knee socks - mileven au

bonus

hello. in this first bit of this chapter i'm just explaining the character development and why i made them break up. you can skip all of this until the dotted line if you just came here for mileven. it would make sense if you read this though.

-

in this story i wanted to show more realistic sides of teenage relationships while also showing the perfect story type parts. i wanted to show the selfish side of young people and how moldable they are. i wanted them to feel real and relatable while also both feeling like villains. of course neither of them are bad people, they just have bad ideas of what love is and how to deal with it.

el - i wanted to show how being with mike truly changed her. in the beginning she wanted nothing to do with him and only wanted to be with him for sex.

when they both think about the benefits of dating each other el thinks about the physical benefits for her before she agrees. she had no true feelings for mike until they were already dating.

i tried to show how el needed him to come out of her shell while also keeping the story short and sweet. i've never been through a break up, in fact i'm less than a month into my first relationship right now so writing how she felt after losing mike was difficult. (i spoke too soon lol she broke up with me like two weeks ago)

i took what i've heard from the media and what i've experienced to put her pain into words. in short, el was utterly heartbroken. he took every part of her in his hands and held her until she was too much and let her go.

her going from an inexperienced, broken person into someone who was loved was one of my favorite things to write. i loved writing about her being happy and laughing, but of course nothing lasts forever and teenagers aren't very good at loving other people.

mike - i'm not very good with writing and developing male characters but i think i did an ok job. mike loves el first. he knew for awhile but by the time he had what he wanted, he wanted more. it's something that's sadly very common.

he's not the bad guy and he's not some heartless monster who plays girls for fun. he's young and dumb and does what he feels is right without knowing how it will affect others.

i wanted him to move on fast. i wanted him to start moving on from her while they were still together. i wrote a lot of smut for them in the middle to show when he stopped loving her personality and just her body.

he had planned on breaking up with her but used going to college as an excuse. the difference in how they both treated the break up was obvious; mike was fine and made new friends, had a good social life and moved on quickly. el was heartbroken, stuck in the same cycle and she felt the aftermath of him for months.

mike did love her while they were together and when he said he loved her, he was honest. "things i once enjoyed, just keep me employed now, things i'm longing for, someday, i'll be bored of", getting older - billie eilish. sometimes i hear song lyrics and incorporate them into my characters to give them more personality and this is one of those times.

-

even when i first came up with the idea for this book i knew they were going to break up. two of the tropes of this book are 'he fell first but she fell harder' and 'right person wrong time'. it was always going to be this way, it wasn't just some plot thing i thought of on the spot.

i've been thinking about making a second book for them. i'm not 100% sure if i'll do it or not but you guys can let me know what you want. i already know what would happen in it too🤭.