Wish Upon A Streaming Star
Krissi Dallas
(Season 1 Volume 1)
Publication date: July 7th 2024
Genres: Comedy, Contemporary, Romance, Young Adult
He’s an internet star.
She can’t stand him.
Together they just went viral.Daisy McEntire might seem like an uptight control freak, but it’s only because she’s trying to graduate high school, support her cancer-fighting mother, and save her family’s riverside campground. The last thing she needs is her obnoxious neighbor, internet star Caz Cortéz, keeping everyone up with his late night video stunts and ridiculous pranks. Forget that they grew up as best friends—that was before he relentlessly obsessed over his hair and stats.
But when Daisy accidentally botches one of Caz’s pranks on livestream, the video goes viral, endangering his sponsorships and throwing her into an unwelcome spotlight. As if the overnight attention isn’t enough, half a million dollars in an unbreakable lockbox mysteriously appears. The key to unlock it? Reenact a series of cliché Hollywood movie scenes together within 48 hours.
The catch? It all has to be done live on the Internet—no rehearsals.
Daisy needs the money. Caz needs the stats. Surely they can work together long enough to complete the challenge, split their earnings, and then get back to ignoring each other from across the property line.
The one challenge they can’t control, though, is the one that could jeopardize it all—falling in love.
Interview with Krissi Dallas
Have you read anything that made you think differently about fiction?
I was at a writing conference when a presenter introduced us to the book My Story Can Beat Up Your Story by Jeffrey Alan Schechter. It’s a craft book on how to write a bestselling screenplay, but I found it to be hugely accessible for a novelist. At the time, I was stuck in my manuscript of Icarus Flight School and couldn’t quite pinpoint why it wasn’t working. So I used the MSCBUYS method for plotting certain beats in the story and re-shaped my characters to serve specific purposes within the plot and flow of conflict. The next thing I knew, I was able to get through the entire first draft of that story for the first time ever. I then started reading Save The Cat books to help me plot novels that could easily be adapted to the screen. Those writing craft books challenged how I saw patterns and archetypes within my own projects and taught me how to craft stronger stories that resonate with readers—and hopefully, someday, viewers on the big screen!
How do you select the names of your characters?
I usually go for meaning first. Then I like to consider how it rolls off the tongue and will be used in dialogue throughout the story. Some of my favorite character names actually alliterate: Caz Cortéz, Luke Longmire, Katarina Carmichael, to name a few. Sometimes I try to drop hints with the name, like a biblical or historical name that might foreshadow something about that character. I have often named characters after people in my life or as a result of a contest I ran on social media. Debbie in Wish Upon A Streaming Star is named after one of my best friends’ mom who lost her battle to cancer but left behind an incredible legacy of faith. Occasionally, my character names are just meant to be on-the-nose hints to help the reader associate certain things with that character—like Rylee Stockton (her dad is a billionaire with a ton of stock, LOL).
Do you hide any secrets in your books that only a few people will find?
Yes, of course! This is why you should always be careful around a writer… you and your secrets might make it into a book someday! I do take a lot from my past experiences and twist it around to suit my fictional worlds. For example, the big Event That Shall Not Be Named that originally drove Caz and Daisy apart from each other in Wish Upon A Streaming Star is based on something that happened to me in high school. If you were there, then you know. And that’s all I’ll say about that.
What was your hardest scene to write?
The hardest scene to write in Wish Upon A Streaming Star was definitely the action sequence in Scene Challenge #10 and its aftermath. As an author it’s difficult when you feel both sides of an issue and you want to protect your characters so that readers don’t just totally hate one or the other.
Do you want each book to stand on its own, or are you trying to build a body of work with connections between each book?
All of my books are connected to a greater series. Every time I honestly try to write a standalone… and it’s just not my thing. The world always grows and my characters refuse to abandon the premises on any timeline other than their own. But I have always loved book series that allow me to really feel invested in the characters and their successes and failures. So why wouldn’t I write what I love to read?
What were your goals and intentions in this book, and how well do you feel you achieved them?
First, I wanted to write a low-budget romantic comedy that could someday easily adapt to the screen. I believe I achieved that—now I just have to find the right producer for the screen side! Second, I wanted to challenge myself to write for the screen by having sections of the story told in transcript format. Could I still write in such a way that the dialogue and stage directions carry the story and keep it just as vivid in the reader’s mind? You get to decide! Do I secretly hope that my readers will act out those scenes at home or with friends like I used to with my favorite books as a teen? Yes. Yes, I do. Have fun with it!
What inspired you to write Wish Upon A Streaming Star?
Wish Upon A Streaming Star was born while watching hours of—you guessed it—YouTube videos with my young sons. I couldn’t believe how much my kids revered these YouTubers as celebrities. It got me thinking… What if a girl fell in love with one of these guys and got roped into his ridiculous world of challenges and pranks? What if he was even more in love with her the whole time and they just kept misunderstanding each other? What if I then made this love story into a modern-day Pride and Prejudice featuring all my favorite Hollywood clichés? And told a third of the story in transcript form as it’s happening live on the internet? ENTER CAZ CORTÉZ and DAISY MCENTIRE.
Can you tell us a little bit about the next books in the Wish Upon A Streaming Star series or what you have planned for the future?
Wish Upon a Streaming Star Season 1 is releasing in two full-length, illustrated volumes on Kindle Unlimited, e-book, and paperback; Season 2 is ongoing on Kindle Vella with new episodes releasing every weekend. Without ruining what happens in Season 1, I can tell you that the story in Season 2 continues to keep up with Caz and Daisy, but shifts to tell the story of Caz’s older brother Leo, the handsome young sheriff of Hammock County. When a murder takes place in Hammock, Leo ends up enlisting the help of his ex-girlfriend—who happens to be Suspect #1. The storyline becomes a bit more adult-centered (though still accessible and appropriate for a YA audience) with a smoldering second-chance romance that could bring danger to the whole town.
Can you tell us a little bit about the characters in Wish Upon A Streaming Star?
The fictional small town of Hammock, Texas is a quiet stop along the Guadalupe River where guests take camping vacations and tubing expeditions. La Hamaca by the River is a rundown riverside campground owned by Debbie McEntire—a Jesus-lovin’, sweet tea-sippin’ cancer warrior—and her soon-to-be high school graduate daughter, Daisy. While the McEntires struggle to keep La Hamaca in business, the property that borders it belongs to none other than charmingly mischievous internet sensation Caz Cortéz. Daisy’s sole focus is on graduating high school in six days, taking care of her mother, and keeping the campground afloat—not catering to the camera-obsessed boy next door who spends all of his time these days worrying about his hair and his YouTube stats.
Caz and Daisy might’ve grown up playing like best friends and bickering like siblings, but something happened at the start of their senior year that ruined their friendship, prompting Caz to drop out of school to focus on his YouTube fame and turning Daisy into a repressed mess of conflict-avoiding bitterness. The story opens with Caz making such a racket late at night that Daisy marches over to his side of the property line for the first time in eight months to give him a piece of her mind. Her surprise appearance interrupts Caz’s shenanigans, causing him to fall out of his treehouse “Caztle” and into a dumpster. Daisy’s sincere rush to rescue him, followed by the realization that he was pranking her with a fake injury, leads the two to erupt into a big fight—all while livestreaming on the internet. The love-hate chemistry between the two, combined with an obvious history, causes them to go viral overnight.
Within a few days, a mysterious challenge shows up via text message, offering Daisy and Caz half a million dollars to reenact ten cliché Hollywood scenes live on Caz’s CAZMANIA channel within 48 hours. The challenges start immediately, and Caz and Daisy are only able to pull them off with the help of Caz’s easygoing cousin, Rocco, who is interning as cameraman for the summer, and Daisy’s spitfire best friend, Daniella. Every famous movie scene they create ends up twisting into some kind of hysterical non-Hollywood outcome, both poking fun at and celebrating the most well-loved aspects of movie culture. Caz and Daisy are never short of witty dialogue and banter, even as they start to remember all the things they miss about their friendship.
What did you enjoy most about writing this book?
I enjoyed exploring the chemistry between Caz and Daisy… they practically wrote themselves with their love-hate-kiss cycles every single episode. Writing them each week for my own live audience on Kindle Vella allowed me to experience the story as my readers did, as if we were all watching it unfold together. I enjoyed listening to the comments and votes of my readers—in fact, Season 2 only exists because fans started to develop an interest in Caz’s older, more mature brother, Leo. Had I not had real-time access to know how my fans were reacting to the story, I might never have gone in that direction. And, of course, it is an honor to be consistently voted a Top Fave story for my third year in a row. Thank you to my loyal fans out there who keep this story alive and make it such a joy to write! I hope new readers will jump on board with the Kindle Unlimited, e-book, or illustrated paperback version of the books and then join us on Kindle Vella for Season 2!
Author Bio:
Krissi Dallas loves pop music, mismatched socks, and Tex-Mex food. She is wife to Dr. Sam Dallas, mom to two strong-willed little boys and a mini goldendoodle, and former junior high teacher of sixteen years. When she’s not busy serving in her church and community, Krissi gives herself over to daydreams and writing. She has five books in the Phantom Island series with the sixth and final installment on the way. Her Kindle Vella novel, Icarus Flight School, spent eleven weeks as the #1 Top Faved story in Teen and Young Adult and just released in paperback and hardcover. Her ongoing serial romantic comedy, Wish Upon A Streaming Star, is currently a Top Faved story on Kindle Vella where new episodes release every weekend. She’s a proud member of the writing community at Art House Dallas and loves nothing more than connecting with readers and writers of all ages.
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1 comments:
This sounds like a really good story.
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