Date Night: Keeping an Open Mind

I recently read an article where J.K. Rowling admitted that she made a mistake by marrying Hermione to Ronald in the Harry Potter series. She reluctantly acknowledged that she held on too tightly to the "original" script where Hermione and Ron were supposed to end up together. But in hind-sight, she felt they probably weren't right for each other.

I completely understand where J.K. Rowling is coming from! It is really hard to let go of a path that we set for our characters in the beginning. But sometimes characters grow and develop into something that we, the writers, never could have envisioned in the beginning. And it is a shame to hold our characters back from becoming the best that they can be.

In the story of Date Night, I originally wrote the scene in the cafe with Jordan and her cousin Tyler. However, as the story developed, I realized there was a real potential for a spin-off love story for Jordan's brother Jared. But that spin-off would have Jared falling in love with Jordan's best friend. After all, turn-about is fair play!  Once this idea hit me, it became clear that I had to work Jordan's best friend Leah more into the storyline. The cafe scene was the perfect scene to introduce Jordan's best friend and allowed for a great opportunity for character development. So I had to ditch the cousin in favor of the best friend.

Making this change was really heartbreaking for me. I wrote Date Night for my niece and many of the characters at least have the names of my real life family members. The mannerisms of Leah in the cafe scene mirror those of my real life niece Tyler. And it was so much fun to watch my real life niece come to life on the pages of the book. So taking Tyler out of the picture and replacing her with Leah broke my heart a little. But it was for the greater good of the story and I was able to weave Leah into four other key scenes, which built the foundation for the second story in the Wish Come True series called "Fair Game".

The lesson I learned was to always keep an open mind. Don't cement your ideas for a story so that they are immovable. Be open to new possible angles, plot lines and characters that will take the overall story to the next level!

Besides, I ended up building Tyler into both Date Night and Fair Game so now I can give her a story of her own. Coming soon...