NEED TO KNOW
- Scandal actress Bellamy Young and Fay Masterson self-published their debut novel, The Spark, on July 1
- The book is the first of an upcoming young adult science fiction trilogy entitled The Aetherion Code
- The actresses spoke exclusively with PEOPLE about their self-publishing journey, the rise of AI and their own sci-fi influences
Bellamy Young and Fay Masterson are already known for their onscreen literary projects, and recently embarked on a bookish journey of a different sort — co-writing a novel.
The Scandal star has previously joined adaptations of classic and contemporary novels alike, including the 2018 movie adaptation of Madeleine L’Engle’s A Wrinkle in Time to Hulu’s 2023 take on Zakiya Dalila Harris’ The Other Black Girl. Masterson also appeared in numerous films based on popular book series, like Fifty Shades of Grey and Pippi Longstocking.
“We both have been creators and storytellers a long time because we’re actors, but that’s usually other people’s materials,” Young tells PEOPLE. “Sharing our dream with the world is a little surreal.”
On July 1, the co-authors self-published their debut young adult novel, The Spark. As the first installment of the planned Aetherion Code trilogy, the sci-fi book follows Hester, a teenager who gets sent to a juvenile Martian penal colony. While there, she uncovers a secret about the future of planet Earth, and embarks on a mission with her fellow inmates and a group of AI therapy bots.
The cover of ‘The Spark’ by Fay Masterson and Bellamy Young.
Courtesy of Bellamy Young and Fay Masterson
Young and Masterson, self-proclaimed “big science nerds,” have long bonded over their mutual love of the subject. But it was during the 2023 SAG-AFTRA strike, when Young says the industry was “feeling a little fallow,” that they took their interest a step further.
“We were always sending each other articles or posts about science stuff,” Young says. “Fay sent me one about Woebots — therapy AI — and I sent her one about 3D-printed architecture on Mars. All of a sudden this story just sort of revealed itself to us.”
The pair originally intended to turn the trilogy into a television series, but as they looked deeper into the rise of artificial intelligence, and its impact on young people, a novel bloomed instead.
“ChatGPT had just shown up and we were realizing, ‘Oh, this is here to stay. This is not going anywhere. We’re a little bit terrified of this,'” Masterson tells PEOPLE.
“We wanted to do something ultimately hopeful, but where it’s obvious that humans are, and need to be, in control here,” she continues. “And when you bring kids together with community and friendship, what that can do.”
Young and Masterson felt a similar bond throughout the drafting process. Despite how daunting collaboration can be, they created a routine: Masterson wrote during the day while Young, a night owl, took over the story in the evenings.
Bellamy Young.
Michael Priest Photography
“We’re very lucky because we’re very different in a lot of ways, but very similar in the ways that are important and germane, both to friendship and to working together,” Young says. It also helped that she and Masterson are fans of sci-fi like Kazuo Ishiguro’s 2021 novel Klara and the Sun and Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy franchise.
Young and Masterson’s acting backgrounds also seeped into The Spark: namely, with helping them develop the basics of a good story.
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“One of the compliments we’ve gotten on the book is that it’s very visual. That was intentional because the way we kept seeing it was like a scene,” Masterson says. “It was a very natural progression from breaking down a character that you would do for an acting project.”
“The dialogue, also, is just all those years of getting to say other people’s lines: the ones that maybe weren’t so good, and then the ones that were just genius,” Young adds.
Fay Masterson.
Megan Vincent
But Young and Masterson were most surprised by how much they learned through navigating the publishing process on their own — from figuring out the in’s and out’s of BookTok to reading their reviews.
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“It feels like doing theater again, when you actually are in the room with the audience and you get that real-time emotional feedback,” Young says. “Or when we were doing Scandal and we live-tweeted … it’s been astonishing to get to feel that all over again in a different medium.”
There’s more in store for the Aetherion Code trilogy, with the authors teasing that the second book, at least, will largely take place on Earth. But one thing Young and Masterson know for certain is that they’ll be working in tandem again.
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“It’s the single, most unfettered-ly joyful creative experience of my life, just because it was pure,” Young says. “Just writing with each other, for each other, for the longest time, in service of the characters.”
“I think it’s just deepened our friendship even more,” Masterson says. “I feel really blessed around it and, hopefully, it does come across in the work.”
The Spark is now available, wherever books are sold.