IN THE BELOW SECTIONS YOU'LL SEE ALTERNATE TAKES AND PLOT-POINTS FROM PRIOR VERSIONS OF NOT TECHNICALLY GHOSTS.
I'M DELIBERATELY VAGUE AND BRIEF WHEREVER THINGS ARE STILL THE SAME IN THE FINAL VERSION AND WHILST NO SPOILERS FROM THE FINAL VERSION ARE BELOW, I STILL RECCOMEND COMING HERE AFTER FINISHING THE BOOK TO BE SAFE :)
Spoilers: I'm massively gay. Married to a man and everything. I came out 15, right around the time Spirit Rider entered its earliest stages and there's often been a queer slant in basically everything I've written.
Not to go too far off on a tangent but Sam - the main character in Spirit Rider - was initially envisioned as gay. It would have come out as single line of dialogue in the final book of the series, seeing as it had no bearing on the plot besides that. Then I chickened out of the idea and he was straight for a long while. But that never felt quite right either. So eventually he wound up asexual (possibly aromantic, still figuring it out) - which, after much thought, finally seemed like a good match for his character.
But I digress. The point I'm making is - I've always wanted to write a gay story.
One of my earliest attempts was an untitled handful of chapters and ideas (now lost to time!) surrounding a pair of werewolves in an urban fantasy, buddy-cop-esque thing where they variously fought and / or protected other magical creatures. One of said werewolves was confidently gay.
(Funnily enough, I've never fully let go of the bare bones of this idea and part of the world-building will get mixed into another idea - if I ever get around to writing The Waster Wizard).
I soon moved to focus on Spirit Rider, university, and a side-project or two. But the desire to write "the gay book" never went away. A few ideas or protagonists came and went. One that came closest was a rare semi-horror idea, which I may still come back to one day, in some form. Whilst I deemed that plot too thin to commit to, the shadow of what would become Not Technically Ghosts began here. The character of Linas, with some small alterations, was transplanted wholesale from this discarded plot and indeed some of his scenes I'd planned in that story were able to be adapted within Not Technically Ghosts instead. These were still just rough ideas, but ones I'd been growing more and more confident about writing.
As another sidenote (it's relevant, I promise!) I've never been much of a music-video person. That's to say, if I find a song I like, then I'll often build my own story / music-video in my head. At some point, some years back, I chanced across a pop-y love-song, which would truly be the foundation for Not Technically Ghosts.
The story I made was this: a teen partying with his friends in an abandoned Victorian ruin chances across a magic mirror. Said mirror acts as a visual link to the Victorian era, the reflection showing that of Victorian girl. Modern-boy and Victorian-girl realise they can (visually) communicate with one another via the mirror and so form a bond. They attempt to dance with eachother's reflection. As time passes, they both research the strange mirror. Modern-boy scrolls on his phone and Victorian-girl studies in a library. Modern-boy finds a recording of a séance featuring Victorian-girl, which he watches via a projector. Victorian-girl attends the séance and sees a vision of Modern-boy. They attempt to dance again, but fumble the moves as they can't touch. Eventually they both return to their respective mirror in their time. Modern-boy has picked up media attention and cameras, Victorian-girl is trailed by stuffy academics and professors. Modern-boy and Victorian-girl both approach their mirrors and touch their fingers to the glass. Streaming magical lights erupt on either side. They reach impossibly for one another, then Modern-boy grabs Victorian-girl by the hand and pulls her out of the mirror in a shower of magical sparks, to the shock and awe of the spectators of both mirrors. Victorian-girl grabs Modern-boy's arm and they dance back into the mirror, emerging on her side. Back and forth they go, having made a bridge between their eras. The media folks from the modern era poke their heads into the past, meet relatives and share stories whilst the Victorian academics are perplexed but enjoying it all the same. Modern-boy and Victorian-girl dance through the night.
That cute little music-video / story sat in my head for a few years, gathered dust, only brought out when I heard its corresponding song.
In the spring of 2022, me and my husband took a chance on a gay series on Netflix, which had gotten some good word-of-mouth reveiws. As we watched it, my husband commented early on: "This is too nice. One of them's going to die aren't they?" And I agreed with him. Because it had always felt to me, when it comes to queer media - that's the rules. Movies and TV had taught me gay stories can only ever be funny, sexual, or tragic. Yet as we watched, it soon became clear, this wasn't that kind of show. The message was one of positivity, of joy. It verged on sickly-sweet at times but even that was infinitely better than the alternative! It was a story that was just allowed to be.
I came away from watching Heartstopper determined. This was the kind of positive media I wanted, needed, to see more of the in the world. This is what I needed when I was a teen! I'm supposed to be a writer. I'd always wanted to get around to "the gay book".
It was time.
We begin in May 2022!
This was still very nebulous as an idea, not even something I was committed to finishing. So Not Technically Ghosts languished for some time as simply something I wrote on my phone whenever I wasn't feeling up to working on Spirit Rider: The Royal Problem. At this point, it wasn't even a project in any sense. I made it up as I went. There were no bad ideas, this was just a writing exercise.
The base idea was an adaptation of my invented music video described above - except gayer: modern guy meets Victorian guy in a place which is a ruin in the modern day and a thriving boarding school in the past. We follow both their lives as they slowly fall for eachother. No excessive drama. Keep it light. Keep it fun. That was the whole plan - not even an ending at this point.
The original title was 'Not Quite Ghosts' thought this wasn't 'quite' the right fit and eventually changed in this same period period. The name Albert Croak came pretty quickly but Ryan took a while longer. I've always like Font as a bit of a silly surname and had used it in at least one short story I wrote in university (one I ALMOST liked) and a planned side-character (no longer) in Spirit Rider. I can't remember all Ryan's former names, but Jason was definitely in the mix for a little while, long enough to have written some lines with it.
Early on I briefly considered scrapping the entire supernatural angle and having them simply be in the same time period, one of them at a normal comprehensive school and the other at a boarding school, which would have still given the differing of personalities and lives I was going for. But the supernatural element was too fun to drop.
Around December 2022, I had finally laid down a very rough outline of how the plot would go across Parts 1 - 4, which comprised the story. See above my original noted plans (very scrappy, seriously I BARELY read what it says and I'm the one who wrote them!)
Around this point, Benji had a slightly different element to his subplot. The main pieces were still there, but with the added wrinkle of him not knowing Ryan was gay. It would have been resolved with Part 2, I think, with him ultimately being supportive. However, I eventually dropped this as I think there are enough 'coming out' stories that it verged on cliché to include it simply because the book has a gay main character. I didn't want that story to be about that.
In the beginning, Linas was Ryan's only friend (details of the situation below) with Kara being much less of a focal character and really just there as Linas' not-often-seen girlfriend. Many Ryan and Kara solo scenes present in the finished(?) version of the story, were originally Ryan and Linas.
These next two points (in their original form) were transplanted wholesale from my previously (maybe scrapped?) 'Boyfriend Ritual' story.
Ryan's backstory involving both his best friend Linas and arch-nemesis Henry was very different. It involved Ryan being publicly outed and humiliated by Henry at a Halloween party, losing many of his old friends in the process. The result of this was that in Ryan's mind, the only reason Linas would stick with him, was because Linas was gay too, only afraid to come out. Ryan would have felt bad for Kara, thinking Linas was just stringing her along as a cover and be extremely uncomfortable when they were all together, often distancing himself. It would eventually turn out that's NOT the case and Linas is just a grade-A ally. But all of this was still coming across too tragic and straying from the fun, light brief I was aiming for.
Another point from the 'Boyfriend Ritual' story: Ryan was originally going to have a grandmother present in the story, who he visited often and was very close with. She would often give him important advice - even about dating! Clarance Hall wasn't originally positioned next to a graveyard and one of Ryan's interactions with his grandmother would have led to an important plot-point. Likewise her words would have also given Ryan an idea what for happens in the current ending. The grandmother might have been a tiny bit magical.
I had a very different ending planned in this time, which I do still like elements of, but I ultimately deemed ran too deeply into the fantastical elements and was also EXTREMELY bittersweet.
Besides the majority of Part 1, two specific parts / exchanges have been around (mostly unchanged) ever since the story was on my phone: 'Saturday is a known concept' and 'History be damned, for here I stand'.
In July 2023, getting to the end of Part 1, I finally bit the bullet committed to the book. I dumped it from my phone into a Word-document and Not Technically Ghosts become my official side-project, next in line after Spirit Rider: The Royal Problem.
A constant sticking point around here was how harsh Benji and his story needed to be. I often went back and forth rewriting his scenes, sometimes making him more violent and 'gritty' whilst other times pulling back too far and him losing much of his character. Scenes such as him physically attacking Ryan in a case of mistaken identity and such.
I distinctly remember writing at least part of the first meeting where Ryan and Albert finally talk, whilst in an Accident & Emergency waiting room - but that's a story for another time.
There was a scrapped scene where Henry hassles Ryan, Linas, and Kara in the dining hall at school, ultimately leading to Ryan storming out of school for the day. This was the first scene where I really got to wrote some lines for Kara and (as Ryan observed in the scene!) I thought she was actually pretty cool. Her greater character budded away in the back of my mind. More on that later.
Up to this point the whole story was written in 3rd person past tense - that being my default for a new project. I had been aware 1st person present was an emerging trend, especially within the genre, but I was initially very resistant to it. However, after reading a few other books in that style I started to come around to it. As an experiment, I rewrote the opening in 1st person present, then a few scenes after. Seeing the benefits - I soon committed to rewriting everything I'd done so far into 1st person present!
Once into April 2024, Spirit Rider: The Royal Problem was truly finished and well into the querying stage. That meant Not Technically Ghosts was finally upgraded to my main project!
One of my first matters here was finally deciding on the actual mechanics of the Passageway, finally working out it's relationship with paradoxes and how the time-travel elements could work etc. Come July 2024 - Part 2 was finally done.
Part 3 took the longest to get right. Especially near the start of writing Part 3, it was the least-planned section of the book. So many scenes were either talking in circles or winding up with a mood or a plot-thread that I absolutely didn't want.
Around here, I finally got a real handle on Kara. I had definitively moved Linas' plot-beats onto the finished version and so decided to flesh out Kara's role in the story. Obviously this meant another case of skipping back to the start and reworking a lot of scenes! Kara's family came to me all at once whilst returning home from watching a football match. I distinctly remember this giving me a huge headache when I realised a lot of my plans for Part 3 & 4 were based around Ryan having JUST Linas around.
The greater story focus and number of side-plots was always on Ryan. However it was here that I started trying to redress that imbalance and really planned out what's happening in Albert's time. Part of that came about when I quite unexpectedly found myself giving added depth to GRASSLEY of all people (who truly started out a joke-character who I never planned to move beyond his one-dimensional characteristic of loving his unseen fiancé).
I played around with the idea of having Albert meet a young girl who could see into the future. I really like the juxtaposition of Ryan in the future having his elderly grandmother with her arcane knowledge, whilst Albert in the past has a similar connection with a young mystical girl. But as Ryan's grandmother got cut, the mystical girl soon followed. Here too, I'd originally planned to have Albert follow his wayward friend Thompson to the local village one night, which would have led into a case of mistaken identity to set up his role in the story ending. (A similar plot point now plays out quite different in the current version).
An important 'ballroom' scene between Ryan and Albert originally happened in Part 3, but made more sense in Part 4. Finally in April 2025 Part 3 was finished.
Another (planned Part 3 / 4) scene I wrote some months (a year?) in advance was Albert coming out as gay to one of his closest friends. This was despite my earlier misgivings about such a topic feeling cliché within the story. I think the difference here was that, as it was a scene between two people in a totally 'alien' time period, it somehow felt fresher. I really liked the scene as written and indeed, I had wrote it because it was one of those story-beats that I was too excited to wait for. But when the time came, I couldn't find a satisfying place for it and after so much time's reflection, ultimately I didn't feel enough of connection to make space for it.
Quite near the end, I also started quibbling over the very nature of the Passageway and setup of the story. I started to feel that the interactions were too limited and wondered what I could do if Ryan and Albert could be allowed to interact beyond the confines of Clarance Hall. I had started to re-plan a few scenes with this in mind, but ultimately dismissed the idea. The existing scenes and setting simply needed more texture and fleshing-out.
As the word-count grew (I can't help keeping one eye on that at all times) Benji came very close to getting cut altogether. But I soon realised how integral he was to so many other parts of Ryan's story and so (for now?) he stays.
Even on the final day of writing the ending, I nearly had a big turn around on HOW the story ends, with regards to what happens to Ryan, Albert, and the Passageway. When it came down to it, I stuck to the ending as planned but when I think about a possible sequel... who knowns what might change in editing! At the time of writing, it's June 30th 2025 - and the first draft of the whole story is complete!