okay so my first Oprah question to you, What made you decide to write this sequel and tell us about your inspiration behind Clare.
Yay Oprah questions!
I hadn't planned on writing a sequel to Broken because at first, I didn't think it needed one. I had a beginning, middle, and end, told in three parts, just the way I had planned, and I felt like the story I wanted to tell was told.
But really, only one part of the story was told. Broken's focus was on Nick's battle with cancer, and the relationship with Claire that came out of it was just a subplot, even though it became more important as the story went on. It was important for me to not have them get together until the very end because I didn't want it to be "a romance." That wasn't the point.
But then, once they DID get together, I realized there was still plenty more story to tell. These two characters have just started a relationship born out of shared misery, basically LOL - but beyond that, what else do they have in common? Is that really enough to keep these two different people with very different lives together? That was the general premise of By My Side, to focus on their relationship in the aftermath of the stuff that happened in Broken. Of course, I was wary of the idea of writing a story that ONLY focuses on the romance, so I threw in some subplots, and there's built-in drama and angst already, and that's how the whole idea came about.
As for Claire... I liked the idea of Nick finding a confidant and companion in someone who had been/was going through the same thing he was. Someone who would understand him on a deeper level than even the guys would because she could relate. And of course, because I'm a hopeless romantic at heart, it had to be a girl, but I wanted them to have a good solid friendship before it developed into anything more than that. So my goal was to create a female character who is kind of a guy's girl - the kind of girl guys want to be friends with. Outgoing, good sense of humor, casual, not overly girly, not afraid to get dirty, etc. I wanted her to be strong and tough, yet not unrealisticall
y so... I remember thinking she needed to get emotional when the really bad stuff happened because that's just what you'd expect a person in her place to do, and I think she does. She's a character I'm proud of, because she really did turn out to be the way I wanted her, for the most part, in Broken. And her character develops further in BMS, maybe not in ways that everyone likes, but she does change.