The Story Behind The Popularity Games

The Popularity Games evolved a lot from its first incarnation. However, it was always going to be a mystery novel. I loved reading Nancy Drew and learning about true cases growing up, and I went through a detective phase where I would carry a magnifying glass around and search around the pine trees outside in the pitch dark back when I lived in a brown and orange house before it got flooded out when I was eight. It may have been short-lived (I only filled out two diary pages as a kid about imaginary cases and perhaps real ones in my life), but it's always stuck with me. I don't know if I've read a full-fledged mystery novel in a long time (This Is Where the World Ends may count),

However, my narrator wasn't always going to be a snarky redhead with a courageous drive to figure out who murdered the popular girl in school. Yes, the original TPG was about the death of #1 at a high school, but the original redhead wasn't going to be at all strong. In fact, she wasn't the only narrator. It also wasn't originally supposed to be humorous or even have some of the snappy dialogue that I've included in the final product of the first draft.

Do you wanna know what the original TPG was going to be about? My 13 year old self was proud about it, but the me of now? I kinda just want to cringe thinking about this.

Here we go. Brace yourselves *takes deep breath*. The Popularity Games was originally going to be about four high school girls: a rebellious tomboy who played football, Ann; a supermodel (that's all I got), Joana; the principal's secret daughter who was called in from overseas to investigate something, Riley; and the BFF to the most popular girl in school who was nasty yet had a soft side to her, Star (I think her real name was Stacey). Combine those four first-person point of views with an incredibly prestigious private school called Robin Crest (which was borrowed from something I tried to write in fifth grade that was more of a slice of life drama, Little Rock, which was also just as tacky; there was a girl named Falcon) and popularity being a literal game (probably my favorite part of the original concept), and we have our story, ladies and gentlemen. Think of it like Pretty Little Liars meets whatever thriller you can find, and presto! Instant classic!

The Story Behind Duet

Duet started with my own personal need to write a realistic fiction novel. Despite writing two trilogies with fantastical features (one more science fiction and the other fantasy), I wanted to take a break from inventing new worlds and having people possess special powers. I wanted to write a novel that wouldn't be surprising to find in Sarah Dessen's collection, a novel where the setting was realistic (albeit with some minor changes) with a teenager going through a coming of age experience with a developing romance on the side (because you know I love my romance).

But there was going to be something different: the romance I had in mind was a gay one.

Gay romance isn't anything new in the YA market (I've stressed this before in my Boy Meets Boy review, where I also went into a brief rant about the unequal representation in mainstream New Adult and Adult fiction), and I have actually written three Bleach Hollow Ichigo (Hichigo) and Ichigo fanfictions featuring that explicitly (one was a one-shot called Beating Heart, and the other was a multi-chapter AU that I'm still incredibly proud of to this day, Claws of a Dragon; the third one is forthcoming). But I had never invented male characters who had feelings for other male characters, and this was a great opportunity to try this out. Plus, I wanted this to be a full-length novel of at least 50,000 words (much like the average length of a NaNiWriMo novel), not under 25,000.

But you may be wondering: why a gay romance, Luke? What was so bad about writing heterosexual romances? My answer to those questions is absolutely nothing, but it has to do with one of the key phrases I've kept in mind while writing this novel.

I've always said several times before that Duet is my most personal novel to date. Every single time I've typed in those words, I have meant it. Duet was partly inspired by my own questioning sexuality, and although it's played rather simply in the novel (Cam doesn't question his sexuality for one minute anywhere in Duet, only what his parents might think), it's been a lot more complicated in real life.