Goodreads asked Brian Yansky:

Where did you get the idea for your most recent book?

Brian Yansky I think ideas for books are as common as trees. For me, I need for that idea to be something I can develop into a situation. That's less common. I started with idea of a town-- Utopia, Iowa. I knew that the town would have quirky characters and supernatural qualities. It would be both fantastic and realistic. The situation of the story comes out of my main character being a normal teen living in Utopia, who loves movies and dreams of writing them. However, he's not normal in one way--he sees ghosts. When two girls are murdered, they ask him to find out what happened to them; he's forced into difficult and dangerous places. That situation and the town of Utopia, Iowa, which is like a character, is where my story began.

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