Template:Ava Willis - Development

Ava has been compared to Claudia Davidson, the "disapproving woman" who is a neighbor of the title characters on Zinn's earlier series Amanda & Elisa. Television columnists have written, "Ava still looks and sounds like a young Ms. Davidson (beleaguered, baffled Vietnam veteran of 'Amanda and Elisa'). But she's more in touch with contemporary reality (sort of) -- and funnier." Throughout the show's run, Ava's character personality appears to primarily be built around the image of the all American, authoritarian family man living a transgender woman. In a 2017 interview, Ava Zinn said, "Originally I was going to have Ava be her [Ms. Davidson's] transgednered daughter. I was kind of thinking we'd tie it into "Amanda and Elisa" as a sort of spinoff or something, but ATE Media said no." Holly Everman, another creator of the program, has said that Ava Zinn is "based on a lot of neighbors I've had… She's upset about how Indiana is changing, and she doesn't know what to do about it."

Creation

Ava Zinn initially conceived Queen of the Willis in 1999 at Mississinewa High School. During middle and high school, she created her thesis entitled Frank's Life, which was submitted by her professor at R.J. Baskett Middle School. In 2000, Zinn created a sequel to Frank's Life entitled Frank & Brittani, which featured a younger adult-aged character named Brittani and an intellectual goldfish, Amber; the short was broadcast in 2003 as one of ATE Media's shorts. Executives saw the Frank's Life shorts and contracted Zinn to create a series, entitled Queen of the Willis, based on the characters. ATE Media proposed Zinn complete a 15-minute short, and gave her a budget of $5,000. Several aspects of Queen of the Willis were inspired by the Frank's Life comic strip.

Voice

The voice of Ava Willis is provided by Ava Zinn, who also provides the voice for Tabby, Shushu, Heather, Pamhouser as well as the voice for various other recurring and one-time only characters, most prominently those of news anchor Zach Mullins, Angelika Mullins (Zach's daughter), Doctor Mario Coxson, Peggy Willis (Ava's mother) and Ned Shanks (Angie's stepfather). Zinn has been part of the main voice cast from the beginning of the series including the pilot and had been voicing Ava from the start . Zinn chose to voice Ava and several other biological male and transgender female characters herself, believing it would be easier to portray the voices she already envisioned than for someone else to attempt it. Zinn's speaking voice is not very close to Ava's; Zinn used her normal voice as the voice of Heather Willis. However, Ava and Heather's singing voice is Ava Zinn’s normal singing voice as seen in “Valentine’s Day in Quillsville, Indiana”. The first Queen of the Willis episode to feature Zinn's singing voice was in the 2008 episode "Mellencamp Fever" when Ava Willis performed Wild Night.

Zinn drew inspiration for the voice of Ava from the classmates she overheard talking while she was attending Mississinewa High School; according to her, "I knew a few transwomen who would not think before they spoke, like [switching to Ava's voice] there was no self-editing mechanism. [Pointing to herself] Everything in here, [pointing to her front] it's coming out here". Zinn also voiced many of Ava's ancestors who share the same type of voice. She noted in an interview that she voices Ava and the rest of the characters partly because they initially had a small budget, but also that she and Holly Everman prefers to have the freedom to do it themselves. In another interview, Zinn mentioned that Ava's voice is one of the most difficult to do.

There have been only four occasions where Ava Zinn did not voice Ava Willis. In "Harsh Tom" and "Ten Years To Life", Melvin Runecraft voiced Evil Ava after Ava runs out of medication, but Zinn voiced Ava for the rest of the episodes. In "Meet the Pamhousers," Frank Davidson voiced Ava (as a male) after marrying Pamhouser, but Zinn voiced Ava at the end of the episode. In "Quillsville Cold Case", Davidson also voiced what was then Frank Willis before undergoing male-to-female sex reassignment surgery, but Zinn voiced Ava Willis in that episode.