Hey Julie,
Here are a few questions for you. First of all congrats on the best author win! What went through your mind when you found out you won that?
Thanks, Mare!
I was really excited to win Best Author! It felt good, especially because I had been nominated in that category before and gotten runner-up I think the past two years. That was great, too, but it was nice to get the win this time, and now that will open up a spot for someone else to be nominated LOL.
Onto the story:
Where did you come up with the idea for Curtain Call and how soon after your initial idea did you start to write it?
I got this idea 100% from watching the movie
Funny People. For those who haven't seen it, it's about a veteran comedian, played by Adam Sandler, who finds out he has cancer and doesn't tell anyone, but he hires an aspiring comedian, Seth Rogen, to be his personal assistant and confides in him. They develop an interesting friendship where Adam's character mentors Seth's and gives him all these opportunities, but Seth's character obviously helps him deal with things, too. It's a good movie, and I liked the premise and that relationship between the characters. Being that it was about a celebrity, of course I started thinking about how it would be easy to get a fanfic idea out of that, and BAM, there it was.
I loved the idea of Nick taking an aspiring singer under his wing, but of course for ulterior motives. I knew it had to be a girl because if I'm gonna write bromance in a BSB fanfic, it's gotta be with another BSB - no point in making up a fictional male character. I went a step further and made her a nurse practitioner so she could be more than just a personal assistant for him. I put her on American Idol solely as a way for him to "discover" her, and I made her a Backstreet fan so that she would actually go along with his plan.
The idea would not get out of my head, so I played with it for a few days, researching and plotting the story and developing the characters, before I actually started writing. I waited until I had the first six chapters written before I started posting, but that only took like a week - I churned out a chapter of this thing a day; that's how inspired I was for it LOL. It just would not leave me alone.
I know you have mentioned before you aren't comfortable writing in first person, so why did you choose first person for this story?
I don't really know why, but this story always felt like a first person story to me. It's weird because I think I only have one other novel written in first person, and that was ten years ago. Except for a few short stories, I really don't write in first person. I think I figured it would make it seem more realistic and less melodramatic. I wanted to separate it from Broken, and writing it in first person seemed like big good way to make it different. It's changed the whole tone of the story.
Did you base Cary off of anyone in particular?
No, my main goal for her originally was to just make her the anti-Claire LOL. I based her look on Zooey Deschanel, who I love because she has that cute, sort of quirky, vintage style and singing voice. But the rest of her character just came together piece by piece, the way I talked about earlier.
What made you go with cancer again and was it a tough decision considering the popularity of Broken?
LOL I agonized over that decision for exactly that reason. I basically racked my brain and scoured the internet, looking for anything OTHER than cancer that would work for this idea. I told Rose about it, and she helped me look too. There was just nothing else that fit all the criteria I needed. So I reluctantly went with cancer again, though a different type and different direction. There are obvious similarities between this one and Broken, but from plot to style to just overall feel, the two stories are really different.
Thanks for the questions, Mare!
Author
Topic: FS for April: Curtain Call (Read 13308 times)