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For this week’s Wayback Wednesday blog, we’re going back to 2017. The first half of 2017 was really productive for me, in terms of writing. After being pretty flaky the previous three years due to my master’s program, I was determined to show some discipline and get back into a more regular writing routine. I don’t believe in New Year’s resolutions, but I set one that year to write every weekend. Not only did I keep that resolution until Nick Plague struck me down in March, but I wrote daily for two months straight. I got back into my groove with Sick as My Secrets and finished it in June.
And then… nothing.
I spent the rest of that summer (really, the whole next year) struggling with what I like to call “WADD,” or Writer’s Attention Deficit Disorder, which is when I flit aimlessly from one project to another without being able to settle down on any one of them long enough to make any real progress. More on that in my next blog.
In the fall of 2017, I finally managed to write a short story called The Call, which is what I’ll be blogging about this week.
Title: The Call
Written: October 2017
Straightforward synopsis: When Nick winds up in the hospital after a brutal attack, Brian and Howie both rush to his side, reflecting on their relationships with him and each other in the process.
The story behind the story:
I’m not sure what exactly sparked the idea for this story, but it came out of wanting to write something bromantic. It may have been something Howie or Brian posted or said about each other that made me think, Out of all the Backstreet Boys, Brian and Howie seem the least close with each other.
I don’t know if that’s actually true or if it’s just my perception, but you never really see Brian and Howie hanging out together, just the two of them, or interacting much outside of the group. Even on stage or in interviews, they don’t seem to interact much compared to other pairs. I’m sure they love each other like brothers, as all the Boys do, but they’ve never seemed to have a particularly close bond like some of the others. For example, Brian and Nick will always be Frick and Frack to me, even if they’re not as tight as they used to be. Brian and AJ have always seemed to have a bromance; I love the way they play off each other’s humor, like in this video. And, of course, Brian and Kevin are close because they’re family. But Brian and Howie? They’ve never seemed all that tight with each other, which is kind of weird because, in a lot of ways, they’re very similar. They’re both short guys who sing the higher parts, both religious, both family men who came from tight-knit families themselves, and both married to women with basically the same name. They have a lot in common, so why don’t they seem closer? Does Howie secretly resent Brian for coming in and stealing his role as one of the original lead singers? Does Brian secretly resent Howie for becoming Nick’s new bestie in the group? I can’t imagine they could stay in a group together as long as they have if they actually did have that kind of resentment toward each other, but at the same time, I could see them having those thoughts.
Thinking about all that made me want to write a Brian and Howie story – not a slash, but a bromance. You don’t see too many fanfics that focus on those two, so I wanted to write one that would explore their friendship. As I wondered what would bring them together outside of a BSB gig, I decided it had to be something involving Nick because Nick is like the common denominator between them. Howie seems to be Nick’s best friend in the group currently, and Brian used to be. If something bad were to happen to Nick, it made sense that both Howie and Brian would be at his side in a heartbeat. Leave it to me to write a Brian/Howie story focused on something bad happening to Nick.
As I tried to figure out what could happen to Nick and why just Brian and Howie would be there, but not the other guys, I decided it had to happen in Georgia or Florida so that Brian and Howie would be physically closest and could get there first. I had gotten the idea for what would become A Heart That Isn’t Mine in June, and in the original outline, Nick was going to meet Dani at a horror convention. He had started doing conventions to promote Dead 7 and was set to appear at Walker Stalker Atlanta in October, so I was going to use that. I ended up stealing it for this new short story instead and changing my plan for the novel. Atlanta was a perfect location for Nick to get hurt because Brian lives in the area, and Howie’s only a state away, while everyone else is on the West Coast. Plus, I loved the idea of incorporating The Walking Dead in some way. I decided to have Nick get beaten by a drunk guy cosplaying as Negan with a real Lucille bat because I’m just twisted that way – and hey, it was more unique than a car accident or something cliched like that. (My fellow Walking Dead fans may have noticed the little Easter egg I threw in by naming Nick’s surgeon Dr. Rhee after Glenn.)
The attack on Nick was just meant to be a catalyst, not the focus of the story, so I didn’t actually write that part, and Nick doesn’t appear in the story until the last scene. It’s really all about Brian and Howie. Each of the three parts starts with a Howie scene and ends with a Brian scene, and the scenes are structured to sort of parallel each other, showing the similarities and differences between the two guys. I included a lot of the thoughts I’d wondered if they had ever had, the possible resentments they had could have harbored toward each other. It was an interesting dynamic to write.
It seems like most of the short stories I write are weird, silly things for challenges or April Fool’s Day (or both), so it’s always nice when I get an idea for a serious one. I’m really happy with how The Call turned out and have been trying to come up with more bromance ideas for future stories. Stay tuned…