Tired. Broke. Alone. All of these describe (Y/N) (L/N), a college student trying to forget the woes of college life with a nice, relaxing road trip before she has to head home for the summer. However, with little money and no job, it looks like her...
Q: how did you come up with this storyline? did something inspire you? (from @fam1liar)
A: Thank you for the question, because I've been dying to talk about this!
The basic plot was inspired by, I kid you not, cereal. Yes, you read that right. This book exists because I like to read the backs of cereal boxes during breakfast, and one day in late 2017, I saw this:
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And, having seen the '50s AU Greaser! Bill drawn by alexa-eve on Tumblr, I thought to myself, "Huh. Do you know what would be fun? A road trip romance fic with a vaguely 1950s aesthetic featuring Bill." And thus, this fic and its plot were born.
However, the specific details of the storyline came out of my personal attitudes towards romance, gender, and fan fiction, among other things. At one point in the long, long process of writing this story, I read a lot of Wattpad books critiquing common Wattpad tropes (e.g. starting off the story with the MC waking up, evil cheerleaders, bad boys, etc.). Those books gave me a new, critical outlook on romance in fanfiction and inspired me to create a story that better reflected that.
I believe that proper (romantic) love should be about caring about the other person as a person, as opposed to just wanting to have them or finding them attractive. So, I had the plot of this book evolve in a way so that while the reader starts off infatuated with Bill, that infatuation gets destroyed. Then, slowly, as they discover different facets of each other, the two of them grow to appreciate and respect one another. That allows them to genuinely love each other and, ultimately, make the hard choices that they do in the end.
In a way, it's meant to be a Ghibli-esque love story. It's not about beauty, money, or power. At its core, it's about laughing and eating cheap junk food with your favorite person on a weather worn picnic table. Because that's what love feels like to me.
Q: Have you traveled a lot? And did any of the inspiration come from your own personal life? (from @lizlynn_w)
A: Yes, I have traveled a lot! I went on a lot of family road trips around the US when I was younger. As a matter of fact, I've been to most of the states featured in Wayfarer (with the exceptions of New Mexico, Texas, and Colorado). So that experience definitely inspired this book.
As for the second part of the question, yes, a ton of the inspiration for this book came from my own life. Specifically, the subplot with the reader's mother was heavily inspired by my experience having to take care of my siblings at a young age. Having heard other young women complain about how they were treated vis-a-vis housework vs. their brothers, I thought it'd be good to talk about this shared experience and sort through my own messy feelings about it.
However, unlike the reader character, I did not do my job well AT ALL. I was more of a Grunkle Stan kind of sibling-parent. The main things they learned from me were to bribe the authorities and hide their contraband well, LOL.
Q: I was wondering if you have any least and most favorite scenes in the story while you were rewriting/after you rewrote it? (from @Ayumi_Ackerman_22)
A: I think that my favorite scene from this revision is the one where Bill takes care of the reader when she's sick. It just makes me feel so soft, thinking about how he demonstrates that he cares. Also, I think it's very funny for him to mess up by trying to microwave metal.
As for my least favorite scene, I'm not the biggest fan of the one where Bill and the reader overhear Jane and Don talking about them in Donner. It's not because it's super poorly written, but now that I think about it, there's a number of plot holes in that scene that bug me. I'm unsure if I'll ever do another revision of this story, but if I do, that one will definitely get a huge makeover.
Q: If Y/N meets a guy that is really similar to Bill, will she remember Bill all together? I know it's kind of stupid, but I just thought of it. (from @Thatblackgoddess)
A: No, that's a good question! I actually hadn't thought about it before.
In my opinion, the answer is no. Bill pushed the reader's memories of him pretty deep into her subconscious, so she absolutely cannot consciously recall them. Even if she met a guy similar to him, the most she'd be able to recall would be brief flashes of memories and a strong feeling of deja vu.
A/N: Thank you to everybody who submitted questions! These were fun to answer, and they really got me thinking.
Now, do you guys want any more bonus content? I have a few ideas about what I could do, but I'm not sure how you guys would feel about them. Comment below if you want any of the following:
1) A "fun facts" section with behind-the-scenes info about this story that didn't get covered here
2) A part 2 of the Author Q & A for new questions/questions you didn't get to ask the first time around
3) A Q & A about writing advice (I'm not really an expert, but I'd be glad to help!)
![Wayfarer [Bill Cipher x Reader] [REVISED]](https://img.wattpad.com/cover/171897503-64-k712486.jpg)