An Author's Adventure

Crush Vision: Behind the Scenes

     Hello, everyone! Welcome to the Behind-the-Scenes look at Crush Vision! Let's jump right in!

    The idea for Crush Vision literally cane out of nowhere. All of a sudden one day I just had this idea in my head similar to a theme song of some old sitcom with one of those electric keyboards as background music and some people singing the title of the story along with it as the camera panned over a cityscape. That's where the similarity ends, though—if there was a laugh track every time Henry did something relatable I think everyone would die a little bit on the inside.

     I couldn't figure out what Henry's name should be for the longest time, so for almost all my planning, I just called him "Lover Boy."

     Something I know I'll need to work on when I edit the story is describing the characters' appearances more. I think Emmy's the only one who even had a specified hair and eye color. I actually visualized what everyone looked like the whole time, I just never found a way to incorporate it. Here's a picture of the whole gang from Chapter 6:

From left to right, the cast is Troy, Jacob, Henry, Emmy, Hannah, and Delaney.

     The way I come up with characters is kind of interesting; I'll either come up with the person's looks, personality, and role in the plot and not have a name for them for weeks or vice versa, where I'll only have a name for them. For Crush Vision, it was pretty much universally the first instance.

     Towards the end of the story I wondered whether the characters' peers outside of their friend group would think Emmy and Henry were dating the whole time. Who knows if it's canon, but it's pretty funny.

     The whole time I was writing, I was so worried that the scenes I made were filler instead of fluff. I actually have a few deleted scenes/miscellaneous things, so let me know if you'd be interested in seeing those.

     I first planned for Emmy and Henry's school to have uniforms, but then I realized it came off way too "shoujo anime-esque", which wasn't really the plan I had for the story, so I changed it.

     I also had to be careful not to put aspects of my own personality into the characters (the dreaded self-insert, I know!), since I love all things cute and I'd already written a short story with a dog lover as the protagonist, plus I had Emmy volunteer at the animal shelter. But she's so kindhearted in the first place that I think it makes sense for her character. I know that Jacob, Troy, Delaney, and Hannah aren't really fleshed out, but I did promise myself to keep the story relatively short, so I suppose that's part of the reason why. Henry, though, is just a big mood the whole time. I didn't really specifically plan for him to be, but he became a relatable cinnamon bun. He's my tall string bean child now.

     That's all for behind the scenes. If there's any other information you'd like to know, I've got a Q & A coming soon!

This has been another chapter in An Author's Adventure. Stay tuned for next time!