Harmless Things (Jean Hobbs AU)

Harmless Things 'Explanation'

I really want to show you 'behind the scenes' of this story and give a little bit more information and shed some light on a couple of things! 

How I got the storyline/the aim of HT

I wanted HT to be completely different from everything else I've ever wrote. The biggest change I made in the characters was actually the age since it meant I had so much more to think about: school, friends, family and their relationship with them, home, attitude to sexuality etc. 

One thing I did want to do in this story is for it to reflect real life. Not everyone is accepting of homosexuality, some people have to look after their siblings including their parents and others face the battle of cancer. I didn't want to brush away these issues or sugarcoat things. For some people, caring, cancer, being bullied and being kicked out of their homes because of who they love is their real life. 

I guess you could say it's a harsh reality. The storylines I chose to write about were to open both my mind and yours so that maybe someday you might be able to understand the tiniest bit of what someone could be going through. This helped me grow as a writer and a person because I had to really put myself in someone else's shoes and write about their emotions and thoughts about something I had never experienced before. 

When it came to planning out the story all those months ago, I knew I didn't want it to be a really cliché story where it was really predictable. I don't like stories where you try and guess what happens and you're right - I like to be wary and I like my predictions to be wrong. 

To try and keep HT somewhat interesting I liked to use plot twists. Either major or minor, they can affect such a lot of what happens with the storyline and what happens to the characters. No plot twists = no problems = easy lives = boring story.

A list of plot twists that I used (from what I can remember from the top of my head, anyway): 

• Scarlett's cancer (to be explained later)

• Homophobia in school - when in school I found younger years are less tolerating of homosexuality, so I stuck with reality. I also just wanted to cause some trouble 

• Jack's homophobic parents - some people are just brought up to believe that it's unnatural/inhumane for two people of the same sex to love each other. Also I just wanted to stir more difficulty

• Jack denying his sexuality - without Jack struggling to come to terms with being gay, there wouldn't have been much of story. His parents were the root of him not being able to accept himself, and without that thought whizzing around in his head all the time, he would've been totally okay with falling in love wither another boy for the first and that wouldn't have been interesting for you to read or for me to write (a bit more on this later) 

• Jack kissing Dean then Jack rejecting him afterwards and cutting off contact - (parts seventeen and eighteen) this was probably the biggest plot twist. 

I finished part seventeen with a bit of a cliffhanger by ending it with "And so I did the only thing that made sense at the time, by lifting his head and [...] pressing our lips together." I suppose it would be fair to say that it was expected of them to get together in part eighteen, but that didn't happen because I wanted to surprise you and upset you and annoy you all at one time. 

Jack was still battling against himself and for a split second he was perfectly okay with what he was feeling for Dean, but during the kiss the denial side of him hits right back causing him to completely freak out. He told Dean to stay away because Jack didn't like what was happening him and thought it would all melt away if he stopped seeing Dean.