Wayback Wednesday #11: 2010

For this week’s Wayback Wednesday, we’re going back to 2010 for what I like to call “a tale of two stories.” In the summer of 2010, I started two stories, Guilty Roads in June and Curtain Call in July. They were both Nick stories, but beyond that, the stories themselves and the experience of writing them couldn’t be more different.

Title: Guilty Roads

Written: June 2010 – present(?)

Straightforward synopsis: After Nick accidentally witnesses a group of gangsters dumping a dead body while on tour in Philadelphia, he and Kevin are attacked in their hotel room. Kevin is shot in the head, while Nick is taken out to the country, beaten, and left for dead. Believing Kevin to be dead and blaming himself, Nick hides out with an Amish family who reluctantly takes him in, as Kevin fights for his life in a Philadelphia hospital.

The story behind the story:
I was all over the place at the start of summer 2010. I was still working on my two collaborations, 00Carter and Song for the Undead, as well as my side project Secrets of the Heart, but at the beginning of June, I got inspired to try writing an idea I’d had written down since 2003, when I was too busy writing Broken to start anything else. My working title for that idea at the time was Austere Refuge, but it became Guilty Roads.

In my blog about Secrets of the Heart a couple of weeks ago, I wrote that there are two kinds of story ideas: the truly inspired kind and the manufactured kind. Guilty Roads was a manufactured idea.

The origin of the idea starts with one of my old favorite fanfics, Faceless. I’ve always thought of Faceless as a fanfic version of Disney’s Beauty and the Beast. I once asked the author, Jaydee, if she had based her story on Beauty and the Beast, and she swore she hadn’t. But I thought it was a great idea to reimagine a Disney movie as a BSB fanfic, so I set out to do just that. My favorite Disney movie happens to be Beauty and the Beast, but I wasn’t going to use that because, in my mind, Faceless already did it. So I turned to the other two in my top three, The Little Mermaid and The Lion King. I actually came up with an idea for both of them; I never ended up writing The Little Mermaid-inspired one, but the one I got from The Lion King became Guilty Roads.

I guess it was fitting that The Lion King should inspire a fanfic because that movie itself was inspired by Hamlet. While both of those tales have to do with the son of a king avenging his father’s death at the hands of his uncle, I focused more on the part of The Lion King where Simba, blaming himself for his father’s death, flees his kingdom and seeks refuge with Timon and Pumbaa, who teach him a new way of life. Nick is Simba, Kevin is Mufasa, and Analiese and the Amish community are Timon and Pumbaa.

I decided to use Kevin and Nick as the main characters because their age gap gave them the closest thing to a father/son relationship within the Backstreet Boys. I loved the idea of them each believing the other was dead while Nick was in hiding, but coming up with a believable way to put them both in that situation was a challenge. I needed both a reason for Nick to blame himself for Kevin’s apparent death and a reason for him to stay hidden. At one point I was considering killing or disfiguring Kevin in a fire that Nick had somehow caused, but I couldn’t imagine him turning his back on his brothers just because of his own guilt. I realized I needed a human villain that could continue to be a threat to Nick long after Kevin was hurt, keeping him scared enough to stay away. The group of gangsters served that purpose. The storyline of having Nick witness something he shouldn’t have seen wasn’t the most original or the most plausible idea, but it worked to explain why Nick would feel both threatened and to blame for what happened to Kevin.

I also had to figure out where Nick was going to go. I had already decided to set this story in the late 90s, figuring Nick’s youth would help to justify his poor judgment, but where in the world could the most popular Backstreet Boy have hidden out without being recognized? With the Amish, of course! Once I thought of the Amish part, I was able to piece the rest of the story together: Philadelphia, the mob, the Millennium tour, and Kevin getting shot in the head.

That’s not to say it all fit together perfectly. I’ve always found the plot of this story somewhat convoluted, and filling plot holes has been an ongoing problem. Those plot holes are part of the reason I sat on the basic premise of Guilty Roads for years before attempting to turn it into an actual story. As much as I love suspense, writing it is really not my forte. I was way out of my element with the gangster stuff in particular.

Turns out, I don’t really love writing about the Amish either. Trust me, I wanted to. I enjoyed Lurlene McDaniel’s Angels trilogy back in the day, which was about the only exposure I’d had to the Amish way of life prior to plotting this story. Of course, I immersed myself in books, movies, and TV shows about the Amish after I got the idea to use them. I did plenty of research online, too. It didn’t inspire me as much as I wish it would have. Although I love the idea of Nick hanging out in Amish country, actually writing it has not been fun for me.

Of course, my favorite part of the story to write has been the medical drama involving “Coma Kevin.” I’m sure you’re surprised to hear that. It was a fun challenge to figure out a way to give Kevin what appeared to Nick to be a fatal injury, but actually have him survive it. A gunshot to the head was perfect because not only does it not seem survivable, but the resulting brain trauma made it so Kevin was unlikely to remember what had happened to him or be able to communicate it even if he did. It was hard to write Kevin in that kind of condition, though. The only other story I had ever written about one of the Boys suffering a serious traumatic brain injury was Shattered Lives back in 2000, and I felt so bad about turning Nick into a vegetable that I gave it a cliched twist ending in which the whole thing turned out to be a dream. Not the case with Kevin.

Of course, it remains to be seen whether Kevin will recover or Nick will return because, almost ten years since I started it, Guilty Roads is still far from being finished. And that’s largely because of the second story in this week’s blog, Curtain Call.

Title: Curtain Call

Written: July 2010 – October 2011

Straightforward synopsis: A nurse practitioner and aspiring singer named Cary is recruited by Nick Carter to be both the Backstreet Boys’ opening act and his own private nurse so he can continue touring while secretly being treated for terminal cancer.

The story behind the story:
Unlike Guilty Roads, Curtain Call was not a manufactured idea. It was one of the truly inspired kind, those rare lightbulb moments that make you want to run straight to your computer to start writing.

At the beginning of July 2010, less than a month after I started Guilty Roads, I was seven chapters in and had already run into writer’s block. I took a break from trying to write and turned on my TV to find the movie Funny People starting on STARZ. This was a fateful decision that would spell disaster for Guilty Roads, while gifting me with the idea for arguably the best novel I’ve ever written, Curtain Call.

For those who haven’t seen it, Funny People stars Adam Sandler as an aging comedian/actor, not unlike himself, who is diagnosed with leukemia. He meets an aspiring stand-up comedian, played by Seth Rogen, and takes him under his wing, hiring him as a personal assistant while acting as a mentor to him. Seth’s character opens up for Adam’s as he goes back to his stand-up comedy roots, and Adam’s character confides in Seth’s about his illness, which he has been hiding from the rest of the world. For a movie called Funny People, it’s more of a drama than a comedy, though it does have funny parts – a perfect dramedy, I suppose. I liked the movie – the first half, at least – and loved both the bromance between Adam and Seth’s characters and the cancer storyline, of course. The fact that Adam’s character was famous got me thinking that something like it would make a great BSB fanfic, which is when the first seed for a new story was planted.

That little seed grew quickly. I absolutely loved the idea of one of the Backstreet Boys mentoring an aspiring singer while hiding a serious illness. I decided quickly that the aspiring singer had to be a girl because I didn’t want to develop a bromance between anyone but the Boys themselves. Whether it would turn into a romance or just a friendship between the Boy and the girl remained to be seen. Learning my lesson from By My Side to let my characters drive the story, I decided to leave the door open for a potential romance, but only go that route if the characters had the right chemistry. That narrowed my options down to Nick or AJ for the main character because the other three were already married. Nick and AJ were both dating their future wives at the time, but it’s easier to get rid of a girlfriend than a wife. I went with Nick because I like writing him more, and besides, I was already writing a Brian/AJ story.

For the girl, I came up with the character of Cary, a nurse practitioner who sings on the side. I made her a medical professional so she could not just act as a caretaker and confidant to Nick, but actually help administer his treatment. The idea of him continuing to tour while receiving treatment on the road for an illness he had been hiding from his bandmates and fans was both heartbreaking and compelling to me.

Believe me, I really tried to avoid making that illness cancer. After Broken and BMS, I didn’t want to write another Nick cancer story. I scoured my brain and the internet, trying to come up with another condition that was potentially fatal and could be treated by a nurse outside a hospital, but not without some serious side effects. I don’t usually tell other people my ideas before I post stories, but I even confided in my friend Rose and asked her for ideas. Neither of us could come up with anything that worked better than cancer. My second best option was kidney failure, which did fit my criteria, but just didn’t pack the same punch as cancer. I felt it needed to be something that couldn’t be cured just by waiting long enough for, say, a kidney donor to come through. If that were the case, Nick could have just waited until he got better to go back on tour. The whole point of his decision to continue touring during his treatment was that he was worried if he didn’t do it then, he might never get another chance. And so… cancer it was. Again.

Once I accepted that it was going to be another Nick cancer story, I set out to make it as different from Broken as possible. Writing it in first person point of view helped. Prior to Curtain Call, I wrote almost exclusively in third person, but first person had become trendier in both books and fanfics, and it felt right for this story. Originally, I was going to write the whole thing from Cary’s point of view, but after Nick revealed his illness to her at the end of Chapter 5, I really felt like I needed to go back and show his side of the story up to that point, so I wrote a few chapters from his point of view, and that’s what led to me switching back and forth between the two perspectives. I think it turned out better showing both sides to the story, and it created a different dynamic than Broken. With Broken, I was trying to be all literary by including symbolism and flowery language, whereas Curtain Call feels more like a real story being told by real people.

I obviously wasn’t going to give Nick bone cancer again, so I browsed the American Cancer Society’s website until I came across one I’d never heard of called lymphoblastic lymphoma, a rare type of Non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma that is similar to acute lymphoblastic leukemia. It worked well because it typically affects people under thirty-five (Nick was thirty at the time), is more common in males than females, and is aggressive, presenting at Stage IV disease in more than 70% of patients. It typically starts with a mass in the chest, which can causes symptoms like chest pain and shortness of breath that I thought Nick might mistake for symptoms of the cardiomyopathy he had been diagnosed with a couple years earlier. The treatment is the same as for leukemia – chemo, followed by a stem cell transplant. While the chemo regimen I researched and used for Nick has a high rate of success at achieving remission, 40-60% of adults with lymphoblastic leukemia eventually relapse. The overall survival rates for adults is only about 50%. From a storytelling standpoint, this worked out well; I could give Nick some hope in the middle with a remission, then snatch it away with a relapse.

I did some hardcore research for this story, even more than I did for Broken/BMS. There was no relying on outdated Lurlene McDaniel books; I looked everything up. I had discovered the site Medscape by this point in time, which is still my go-to for medical research. It’s catered toward medical professionals, so it gives detailed information on diagnosing and treating different conditions, doing procedures, medication dosages, and so on. My medical vocabulary has grown just by trying to decipher some of the terminology used on that site and looking up what I don’t understand. I watched videos of procedures on YouTube so I could describe them more accurately, and I kept a detailed outline and timeline to keep track of Nick’s treatment schedule, tour dates, and whatnot.

Whereas Broken started in “real time” during the Now or Never tour and then followed a divergent timeline, in which I had to make up future BSB albums and tours as I got further and further ahead of the present time, I decided to set Curtain Call during one of the Boys’ real tours so I could draw on real events. I debated between having it take place more or less in the present with the This is Us tour, which was going on at the time, or going back a couple years to the Unbreakable tour. I actually outlined it both ways before I started writing, aligning the dates of both tours and other real events with the chemo regimen to see if one worked better over the other. I weighed pros and cons, and in the end, I preferred the This Is Us version, so that’s what I went with. I don’t particularly enjoy writing performance scenes, but I liked writing this tour and looking for ways I could intertwine real events with the fictional events of my story. I would watch soundcheck videos, check Twitter, and read message board threads about specific shows to get ideas for unique things that had happened on certain dates that I could include. For example, Nick really did have a sore throat for the Raleigh show and really did forget the lyrics to “Panic” at that soundcheck, which I blamed on “chemo brain” in the story. Likewise, he didn’t show up to the soundcheck party at one of the San Francisco shows toward the end of the first leg of the U.S. tour, blaming it on a family emergency, so of course I used that in the story – that was when Cary dragged him to the hospital for a blood transfusion just so he could get through the show that night.

I decided pretty early on that Nick was going to die in the end. Not only would terminal cancer give the story a completely different tone than Broken and BMS, in which he beat his illness, but it would also fit better with the whole idea of him fighting to get through the tour, knowing it may well be his last. The title Curtain Call came from that premise and was suggested to me by Rose during one of our early brainstorming sessions. Prior to that, my working title for it was The Show Must Go On. I was inspired by the Queen song of the same name, which was recorded while Freddie Mercury was secretly dying of AIDS, yet determined to continue working for as long as he could. I included a scene with Nick listening to that song to get himself pumped up before a show for that very reason.

I wrote Nick differently from how I had in Broken. Broken Nick was very angsty and moody. Curtain Call Nick was more subdued. He acted like more of a tough guy than a teenage girl, hiding his true emotions instead of wearing his heart on his sleeve. Both Nicks were charismatic, but while Broken Nick was genuinely sweet and romantic, albeit a little clueless, Curtain Call Nick was more calculating and manipulative. He used his charm to convince Cary to do whatever he wanted, even when it went against her better judgment.

Similarly, I wanted Cary to be different from Claire in Broken/BMS. Although they were both nurturing and empathetic characters, they were opposites in other ways. Claire was outgoing and blunt, while Cary was more shy and reserved. Claire didn’t put up with Nick’s bullshit, while Cary let him play her like a fiddle. Claire was a low-maintenance tomboy, while Cary was a girly girl who was a little more high-maintenance. Claire was tone deaf, while Cary could sing like a bird.

I based Cary’s look and style on Zooey Deschanel, who is one of my celebrity girl-crushes. I love her voice, vintage style, and quirky personality. I made Cary an old soul who loved music and fashion from the forties and fifties because her grandparents helped raise her after her mother died of ovarian cancer when she was a child, leaving her slightly clueless dad a single father and widower. Her dad is based on my own father, and I had fun writing the scenes with him in it. I also gave Cary a pet teacup pig named Hambelina, and I honestly do not remember why. I came up with a back story about Charlotte’s Web to explain why she wanted a pet pig, but I have no idea where that actually came from. I’d probably seen a video or something online with teacup pigs and thought it would be cute.

The decision to start the story with Cary being eliminated from American Idol was one I had mixed feelings about. On one hand, the whole American Idol thing felt cheesy, just as the opening act storyline seemed so cliched. On the other hand, it was a more realistic way for Nick to discover Cary than the old teenybopper trope where a Backstreet Boy randomly walks into the bar where Mary Sue is singing karaoke and offers her a record deal or opening act gig on the spot. Cheesy or not, American Idol has become a legitimate way for regular people to rise quickly to fame and make connections within the music business that sometimes lead to success and opportunities after their time on the show has ended. And the whole opening act storyline was really just a cover for Nick essentially hiring Cary as a private nurse and keeping it a secret from everyone else on tour.

I knew I wanted Nick and Cary to develop a close friendship, but I left it up to them to decide if they were going to be more than friends or not. I wasn’t going to force them to fall in love, but I left the door open for a romance later in the story if it felt right. As they got to know each other, it became apparent to me that Cary had a crush on Nick, her fangirl infatuation with him turning into genuine feelings for him. Nick was much harder to figure out. Although he appreciated Cary’s compassion and friendship and felt a physical attraction to her, I don’t think that he was ever truly in love with her. Their relationship was one of convenience for him. He kept her around because she took care of him and brought him comfort, but had he been healthy, I don’t think they would have stayed together. If he had lived, I don’t think they would have lasted. Some readers may disagree with my take on this, and that’s totally fine – everyone is entitled to their own interpretation. But compared to Nick and Claire in Broken/BMS, who, in my mind, were soulmates who belonged together, I felt like there was something missing from Nick and Cary as a couple. That said, I think the one-sidedness of their relationship actually gave the last third of the story a more interesting dynamic than if they had been destined for one another. In a way, Cary’s side of the story is almost as tragic as Nick’s because she sacrificed so much of her own life to be with him, only to lose him and end up brokenhearted… but my belief that they weren’t meant to be together long-term made it easier to at least give her a bittersweet ending in which she was able to move on and marry someone else. I think Nick would have wanted that for her.

The one part of Curtain Call that I’ve always second guessed is the storyline surrounding Cary’s ovarian cancer scare toward the end and Nick donating his sperm so she can freeze embryos and preserve her ability to have children in the future. I loved the idea of him being able to give something back to her, after all she had done for him, and knowing that a little piece of him would live on long after he was gone. It was fun to show that little piece in the last chapter. But the whole thing seemed to come out of nowhere and felt a bit rushed, happening so late in the story. It wasn’t something I had planned from the beginning, so I wasn’t able to foreshadow or lead up to it as much as I would have liked. I don’t know that I would change it if I could go back, but I do think I would have built up to it better so that it made more sense.

Other than that, I think Curtain Call is as close to a perfect story as I will ever write. I’m not saying it’s actually perfect or even near-perfect by any means, only that it’s my personal best. I don’t see myself ever writing another cancer story because I don’t think I can do it any better than I did with Curtain Call.

Writing this story couldn’t have been a more different experience from how writing Guilty Roads has gone. Unlike Guilty Roads, I don’t remember ever having writer’s block with Curtain Call. I was inspired the whole time, and so the story basically wrote itself. I had to do a lot of research, sure, but at the risk of sounding like a weirdo, I enjoyed that research. I would have enjoyed a career in medicine because I legitimately find it interesting, so researching medical conditions and treatments never feels like work to me. It’s more like a fun challenge.

That being said, something happened in my personal life about halfway through writing Curtain Call that made its subject matter hit much more close to him. In January of 2011, the week I went back to work after winter break, a colleague and friend of mine was diagnosed with cancer. We were initially told the cancer had been found in her brain, but was thought to have originated somewhere else. As soon as I heard that, I knew it was going to be bad. Sure enough, a week later, we found out it was Stage IV lung cancer that had spread to her brain and other parts of her body. To be clear, my friend was not a smoker and had never lived with smokers. This was a fluke thing that happened to her through no fault of her own. She was in her early thirties, married with two young children. She started treatment immediately, but it was understood that the treatment was intended to give her more time with her family, not to cure her cancer. It was incurable.

I remember driving home from work the day we found out, crying as I thought about her and her family. At some point, my thoughts turned to Curtain Call. How on earth was I going to keep writing this sad story about Nick dying from cancer when my friend was going through it for real? It didn’t feel right, and I wasn’t sure I could do it. But this site is called Dreamer’s Sanctuary because writing has always been both a safe place and an escape for me. Writing sad stories makes me happy. Thus, continuing Curtain Call became a cathartic way to channel and express my own grief. I could have taken a break from writing it or quit altogether, but I kept going because it was therapeutic for me. I could have changed my planned ending and made Nick miraculously recover to reflect what I prayed would happen with my friend, but I didn’t because I knew it wouldn’t be realistic. I went ahead and gave poor Nick what I feel was the tastefully-done death his character deserved. My friend passed away the day after I posted the last three chapters of Curtain Call. Never before had my real life paralleled one of my stories like that, and I hope it never happens again. But I’m grateful that I was able to finish Curtain Call and truly feel it helped with my grief process.

Unfortunately for Guilty Roads, the year-and-a-half I spent writing Curtain Call totally derailed me. Although I’ve written more chapters of Guilty Roads here and there, I’ve never been able to get back the momentum I had before I started Curtain Call. It’s a shame because I really do like what exists of Guilty Roads and have some good ideas for where it’s going. I just don’t feel inspired to write it. My hope is that one day, I will force myself to go back to it like I did with Secrets of the Heart and make myself finish it. But as long as I have other stories to write, Guilty Roads just keeps getting shoved to the bottom of my priority list. That being said, I have no regrets about writing Curtain Call. It was meant to be.