How to Prepare to Write a Book About Boy
Bands:
Okay, so this
whole book series started out as an idea on twitter. Basically throw in a few
authors talking about their love for boy bands on the net and BOOM, a book
series proposal is born. But before we could start writing our books, we had to
discuss, how many guys we wanted in the band and who wanted to write what
guy/girl combo.
And once we had
a general idea of what kinds of storylines/tropes we each wanted to write, we
had to pitch it to an editor. Which, lucky for us Stacy Abrams at Entangled Publishing
loved our idea to take 5 authors and each write about a guy in this super
famous (made up) boy band.
To prepare
ourselves to write this series, we created a google group/google docs page
where we had to update information on where we wanted our tours to be
(dates/venues etc). But this was a place to also list our characters and their
information (descriptions/likes-dislikes/friends/what part of the tour we
wanted to write/names of fake songs/also backstories for some of our people).
We also had to
depend on pictures of insides of tour buses, photos of famous people who
reminded us of our characters to post and give everyone kind of a visual of how
we saw our guys/girls. We shared playlists and numerous emails back and forth
asking one another stuff like “Hey would your guy do something like this?” And
sometimes we wouldn’t all agree on one thing, like our band name (LOL). We were
glad to have some help naming our band from readers and our editor.
But for me, I
started to watch a lot of boy band videos—as in the behind the scenes type
stuff. Like what certain bands did while out on tour, backstage stuff (and yes
I bought some 1D DVDs and also brought out some of my old New Kids on the Block
VHS tapes I still had). I took lots of notes and I read online columns and such
regarding tours etc. I tuned into TV shows/specials that had to do with boy
bands. I wanted to know everything there was to know about how the different
groups ticked and what some of their downfalls were. I wanted to make things
realistic, even though this book is about a fictional band.
One of the most
fun parts of writing this series with other authors was the emails back and
forth, with hot guy pics and links to boy band music videos. And since my
character, Trevin, who is Korean American is kind of based off some of the KPOP
bands I discovered through my niece and daughter, it was awesome sharing some
of those videos with the others. If I got the chance to work with these ladies
again, I’d jump on it.
The only sad
thing about this series is that this band doesn’t exist in real life (LOL). I
LOVE Seconds to Juliet and all our fabulous guys we created: Miles, Ryder,
Trevin, Will, and Nathan.
Let’s Talk Boy
Bands:
Okay, so it
seems like every generation has its’ boy bands. For my generation, it was New
Kids on the Block and Boyz II Men. But over the years, whenever a new boy band
comes out I find myself falling in love with them. When I was in the Army, I
discovered the Backstreet Boys, 98 Degrees, and of course, N’Sync. Then a few years after that O Town (LOL).
And now, I find
myself listening to One Direction, The Vamps, and 5 Seconds of Summer. I don’t
know what the draw is, but I love their poppy tunes and sweet love songs—making
every girl feel like the guys are singing “just for her”.
My absolute
first boy band love/crush was Jordan Knight from New Kids on the Block. OMG—I
had so many posters of him hanging up in my room. I’d buy magazines
specifically with New Kids stuff in them so I could cut the pics out and
plaster my walls with them. I owned blankets, pillow cases, books, dolls, pins,
collector cards, stickers, cassettes, VHS tapes, you name it, if it was about
New Kids on the Block I had to have it. I even remember our cheerleading squad
doing a dance routine to Hangin’ Tough one year…
It’s so funny
how no matter what types of music go in and out of popularity that there always
seems to be a big named “boy band” out there. I think it’s awesome—I mean look
at how fans are brought together by these bands. They start fan clubs and meet
one another online to chat about the newest news or whatnot. It’s like a whole
big community of people all over the world.
And to prove my
point, this book series started out with a few of us authors chatting one day
on twitter about our love for boy bands—and that love turned into a “OMG, we
should write a series about a boy band.”
What about you?
Do you love boy bands? If so, who are some of your favorites?