His specialty is Young Adult paranormal, but today we'll learn about the Five Things He's Learned stepping into a new phase of his writing career. Take it away, Dan.

Five Things I Learned While Writing Phantom Algebra 
​1.     Writing in the third person is great.
Phantom Algebra is the first novel-length work I’ve written in the third person. My other books are all first person present tense, think The Hunger Games. I had written in third person before, but writing an entire novel in third person of publishable quality struck me as a daunting task. All my previous attempts at crafting a story in the third person are either gathering digital dust on a hard drive or in the cloud or have been scrapped altogether.
What I discovered is that writing in the third person is great fun and not as difficult as I feared. It allows you to delve into the minds of so many characters beyond the protagonist. You can tell scenes from the perspective of that brutally nasty antagonist, crafting a three-dimensional character and creating suspense up the kazoo.
Part of the reason writing in the third person came easier than I expected is how much I’ve grown as a writer since my first book was published. My weakness has always been characterization—I was the person in the critique group who was rightfully brutalized for creating slipshod characters. That’s not the case any longer.
 
2.     Writing in a shared universe didn’t limit my storytelling
Initially, I was pumped to learn that my publisher was putting together a multi-author YA horror series titled The Haunting of Pinedale High, as in a haunted high school. I thought, great! I write YA! I write fantasy! Horror is fantasy adjacent, right? It all falls under the umbrella of speculative fiction…more or less.
So yeah, I was duly excited. But then I realized that I’d have to share a story world with other authors. I didn’t know if I liked the idea of sharing. Shared character, shared setting, shared lore… I was a bit nervous. Wouldn’t all this sharing business limit my storytelling?
I was pleased to discover my trepidation was entirely misplaced. I chose to lean heavily into the classic horror trope of past trauma. Zuri, the protagonist, is haunted by past trauma, as is the ghost with whom she will eventually form a bond. The past trauma trope is inherently character-centric, so, in the end, I didn’t feel the shared setting, loose rules surrounding the ghosts, and a handful of shared characters limited the tale I wanted to tell.
3.     Horror—in this case, a ghost story—is super fun.
I enjoy reading a good horror yarn from time to time. My Heart is a Chainsaw, Clown in a Cornfield, and almost anything by Stephen King have entertained me and made me peek around corners just in case something lurks in the dark. But I’ve never considered myself a massive fan of the genre, nor had I put serious thought into penning a horror novel. Oh, I had dabbled in the horrifying by writing a short story or two, but it wasn’t my jam.
I discovered that writing a YA horror, a ghost story to be precise, was super fun. It didn’t strike me as all that different than crafting a YA fantasy. By tweaking the fantastical elements, they become hair-raising and frightful, opposed to magical or awe-inspiring. Populating an underground lair with enormous nightcrawlers, engorged rodentia, and satanic magic is delightful. It speaks to my inner child who watched black and white monster movies on TBS and was terrified of arachnids.
4.     Deadlines are good things.
Phantom Algebra is the first writing project I’ve had with a deadline that wasn’t self-imposed. If I wanted to participate in the series, I needed to turn in a polished manuscript in a hair over a year. As a writer with a day job, I’m pretty good at finding time to grind out and edit words, but it usually takes me at least eighteen months to go from idea to submittable manuscript, and I was in the middle of another writing project. Crunch time, indeed!
However, I found out that having a drop-dead date focuses the mind. I created a more detailed and logical plot outline than ever before and assiduously adhered to it while banging out the rough draft in record time. Most pleasing of all, the story was strong and freer of errors than anything I had previously written. Not only had I met the deadline, but I had produced perhaps my best writing ever. 
5.     Writing is its own Reward.
When I first embarked on writing Phantom Algebra, I feared the project would be a slog. I had a deadline, which was something entirely new for me as a writer. The genre was one I typically don’t write, and the tale was set in a shared world. Despite all that, I found the writing process, from planning to the rough draft to the edit, as invigorating as ever. Writing fiction, like many creative endeavors, is truly its own reward.

Pre Order Today

Phantom Algebra
The Hunting of Pinedale High
By
Dan Rice
Zuri and her mother settle in Pinedale, North Carolina, to start over. For years, they’ve been on the run from Zuri’s father, a retired boxer and full-time gangland enforcer.
In Pinedale, Zuri finds a gym where she can train in mixed martial arts to pursue her dream of becoming a champion fighter. At Pinedale High, she discovers friends among the outcasts, academic challenges, and something unexpected…ghosts.
When Zuri encounters a tween phantom haunting the library, her life is turned upside down and inside out as she attempts to help the spirit. This incurs the wrath of devils, living and dead. Zuri will need her martial arts prowess, heart, and the aid of friends to protect everyone she loves.

Grab your copy today!

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Dan Rice pens the young adult urban fantasy series The Allison Lee Chronicles and other speculative fiction, both short and long, in the wee hours of the morning. To discover more about Dan’s writing and keep tabs on his upcoming releases, check out his blog, join his newsletter, and follow him on BlueSky. His latest novel, the YA horror Phantom Algebra, releases on September 15, 2025.
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To get your fulfill all your Haunted reads, here's a link to the entire series.
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0D9YZWG5Z

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