Sophomore Dessa Outman has always had a deep love of writing.  This led to her writing her first book, All the Dark Things, which is about hypothetical and physical monsters.

“I was reading through one of my favorite books, Eleanor and Park, and it says, ‘She looked like art, and art wasn’t supposed to look nice; it was supposed to make you feel something.’  That’s the main reason that I try to write because I find it really interesting that you could say something and make everyone feel a different emotion.  I think that it’s fascinating,” Outman said.

When the book was in its first draft, it was called Kings of Scarlet because the island has red leaves on the trees.  There were five kings who each ruled a part of this island and Cassia was being passed around from kingdom to kingdom until she ended up with one of the kings who was super dark and mysterious.

“One day I just sat down and thought, ‘I’m gonna write this,’ and I wrote the first chapter and was just thinking, ‘I hate this,’ so I have a folder of chapter ones,” said Outman.

Real people have had an influence on Outman’s writing too.  According to Outman, Ameile is a mix of a lot of her good friends and Mrs. Steinbruegge has been there since Outman came to her for support and advice while writing her first draft. When asked about what kind of person and writer Outman is, Mrs. Steinbruegge said she is sweet, talented, ambitious, funny and she is definitely going places.

The main character is a super sweet girl who’s all sunshine named Cassia who gets exiled from her home country of Alathorn and finds herself waking up on an island that has been cut off from the world for 30 years.  Cassia may be a super sweet and happy girl on the outside but she had some traumatic things happen to her as a child and now there are monsters in her head that she thinks are real.

“One of the themes that I was trying to get out was that the monsters were not a part of Cassia but she has monsters.  So, this darkness isn’t her, it’s what’s following her around,” said Outman.

Other characters include Ameile, Avery and Amaris.  Ameile is the island’s “healer” even though she is only 19 and she becomes Cassia’s friend on the island.  Ameile is a super determined and ambitious character who closes herself off from the world but when Cassia shows up she starts to open up because both Ameile and Cassia were outcasts on the island.  Avery was the captain of the island’s guard.  The people on the island live near a giant forest so they came up with a new way of fighting where they have claws on their hands to climb and fight in the trees.  He grew up with Ameile on the island so they are best friends.  Amaris is the king of the island who inherited the throne after the king and queen, his parents, went missing when he was three.  He grew up closed-off and reserved and feels like he has no reason to care about anyone but himself.

As for the rest of the people on the island, they are not all they seem.  They are hiding two things from Cassia.  The first is that they are missing their king and queen.  The second is that there is a dark side of the island where real monsters lurk.

The dark side of the island is barren and a wasteland and nobody goes into it.  Since there are physical monsters in the dark, it plays with the monsters in the characters’ heads.  The farther you go in the stronger your mind monsters, memories and emotions become and the harder they are to control.

All the Dark Things started out with the idea of an island and was shaped from there.  Next was the idea of Cassia, then Amaris and the monarchy, then Avery, then Ameile and it just kept growing.

“For me, it’s exhilarating to write but I’m also terrified because I could have written this all and it won’t go anywhere but even then it’s fine because it’s something that I did and I’ll be proud to have it in my possession.  But, it’ll be hard if it doesn’t go anywhere,” said Outman.