Nolan Croce asked Isaac Marion:

Be honest: how hard did you crush on Julie when writing her character?

Isaac Marion Oh, very hard. It's a strange feeling, being in love with someone you made up, but that's how it should be, right? It's like actors having "chemistry" with each other. The relationship may be fictional, but if they can't actually fall in love on some instinctive level, the performance rings false.

The strangest thing about Julie is that she was originally inspired by someone I knew (and was in love with) in real life, but over the course of 4 books she has developed beyond those origins and grown into her own person quite separate and distinct from the girl who inspired her. That's the weird magic of a series vs a standalone book--given enough time to evolve, imaginary people and places can gain a strangely convincing texture of reality. If Julie stepped out of the book, would I fall in love with her? Would that be betraying my good friend, R? And since I created Julie, would that relationship be incest?? These are the difficult questions authors deal with.

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