Jessi Noelle
Jessi Noelle asked Meredith Russo:

Did any of the characters surprise you? Did any of them change unexpectedly as the draft was written?

Meredith Russo Bee surprised me the most! I wrote the first act of the novel and then set it aside for MONTHS with no real idea how I was going to end it.


(SPOILERS)




I had no idea how Amanda was going to be outed, though I knew the story kind of required it. I originally thought maybe it would have something to do with social media, or with a bunch of Amanda's trans friends showing up to surprise her and her getting outed by proxy, or the only school official who knew (we glossed that over) letting something slide to a secretary, or somebody digging up an article about the bathroom attack incident. In all of these scenarios I imagined Bee as Amanda's rock. I always knew Grant and the girls would come around in their ways, but for a long time I figured Bee would be the one to carry Amanda through.

It, uh... didn't work out that way.

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