More Than This

Behind The Scenes

Have you been wondering where all of this came from? Why did I give Garrett a hoodie, why was the hot jock a manipulator, why did the brainy girl lack confidence? Here is the behind the scenes look at what I refer to as my semi-creative writing process...

First, THANK YOU!!-

This has been the best part of my year, writing this story and interacting with you! Thank you for the reads! Thank you for the votes! Thank you for sharing your thoughts and reactions! It has made me smile more than you could imagine!

How it all began-

You know this, I've said it many times. Last November there was this Cliche crunching contest with a prompt about a bad boy. We had to take away his leather jacket, that was pretty much it.

So I asked myself, what's unexpected for a tough guy look? I thought of the book/movie Warm Bodies when R figures the red hoodie must mean he was a slacker in real life. So I decided my guy would wear a hoodie.

But it had to be black.

Then I asked myself, why a hoodie? I'm a teacher, as you may know, and I had a student who wore a hoodie and always wanted the hood up. He was hiding, trying to get the focus off of himself. So my guy would always want the hoodie up to hide...what? That's when I decided he'd have a huge scar. And I had to come up with how he got said scar. Then I named him what I felt was an unbad boy name- Garrett ( I had a student with that name once, total opposite of the cool bad boy)

I had this full, rounded out character, but that was it. Then I wondered, what would happen if he used his bad boy powers for good instead of evil? And what if the guy everyone loved was secretly a monster? And what if the smart girl found herself in a horrible situation but couldn't get out of it?

The loose plot was formed so I wrote the confrontation. Amber came first, and when I wrote Garrett's POV I was bouncing in my seat just in love with his sarcasm.

But I could see this whole story play out in my head and I wanted to keep it going. I knew I couldn't write it if no one read it, the emotional energy I needed would just run out without encouragement from readers. And you all showed up for me!! I love you for that! Thank you for getting me through this story!

How it developed into something more-

Wanna know a secret? Remember when Matt talks to Amber at the park and wants her back? She's like, nah but we can be friends?

Yeah, that's not how it was supposed to go down.

Originally, Matt was just going to be a raging a hole with no redeeming qualities, a true villain. He was going to sweet talk her back with him. That's what would cause G to figure out his feelings for her, but Amber was going to feel like she needed to give Matt a chance.

Oh thank God I didn't do that, right?!?

So here's what happened. I was sitting in church, of all places, and the pastor was talking about rejection, and how there are different psychological reactions to it. Talk about an aha moment! I saw Matt as dealing with rejection by controlling his environment, Garrett pushed people away, and Amber felt inadequate.

I saw Matt's back story unfold as I sat there, the raging father and meek mother, finally seeing himself as the a hole he was, but being too engrained in that way of thinking to change it completely. I literally got chills and tingles and anxiety. Something about it freaked me out, like maybe it was too much, or even not enough...

But I went for it! I think you guys liked it, right?

That sort-of-kiss-