The protagonist painter of the young adult novel “The Scattering” has the same dream every night for five years — that he knows how his family will be killed. The idea came from one of the author’s own dreams and was the only scene that stayed the same over six drafts.
Following his first self-published book “Isaac in the Sky” last November, Forest Park resident Mark Benson wrote his second young adult novel, and first horror book, “The Scattering.” It will be released at The Book Loft in Oak Park on Sept. 1 — an event that will include works from over two dozen local high school painters, each inspired by a different page from the book.
“I’m going to be happy when someone comes by and buys a book from me, and I sign it for them,” Benson said. “But when I glance up and see someone sliding cash to one of these painters and walking out the door with their canvas, that’s going to be the best part.” He added that many of these young artists might not have shown or sold their art before.
Benson got the idea for the release-day art showing from a pivotal gallery scene he wrote into “The Scattering” and wanted to engage the community in promoting the novel. So, he contacted art teachers from local high schools and will have 25 participating painters from Fenwick, Morton East, Morton West and other schools.
Benson wanted to include local painters after writing his main teenage character as a painter.
“I always write characters who are really talented or accomplished in something. I like smart characters. I just find them more interesting,” Benson said.
In “The Scattering,” after the protagonist wakes up from his nightmare, he’s colorblind and can no longer paint. The story unfolds as he encounters a vengeful spirit and works to reverse his family’s fate.
“I don’t think it’s a book where you read it and you get scared while you’re reading it,” Benson said. “I hope it’s a book where a couple days later you realize you suddenly turn on the light switch a little quick and you’re like, ‘Why did I run upstairs a little faster?’”
The book includes ghost stories inspired by those Bernson heard growing up.
“Chicago is one of the best ghost story cities around,” Benson said.
He grew up in the south suburbs, near Bachelor’s Grove Cemetery and has lived in the western suburbs most of his adult life. “My stepdad was constantly reading Stephen King novels. He would read them and then decide when I could read them.”
Though there are spooky elements in “The Scattering,” Benson said the more important takeaway is the main characters’ change in relationships in navigating his nightmare and the colorblindness that ruined his future as a painter.
“It’s a ghost story, but the interpersonal relationships among the living are way more important than anything that has to do with ghosts,” Benson said. “I want real characters that people can attach themselves to and say ‘I know what that character is going through. That’s real. I felt that.’”
While Benson wrote previous novels in first person, “The Scattering” is his first book in third person.
This story “was bigger than I was allowing it to be, and I was being caught by first person,” Benson said. “I felt like the world was too expansive.”
Benson also got into method writing during “The Scattering.” He often visited the setting of a scene in the book to write that scene, like a coffee shop or cemetery.
“I’ve acted out the entire book every time. If I’m [writing] a conversation, I have to do it out loud,” Benson said. “I have to get up and move around. I really got into the visceral nature of method writing.”
Benson has enjoyed writing since high school but started drafting young adult novels from short stories about a decade ago.
“When you’re writing short stories, you’re always kind of on the lookout for which story can’t be short,” Benson said. And since he started writing short stories, he’s composed them for a young adult audience, largely because he wanted to create relatable teenage characters for his daughter to look up to.
“I would refer to them as beautifully broken characters, characters who are real,” Benson said. “I read stuff where I felt like some of these characters are being portrayed as being heroes and people to admire, but they were not.”
Benson wrote “The Scattering” before he drafted “Isaac in the Sky,” which came out last year, and he wrote in less than a month after visiting the Adler Planetarium in Chicago.
When he’s not writing, Benson manages restaurants at Brookfield Zoo, sells Disney vacations and does educational programming for NASA.
Find a copy of “The Scattering” at free library boxes in Forest Park, Oak Park and River Forest. Learn more at the release party at The Book Loft, 1047 Lake St., on Sept. 1 at 6:30 p.m. or by visiting www.authormarkbenson.com.