The Midnight Dance — Behind the Scenes: Chapters 1 & 2
The most common question I get asked as an author is: where do you get your ideas? There isn’t an easy answer, especially when you’re a nerd like me who loves research! So, I thought it might be interesting to share the inspiration and influences behind specific pieces of my books, bit-by-bit, like a behind-the-scenes DVD director’s commentary. I imagine this will be quite a long series and there might be big gaps between posts, but if you enjoyed the books I hope you’ll find it interesting.
Chapter 1
In this chapter, we meet Elam who’s trying to prove himself to the Artistic Director of the School of American Ballet.
It took me so long to write this chapter! I had a lot of information to get across and I had to figure out a way that wasn’t too info-dumpy. The thousand words in this chapter took about three weeks of research (I knew nothing about ballet going into this book.)
The two things that had the greatest impact on this chapter were:
The musical A Chorus Line.
Teen Vogue’s Strictly Ballet documentary series. S1E6 in particular spoke about audition season and helped me understand how dancers get chosen for companies.
The Midnight Dance starts with Elam’s audition for the School of American Ballet in front of the Artistic Director.
The real Artistic Director at the School of American Ballet who’s featured in Strictly Ballet was Peter Martins. I didn’t want to include him, not only because I prefer not to include real people in books without their permission but because he was later dismissed due to accusations of abusing ballerinas. So I did a bit of a gender swap on the name and got Petra Marceau.
“I am both the black and white swans. Some days I don’t know which is which. But if I am the black swan, it was all for this.”
This is the first of many references to Swan Lake and to twins and the duality they represent. As you’ll know if you’ve seen the movie Black Swan, both roles are usually danced by the same ballerina, but the black swan is deceptive. It’s against Elam’s nature to be deceptive. He’s naturally an Odette and so, even though his step family has been vile to him, he still regrets lying to them. This sets up his reaction at the very end and the decision he makes. It’s also very Cinderella.
The Nutcracker
When I first started planning The Midnight Dance, one of the reasons I wanted Elam to be a dancer rather than another type of creative student was because I knew the book would fall over Christmas and be in New York, which immediately made me think of The Nutcracker. I started researching what the best role for Elam in The Nutcracker would be and learned about how, in ballet school, you perform in it every year from the moment you start ballet school, taking on different roles until you maybe are lucky enough to get a solo.
In S1E3 of Strictly Ballet, a dancer named Alec talks about how difficult it was coming into SAB at a later level without the foundational phase and he makes specific mention of how all the other students already knew Balanchine’s choreography of The Nutcracker and he had to work extra hard to learn it. That was pretty much the spark that brought this whole chapter to life. I loved the idea that Elam was a natural talent but also an underdog. It worked really well for the idea of Cinderella: here’s someone who’s given everything for a single gamble, a chance to dance. Not at a fancy ball, but because that’s what sets his heart on fire. And on a deeper level, that’s the only thing that makes him feel worthy of adoration (by an audience).
I wanted to set up from the get go that Elam does love dancing, but it’s also a coping mechanism and the thing that fills the lonely hole inside him. He’s balancing on the precipice between dancing for love and using it as a substitute for love.
Chapter 2
In this chapter, we meet our love interest and he is neither lovely nor interesting.
One of my favorite things in a romance (or any fiction actually) is when you’re presented with a bad guy and then slowly get a peek under the hood and find he’s not so bad after all. It’s the unique thrill of knowing that while the world sees him one way, I, as the reader, get to know the real him. That’s what I wanted with Charles.
As soon as I thought of Charles, I couldn’t resist the idea of making him one of the Wall Streeters in line at The Spindle. It was extremely fun to write and felt like sharing a bunch of in-jokes with readers.
“The line hasn’t moved in ten minutes. I check my watch again and consider the sunk cost fallacy.”
Charles was based on a real grumpy finance guy I know. (They say authors write people they don’t like into books and kill them. Apparently, I write them into books as romantic heroes.) This is one of the things I picked up in my studies. Grumpy finance guys love behavioural science.
Charles overhears this conversation:
“Maybe he’ll change his mind,” she says.
“He won’t.”
“I mean once he gets there. He’ll miss you too much and he’ll turn around and come back.”
“We’ve been through this. He’s doing it for me. He wants to protect me.”
I tap my foot and click my jaw. I do not need to be privy to this conversation, I need my coffee.
“That’s some bullshit,” Tattoos says.
“I know. But it’s too late to convince him anyway, he’s showing his apartment today.”
“He doesn’t need an apartment, he’s got yours.”
It’s a hint that this scene takes place after this conversation in The Spindle’s Curse:
I kiss Philip gently and he smiles as soon as his sleepy gaze settles on me. “Hey.”
“Hey,” I smile back at him. “We need to talk.”
Despite his sleepiness, he must hear the tension in my voice because he scrambles to sit. “What’s wrong?”
I take his hand and hold it against my chest, where my rib is barely throbbing even after a night of sex. “Your parents were watching us dancing at the charity do. I think they probably know what we so thoroughly tested out last night.”
His gaze drops. “Would I sound like the biggest dickhead ever if I said I was hoping you’d take longer to recover?”
“This month has been… I don’t even have words. I never imagined anything like it. But I think I need to go home.”
Philip nods, still looking at the bedding rather than at me. “All right. The driver can take you whenever you’re ready.”
I can hear the pain in his voice, so it kills me to say, “I mean home to New Paltz.”
Here’s exactly how the two stories overlap:
(Yes, Philip is technically kidnapped on Halloween! I kept trying to find a way to work that into the story, but it would have wrecked the pacing).
We also see in this scene that Philip’s dad supports his son and is very protective of him, something we don’t really get from Brian’s point of view in The Spindle’s Curse. Is he having breakfast at The Spindle because he’s got a meeting in the area? Or is he worried for Philip’s safety because he’s already received some sort of threatening message? I’ll let you decide.