Shawn Maravel's Blog - Posts Tagged "ideas"
Know Thy Neighbor: An Inside Look
Because Know Thy Neighbor will be published in...like a WEEK, I figured I'd share a little info about the book to hold ya'll over until then. ;)
A fun fact you may find interesting is that I essentially stole my lead characters from the original draft of Know Thy Neighbor for my second installment of the Rider series, Shifting Gears. I loved the names so much that I couldn't seem to part with them. Know Thy Neighbor had the threat of being one of those stories that I'd never get around to publishing, meanwhile I needed names for Shifting Gears so I swiped them. The end result is that I'm IN LOVE with the names I ended up with so there was no big loss. And as an added bonus I proved myself wrong and published a book I had at one point lost all hope of seeing to the end.
Whenever I'm writing action scenes I always get super nervous about how I'd portray them so I often enlist my husband, David to help me map it out. As with a flashback scene from The Wanderer, he essentially "designed" one of the action scenes towards the end of this novel and okayed it after I'd made additions and changed based on his suggestions. coincidentally my mom--who revises all of my work before publication--says that Know Thy Neighbor and The Wanderer are her two favorites of my novels. I'm wondering if I can attribute any of that success to David. ;)
I had originally started this book off thinking that it would have an underlined theme of Alice in Wonderland. I was even considering making Evangeline's character more "Alice-like" in looks and other traits. In the end I dropped the theme though a few details remain leftover. You might be interested to try and spot them. ;)
I had originally envisioned Alex Pettyfer as the male lead for this part but after about a year away from the story I came back to writing it and found that Liam Hemsworth was much better suited for the role I was writing for our male lead, the mysterious John Smith. I had also originally mentally cast Odette Yustman for the part of Evangeline but wanted to make her character a bit more spicy so I changed her locks to red and could much more easily see Emma Stone acting the part, though much less humor driven than most of us know her as.
Well, I guess that's all for now. I'm interested to hear any questions you may have about the novel and it's characters either after reading it or in anticipation. I hope you guys and gals enjoy reading Know Thy Neighbor as much as I enjoyed writing it. :)
A fun fact you may find interesting is that I essentially stole my lead characters from the original draft of Know Thy Neighbor for my second installment of the Rider series, Shifting Gears. I loved the names so much that I couldn't seem to part with them. Know Thy Neighbor had the threat of being one of those stories that I'd never get around to publishing, meanwhile I needed names for Shifting Gears so I swiped them. The end result is that I'm IN LOVE with the names I ended up with so there was no big loss. And as an added bonus I proved myself wrong and published a book I had at one point lost all hope of seeing to the end.
Whenever I'm writing action scenes I always get super nervous about how I'd portray them so I often enlist my husband, David to help me map it out. As with a flashback scene from The Wanderer, he essentially "designed" one of the action scenes towards the end of this novel and okayed it after I'd made additions and changed based on his suggestions. coincidentally my mom--who revises all of my work before publication--says that Know Thy Neighbor and The Wanderer are her two favorites of my novels. I'm wondering if I can attribute any of that success to David. ;)
I had originally started this book off thinking that it would have an underlined theme of Alice in Wonderland. I was even considering making Evangeline's character more "Alice-like" in looks and other traits. In the end I dropped the theme though a few details remain leftover. You might be interested to try and spot them. ;)
I had originally envisioned Alex Pettyfer as the male lead for this part but after about a year away from the story I came back to writing it and found that Liam Hemsworth was much better suited for the role I was writing for our male lead, the mysterious John Smith. I had also originally mentally cast Odette Yustman for the part of Evangeline but wanted to make her character a bit more spicy so I changed her locks to red and could much more easily see Emma Stone acting the part, though much less humor driven than most of us know her as.
Well, I guess that's all for now. I'm interested to hear any questions you may have about the novel and it's characters either after reading it or in anticipation. I hope you guys and gals enjoy reading Know Thy Neighbor as much as I enjoyed writing it. :)
