FAQ
This is a Q&A the original writers, Rachel and Julie, did a few episodes in to answer reader-submitted questions.
Q. How do you plan to include all these characters in the story? Surely some must be more principal than others, as in the show ER. It would be impossible to include 40 some odd characters as main characters.
Yeah, obviously, there’s no way we could have every character on the cast list be a main character. Like in ER or any other show or movie, there will be leading roles (like Greene, Carter, Benton, etc.), and there will be supporting roles (like Malik, Randi, Haleh, etc.). We wanted to put a lot of people in the story because of the great number of entries we got and because, since this takes place in a hospital, we’re going to need lots of staff members, and we didn’t want there to only be like one of each kind of doctor mentioned. This way we can have a variety, and everyone at least gets to see their name mentioned in a story. The people who made their submissions sound the most interesting are the ones that we’ve chosen as main characters, and they will get the spotlight on them the most.
Q. Are new “episodes” going to only come out once a week like a real tv show, or will you update a much as possible?
At this point, I’d say the new “episodes” will come out once a week at most. They’re going to be much longer than a chapter of any of our other stories are, more like a short story than a chapter really, so it will take longer to finish than a chapter or two would. I would like to release an episode a week like a TV show, but I’m not sure if that will be possible every week. It depends how busy we are and whether or not we have writer’s block or something. We’ll try, but we can’t guarantee anything.
Q. Are you going to have villainous characters?
Yes, we are. *evil grin* We made up one such character on our own, so that we’d be sure to have at least one for the first season, but we’ll probably twist around at least one or two of the characters we got from the contest and turn them into somewhat of villains too, just because we need bad guys to make it interesting. If your character happens to become one of these “villains” in the story, no hard feelings – it’s just for the good of the story, not because we don’t like you as a person LOL. In fact, being a villain could be a good thing. You’d definitely get more action and spotlight than some characters.
Q. How long will [insert character’s name here] be in the story?
We don’t know, at this point. We plan on having lots of seasons if the story is successful, and so there’s really no way of knowing who will be in what season and how long they will be in the story total. We don’t have much planned out yet as far as that goes. We have decided the fates of a few characters, but only a few, and we won’t reveal any of those anyway. So you’ll just have to read and find out. 😉
Q. How are you going to remember all of these people’s positions and who they are going out with. It’s got to be hard!
Yeah, it is hard, to be honest LOL. We have a list of the whole cast, their ages, their positions, and who they’re going out with that we refer to often LOL. We also have all of the submissions from the “Be a Character” contest so we can go back and find out what our characters look and act like. It gets easier as it goes on, and we include the characters more. We’re familiar with our main characters that we use most often, but we still get confused with the ones that aren’t in the story a whole lot yet. People that have characters in the story will email us, and we’ll know that they’re characters because we recognize their names and email addresses, but sometimes, we don’t remember which character they are, unless of course, the character has the same name as them. So right now, it is confusing with so many characters, and we’re sure you readers are even more confused than we are. But as we go along, it will get easier for all of us to remember all the characters. It’s just like on ER – if you had never seen it before and just watched it for the first time, you’d be totally lost because there are so many characters, and they all date each other, and it’s like one big soap opera. But if you watch it long enough, you get to know the characters and have no problem figuring out who is who and who they’re all involved with. So just be patient and refer to the cast list if you get confused LOL.
Q. Was everyone in the cast (besides BSB and *NSYNC) picked from that contest you guys had, or did you make up some characters on your own or base any on yourselves?
No, not all the characters are taken from the contest. Most are, but we based a few on our friends, our enemies, and other people we know. And did we base characters on ourselves? Yes, we did actually. But we’re not saying who. We’d rather leave that for you to figure out, if you care.
Q. Is it possible that a contest for ideas can be compiled? That way you will have many ideas and the contestants will have fun also.
It might be possible some day. Right now, we have plenty of ideas, and our Be a Patient thing is giving us even more. So no, at this point, it’s not possible to make a contest for ideas, but if we ever run out of them in the future, maybe.
Q. I was just curious about how long it took to put together this project and what steps were taken to accomplish it.
December 11, we came up with the idea. The next night, December 12, we posted the “Be a Character” contest form. We ended the contest the 17th, made a site that day, and started writing either that night or the next day. We posted the first episode that Saturday, the 22nd. So it took eleven days.
Q. I am curious about where all your ideas come from because they are all great!
Thanks! Well, I dunno, our ideas come from lots of places. Some of them come from ER and other medical shows. Also, we get a lot of ideas from the “Be a Patient” forms we get; those help us a lot. And then some ideas we just get from other people, our friends or just readers of the story. And some we just think up by ourselves. So our ideas come from all over, and while we’re talking about it, we’d like to give a big thank-you to the people who have helped us most with ideas so far in this story – Mel, Kaz, Sammy, Louise, all the characters, and all the patients that have submitted. Thanks, guys!
Q. Will we find out what happened to Kylie with the other paramedic? I need to know! :o)
Yup, eventually. Not sure when yet, but that little mystery will be revealed at some point. Until then, you’ll just have to keep reading to find out. 😉
Q. Will we see any character deaths?
Yup, definitely. We have one planned out already, but of course, we’re not going to say who, when, or how. Again, you’ll just have to keep reading.
Q. Who’s your favorite person on ER?
Julie doesn’t really have a favorite, even though she’s been watching ER since the beginning, but she’d probably have to go with Doug Ross if she had to pick. She also liked Dave Malucci a lot and was pissed when he got fired. Rachel’s favorites are Mark Greene and John Carter.
Q. Is the bulk of this story going to be based at the hospital and when the EMTs go on call, or will there be some personal life scenes?
Well, the one time we tried to go into a personal life scene so far (at the end of Episode 2), we got majorly criticized for it (see the guestbook for more details). But we think that in order to develop our main character better, we’ll need to go into their lives outside their jobs, and that’s what we’re going to do. The majority of the story will take place in the hospital, but we will have other scenes that center more around the characters’ personal lives.
Q. Are Jack and Addie and Kylie and Josh together in real life? How do they know each other? I think their characters are adorable. (Obviously the BSB characters and their girls aren’t real LOL)
First of all, thanks! To answer your question, all four of these characters are based on people we know in real life. They know each other from work and school, but they’re not together in real life, just friends. Oh, and just a side note – all the characters in this story are based on real people. Most of them came from the “Be a Character” contest (see the cast page for more info), and some we created on our own, based on people we know. But all of them (the staff at least, not the patients or other guest stars) are somewhat “real”.
Q. What happened to Bailey and Caleb? They just disappeared!
Don’t worry, Bailey and Caleb will be back. We just didn’t mention them in Episodes 3-4 because the focus was on the big trauma and the ER and EMT squad and not really the other departments of the hospital. We didn’t forget about them though.
Q. Are any of the scenes based on real life experiences? If so, which ones?
No, not so far, at least as far as we know. Pretty much all of our patients have come from the “Be a Patient” form, so as far as that goes, they could be based on real experiences. We don’t know. But the things we made up ourselves are just things we’ve simply thought up or gotten from TV shows and stuff like that.
Q. Is the flashback Lance had for real or made up? It totally kicked major ass! Even though I hate NSUCK, I like Lance, and this tugged at my heart strings.
The flashback idea was Rachel’s, and Julie asked her the same question when she read that part, since she’s not an ‘N Sync fan and doesn’t know a lot about them. It isn’t true. Lance does have a sister named Stacey, but that’s the only real part of it. The rest was just made up for the sake of the story. We’re glad you liked it. =)
Q. What happened to Brian and Ivory?! You introduced them as boyfriend and girlfriend, made them sound like such a cute couple and now you haven’t written anything about them since!! I really want to read more about them. And Ivory sounds like such a neat person. Is she really some one who tried out for your “Be a Character” contest?
Oh, don’t worry, Brian and Ivory will be back. We have too many characters to have every character be in every episode, but Brian and Ivory are both main characters (we know Ivory hasn’t been in it much yet, but she will be), so they’ll definitely have more parts coming up. Yup, Ivory was one of our submissions for the “Be a Character” contest. Her submission was very good and detailed, so it made it easy to describe her as a character. If you’re interested, the real Ivory is a fanfiction author and has a story hosted on Julie’s site (http://www.dreamers-sanctuary.com). It’s called “Forbidden Love, Unrelenting Hate”, and it’s extremely good, so you might want to check it out sometime.
Q. Have you two considered publishing options for this story?
Nope, not at all. We’re just writing this for fun and have no intention of getting published. It would be cool to have a story published sometime, but not a Bsb fanfiction. It would have to be a completely fictional story with all fictional characters. But thanks for thinking it’s good enough to be published! That is such a compliment; thank you! =)
Q. Are one of you two involved in the medical field? This information appears very precise.
First of all, thank you! Actually, Rachel’s college major is medical support, so she’s been learning some terminology and stuff, but she’s not really involved in the medical field. Neither is Julie. Both of us just share a common interest in medicine and watch the show ER, and Julie reads Lurlene McDaniel books, which are all about teenagers with terminal illnesses, which also helps with the medical knowledge. Between the two of us, we do have a lot of medical knowledge, and what we don’t know, we research so that we can make the story as accurate as possible (since neither of us really are involved in the medical field though, we know not everything is going to be realistic, but that’s okay because it’s only a fanfic).
Q. Inquiring minds want to know, what happened to Kylie the paramedic before the series even started?
That will be revealed eventually in the story. Honestly, I (Julie) don’t even know exactly what happened (this thing was Rachel’s idea), and I don’t know when it will be revealed, but we promise you’ll find out sooner or later LOL.
Q. Have you guys considered writing a short part or a prequel type story describing the lives of the main characters? I totally think that would be awesome because we can look into their lives before they “grew up” and see what events shaped them?
No, we hadn’t thought of that. The last time we tried to write a prequel like that (In The Beginning) for a story (The Terror Chronicles, a story of Julie’s), it was a complete flop, and it was really boring. However, if enough people want us to write something like that, we might just do that. It’s a really good idea; we just wouldn’t want to bore people with it. If we start to think seriously about it, we’ll put up a poll or something and ask for opinions. Thanks for the suggestion!
Q. Is that cheerleader going to come back into the story? I mean she kinda just left and there was no follow up. I’d like to know what happened to her. Is she going to come back?!
Maybe… we’re not really sure yet. Those of you who watch ER enough know that they almost never seem to follow up on their patients – a lot of them are only on for one episode. We would love to follow up on all of our patients, but if we did that with everyone, there would just be too much of the same old patients, and we wouldn’t have room for new ones. Also, it would be hard to skip large periods of time, which we need to do in order to move this story along. So for this particular patient, we’re not sure if we’ll talk more about her or not.