John Serbin

I wrote The Incredible Adventures of Scruffer & Co for my own amusement. I published it to see if I could effectively communicate a fictional story to an audience and they would like it.

My book was inspired by my all-time favorite authors of Calvin and Hobbs, The Far Side, and Peanuts. I love the characters, their off-the-wall antics, and slightly skewed child’s view of life. Their influences helped shape my stories.

The genre of Scruffer & Co is Fictional Fantasy Humor for All Age Groups. I’m drawn to this genre by my personality and the last two lines from the poem “Put Something In” from A light in the Attic by Shel Silverstein:

Put something silly in the world

That ain’t been there before.

The basis for my book is my wife’s collection of teddy bears. Somewhere along the line I started telling her short tales of their activities. Their personalities and characteristics were somewhat shaped by how they looked to me.

Eventually, I came to a one-line, genesis story plot for the start of a book, but never had time to do anything with it. My chance came when I was house bound recovering from foot surgery. In eleven days I wrote a 5,000 word story, Introduction to the Queen, that became the first chapter of Scruffer & Co.

I thought the story was pretty funny and that I told it well. Then I asked myself, Can I develop this into a book? Do I have enough material? I decided that if I could generate 100 plot lines, I’d probably have enough material.

After I got to about 90 story lines, I started to write the book. I wrote it as a series of short stories with each chapter focusing on a unique adventure.

Through my story telling to Paula over the years, I had the psychological and sociological profiles of each character worked out in my mind. Writing each chapter of the book consisted of just setting the stage and letting the characters do what they would “normally do” in that situation. I merely recorded their activities and exchanges. The stories almost wrote themselves.

I still write to amuse myself. Part 2 of The Incredible Adventures of Scruffer & Co is completed and I will publish it on Amazon before the end of 2017.

If you enjoy the stories of Calvin and Hobbs, Peanuts and The Far Side, I think you will also enjoy reading the stories of Scruffer and his buddies.

I was born, raised and educated in the US Midwest. Always interested in effective communication, I took writing and speech classes in high school, college and grad school. This was followed by a 30+ year career in hi-tech and biotech startup companies where I was mainly involved in communicating information about complex, cutting-edge, novel technologies to a variety of audiences.

I can be reached at: johnjserbin@gmail.com.