Contrast

Q&A

Hi everyone! Q&A chapter time :) Thank you all so much for your questions! There are a lot and some of them have pretty lengthy answers, so I bolded each question title so you can skim through the ones you don't care about/only read the ones you do. 

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*Did you have their names/meanings planned before you even started the first chapter? Like for them to mean light and dark? Because when I tell you I gasped! What about all the other characters' names?

Absolutely, I always had the light and dark thing planned out! It would be pretty damn cool if it was a coincidence though haha. When I thought of the overall idea of Contrast and decided on the title, I thought it would be super fuckin cool at the end to reveal that their names mean 'light' and 'dark,' aka, a literal contrast. Ya'll know I LOVE my easter eggs, so I searched for a boy's and a girl's name with those meanings until I found two I liked! I spent the entire story so excited to write the epilogue to reveal it, so I'm glad you guys liked it as much as me :)

As for other character names, those were either written on the spot or just picked randomly. Fun fact: Noah's original name was Logan, and I wrote at least four chapters with it as that, but then I decided I didn't want more than one L name (Lucas) so I changed it to Noah! Looking back, I wish I picked some less basic/more unique names for other characters, but whatcha gonna do?

*Do you ever plan to publish this book?

I would literally LOVE to! But, publishing a book is no simple task. Firstly, there are two routes you can take to do so: self-publishing (doing it all yourself) or traditional publishing (going through a publishing company). Both have pros and cons. With self-publishing, it can be very expensive, extra time-consuming/mentally taxing because you have to do everything yourself (like finding an editor, marketing, etc.), and it carries the risk of your book not gaining any traction/sales.

With traditional publishing, you run the risk of your book not getting picked up for years/facing a lot of rejection/losing a lot of creative freedom. Knowing myself, I would probably rather go the traditional publishing route because thinking about doing everything myself is very overwhelming, but again, it's a big decision to make.

So, if any of ya'll know any publishers to recommend my story to, feel free because I don't even know where to start lmao. Plus, given that this book has 77 chapters, I would have to split it into a trilogy. That would require a lot of reformatting, possibly adding/removing chapters, and overall editing— something that I would need a lot of help with from a professional so that it is done right! It sounds amazing and I really want to publish this book, but it's not as easy as it seems :(

I think there is a fan-voted wattys award on this app at some point, so if you ever notice it, feel free to submit my story!

*Who was your favorite character to write about/favorite character in the book?

Hmmm... this is a tough one! Noah was definitely super fun to write because he was so goofy, but Blake was probably my favorite. I think his character had a lot of depth and I loved writing his POVs. Plus, I could design the perfect man that everyone wishes they could buy on eBay so it was pretty satisfying. I LOVED writing his flashback chapters too because they were so interesting, even though they were pretty dark. Writing about Blake's trauma was tough in general, but I loved writing about his journey to finding happiness/healing. 

*Did you base any characters on people you know in real life? 

Yes, I did in fact! For starters, Elena was absolutely based on me. We're extremely similar in a lot of ways. We're both people pleasers, perfectionists, have trouble with standing up for ourselves, and have issues with confidence. Even our love of Harry Potter, the scent of lavender, dislike of plane rides, and video games are the same (But I do not play Minecraft haha. I play COD and Fortnite depending on the mood).