Hey everyone! it's the third day of Camp Nanowrimo and also the third day of my blog challenge: A Post A Day. And I have a special treat for you! it's a guest post by the author of Any Boy But You, Julie Hammerle! Keep reading to find out how she created the world of North Pole, the fictional city the book takes place in. Also, you can check out my review for the book here: Any Boy But You Populating the world of North Pole A little bit of trivia about the North Pole, Minnesota series: The first book in this series is the third one I wrote. I actually wrote a draft of what will be the second book first—about seven years ago—but the third book in the series is the first one I wrote that was set in North Pole. Book two, then three, then one. Got it? I’m confusing even myself. When I signed on with Entangled to write the North Pole, Minnesota series, we decided to do kind of a “year in the life” sort of thing. Book one would be set in January/February, book two would take place in the summer, and book three would take place during the December holidays. I’d already written the December book (sort of). I was able to take an old manuscript and retcon it to fit into the North Pole world for book two, but I had to come up with book one from scratch. By the time I started writing Any Boy but You, I’d already played around in this universe. I knew which characters I wanted to highlight in books two and three because I’d already written them. I knew I could use those characters, their families, and friends to fill out the world. But who would my main characters be? I started brainstorming—maybe the girl could be the babysitter of someone’s little sibling, or the boy could be the babysitter, or maybe the boy could babysit the girl because she’s a mess and her parents don’t trust her at home alone. Basically, my first thoughts had a lot to do with people babysitting. No, I don’t remember why. I got rid of those ideas pretty fast, and I started to focus on the town itself. What if there were two stores of the same kind on Main Street—kind of like where I used to vacation as a kid and there were, like, three craft stores that sold the same wares. What if the families were feuding? What if the kids wound up in a You’ve Got Mail-type situation where they fell in love without knowing it? The story filled itself out from there—I could highlight as many townies as I wanted as they dashed around town playing the game Oliver created. I could bring in people I already knew from book three for comic relief. I could stealthily set up book two in the epilogue. I started to think of North Pole as Springfield. In the early seasons of The Simpsons, there are a lot of random one-off characters who show up for one scene or one line, never to be seen again. But as the show progressed, those roles started to be filled by characters we’d already come to know. Why have a random nobody running the bake sale, when Chief Wiggum is right there? It creates a sort of shorthand, bringing in the same characters, using their archetypes and idiosyncrasies to enrich the scene. That’s why Craig (one of my favorite North Pole residents) tends to pop up for comic relief every so often in all three books. He’s everyone’s foil. He’s the bee in North Pole’s collective bonnet. The seasons and the main characters change in each story, but the townsfolk are the threads who tie the books together. That's it for this guest post! I hope you enjoyed learning about Julie's writing technique for her book Any Boy But You, and let me know what you think about it. Have you read it yet? Will you be picking up the next book when it comes out?
Again, if you haven't read my review for the book, You can read it here: Any Boy But You Leave me all your thoughts in the comments below or find me on social media, @BrookeEvans2001 on Twitter and @thecozylittlebooknook on Instagram. I will be back tomorrow with another post! Want to know what it is? Check out this post: April's A Post A Day Schedule ~Brooke
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About me!Brooke's a high schooler who loves to read all sorts of books. She's happy to be able to share all the books she's reading with all of y'all. Archives
June 2020
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