Road Trip Wednesday is a “Blog Carnival,” where YA Highway’s contributors post a weekly writing or reading-related question and answer it on our own blogs. You can hop from destination to destination and get everybody’s unique take on the topic.

Today’s Topic: If you went to school with your characters, would you be friends?

I’m going to use my characters from Loving Max Holden, the contemporary YA romance I’m currently shopping to agents. I feel like I know them better than I know my actual, real life friends anyway.

Shy Jillian is a self-proclaimed blender. She’s not pitiful, but she often lacks the confidence to go after what she really wants. She’s dependable, smart, cynical, and her sense of humor is pretty dry. Honestly, she’s a lot like I was at seventeen… so yes, OBVIOUSLY I’d be friends with her! 🙂

Jillian’s childhood friend and next door neighbor, Max, is very much her opposite. If he were an animal, he’d be a Golden Retriever. Popular, fun-loving, confident, loyal. If I had gone to high school with him–much like Jillian–I would have been envious. He seems to have it all, and effortlessly so. So, no, I probably wouldn’t have been friends with Max. Not because I wouldn’t have wanted to be, but because I would have viewed him as out of my league.

Truth be told, if Jillian’s seventeen-year-old outlook on life is based loosely on my own, then Max’s is based loosely on my husband’s. I often tell him that if I’d known him in high school, we wouldn’t have been friends. Funny how well we do together as adults! 🙂