Behind the Story
The Changed didn’t begin with an outline.
It began with five handwritten lines on half a sheet of paper.
Just one single scene.
Just one question.
Just enough to make me wonder what happened next.
Those five lines became pages.
Then notebooks.
Then sticky notes covering my desk.
Maps. Creature sketches. Character histories. Timelines. Conversations scribbled in the margins before I forgot them.
Somewhere along the way, I realized this wasn’t one book anymore.
It had become a world.
One that was too big to fit between a single front cover and back cover.
Every chapter led to another question. Every answer uncovered another story waiting to be told.
Sometimes the best stories don’t grow because you plan them.
They grow because they refuse to let you stop writing them.
—L.A. Keane
The Story Behind the Orange Fish
People may ask where the Orange Fish came from.
Some may assume it’s symbolic.
Others may think it must represent something deeper.
The truth is much simpler.
Meet the real Orange Fish.
The tunnel belongs to my cat, who claimed it as his personal fortress. If anyone walks by, he launches surprise attacks from inside like it’s his full-time job. Somewhere along the way, that ridiculous Orange Fish tunnel found its way into my imagination. It became the “rude fish” in The Changed Series — the one young Evie insists stared at everyone in the waiting room.
Sometimes the strangest pieces of fiction begin with something sitting in your living room.
The cat still guards the tunnel.
Evie still insists the fish was rude.
I think they’re both right.
People sometimes wonder wether Professor Hops was inspired by a real stuffed rabbit.
The answer is no…and yes.
He’s not based on one toy.
He’s inspired by something I came to understand while raising my children.
Every child seems to have that one thing they refuse to leave behind. A stuffed animal. A blanket. A favorite pair of pajamas. To everyone else, they’re ordinary objects. To a child, they’re comfor, safety, and home.
When I created Professor Hops, I wasn’t creating a toy.
I was creating the thing that reminds us that home isn’t always a place.
Sometimes it’s something we’re lucky enough to carry with us.
The Story Behind the Skitters
People often ask where the ideas for the creatures in The Changed came from.
The answer is almost always the same:
Ordinary moments.
The Skitters were born from something I’ve noticed all my life.
That restless feeling when your body insists on moving even though your mind knows you don’t need to.
A foot tapping beneath a desk.
Fingers drumming on a tabletop.
Pacing while thinking.
Shifting your weight for no reason at all.
Most of us barely notice we’re doing it.
I started wondering what would happen if that small, ordinary impulse never stopped.
If the need to move kept growing until it became instinct.
The Skitters were the result.
One simple human habit, stretched just far enough to become something unsettling.
I’ve always loved the idea that the most frightening things in fiction don’t come from somewhere else. They begin with something we already recognize.
The Story Behind the Ferals
People of think monsters begin with claws, teeth, or violence.
The Ferals didn’t.
They began with anger.
Everyone knows what it feels ike to have emotion take over for a moment.
To say something you wish you could take back.
To act before you’ve had time to think.
Usually, reason catches up.
Usually, we regain control.
I started wondering…
What if you never did?
What if every decision was made by the strongest emotion you felt in that moment?
What if fear, rage, grief, or desperation became louder than logice?
The Ferals were born from that question.
They aren’t monsters because they feel too much.
They’re monsters because they can no longer choose anything else.
L.A. Keane 