The making of PLAY WITH ME

Today I happened to stumble across an awesome review done on YouTube, where the reviewer pointed out that you couldn’t tell through the entire book who Liza was going to hook up with eventually. Believe it or not, there’s a simple reason for it.

I didn’t know either…

When I began telling this little novella in the heroine’s voice, her name was Samantha. And Samantha was always meant to be with Tony. At the beginning as much as at the very end. I brought in this hot guy, Ryan Hunter, just to give the whole book a little spice. The heroine should have a nice time with him, lots of fun, but nothing more. She was never meant to fall in love with Ryan. And that kiss she shared with Tony at the end of the book should have been the final one. The one that brought the two of them together.

But a funny thing happened that changed it all. During a break after I’d written half of the story, I read the book of an author friend of mine. Her heroine was named…tada…Samantha.

Damn, I thought. I can’t do that. Can’t name my heroine Sam right after reading that book. My friend might think I copied her. And that was the last thing I wanted. So I banged my head on the keyboard a few fierce times, trying to come up with a different name. A name that had it all, just like Samantha. It must be simple, there must be a way to cut it short, and it must go well with the last name Matthews. Finally I found what I needed. Liza. Short—Liz. It was perfect. In a simple replace command, I changed all the Sam’s in the book to Liz. Great. Job done. The only trouble with it? My heroine suddenly had gotten an entirely new personality.

That’s what happens when you pick names for your characters. You also pick personalities with that name. Hair color, style of clothes, traits, habits, talents, and moods. For me, it all comes with the name. And Liza wasn’t how I had shaped my heroine so far.

Basically that meant I had to go back to paragraph one and make adjustments. And suddenly, the girl spoke to me in a way that Sam never had. I wanted her to be in love with Tony, but Liza just fell for Ryan. There was nothing I could do about it.

And apart from it all, one thing was crystal clear. Tony would hook up with one girl only. With Samantha. And if there was no Samantha in this book, then he wasn’t going to be the lucky winner in Play With Me.

You see…the simplest thing like renaming the heroine can change a story entirely.

On that note, expect a great story in T IS FOR…

Keep reading! (Preferably my books. )

Cheers,

Piper

Tagged: books