LOS ANGELES -- The book "Beautiful Creatures" has sold more than 1 million copies since being released in 2008, spawned four follow-up books, had the foreign rights sold in 28 languages and become the basis for the new feature film of the same name.

And it all started on a dare.

It was author Margaret Stohl's eighth-grade daughter who dared her mother to write a young adult romance novel that didn't have all of the elements used in similar books in the genre.

"My daughter laughed at me when I said I was going to do it," Stohl says.

Co-author Kami Garcia adds, "I told Margaret there was no way we were going to be punked by her teenager."

So they took the challenge.

The result was "Beautiful Creatures," the story of a teenage witch, Lena, who falls for Ethan, a young man with no supernatural powers. This could end up being a 21st century version of "Bewitched" if it wasn't for a little thing like a curse. On Lena's 16th birthday, she will turn either good or evil. Only young love stands in the way.

The idea for the book came from how Stohl's daughter and her friends felt about young adult books they'd read.

"The kids said they were done with vampires. Why can't the girl be powerful and magical? Why does the girl have to tell the story? Can't the boy tell the story?" Stohl explains.

Garcia says the authors had read the "Twilight" books so there wouldn't be any similar elements or look like they were ripping off the popular series.

Stohl, who has a master's degree in English, was writing for video games at the time. Garcia was teaching Stohl's daughter. The pair got together to write the story for the class and every few days would turn over a chapter as serialized fiction. Questions the students asked framed what they would write in the next chapter.

The pair used an interesting system to write the book. Stohl jokes that Garcia is a "darkcaster" who destroys the universe and she's a "lightcaster" who believes in true love. But the truth is that one would write a chapter and then send it to the other, who could make any editing changes without question. Another chapter was added and sent back to the writing buddy, who would edit and add the next chapter.

"We cut each other's stuff unmercifully ... ," Stohl starts to say, then Garcia jumps in to end the sentence with " ... and we would never call each other but cut what we wanted and then send it back."

That system meant each writer killed something the other desperately wanted to keep, but they stuck to the plan. The only time they got together to edit was after each draft was completed.

The best part about their ping-pong writing system was the immediate feedback.

"I would get a call from her saying (in a snitty tone) 'You were supposed to send me something Tuesday and you didn't.' And I would say it's Monday. We could do that because we are friends," Garcia says.

They had no plans of publishing their work while they were writing. That was taken out of their hands when students emailed pages to their friends, who then emailed them to others. It wasn't long before the story had gone viral.

"This would never happen today. I got a text in the middle of the night from a young girl I didn't know asking for more pages. I sent them to her," Stohl says.

The pair were content just to prove they could write a young adult book that had new elements and ignored common conventions. It was a friend who sent the book to a publisher.

Amazon listed it as the No. 1 teen book and the No. 5 adult book before it was even released. Warner Bros. bought the rights to turn the tale into a film before the first edition hit bookstores.

Because publishing wasn't part of their plan, having the book turned into a feature film starring Emma Thompson, Emmy Rossum and Jeremy Irons, along with relative newcomers Alden Ehrenreich and Alice Englert wasn't even a fleeting thought.

Garcia did have a picture of Irons taped to the computer that was the inspiration for the worldly warlock Macon Ravenwood.

When Garcia was told Irons had signed to play that role in the film, she thought everyone was playing a joke on her.

They weren't.