Operation: Dard and Devotion

Extra 2 | Questions & Answers

BEFORE YOU PROCEED, KNOW THAT THIS SECTION IS THE FATHER OF ALL SPOILERS.

The picture on the top/side: #OldAncientExtinctCoverOfODaD

I've gathered all the questions and here are the answers - in no particular order! Since I don't normally do Q&As or tagged questions, I made sure these answers were thorough! If you find that your questions have not been answered, this is what happened:

a) You did not ask a question

b) You did not ask an ODaD-related question

c) I merged the question with another one since I did have multiple questions that had asked the same thing OR I had changed the wording a bit because I'm an undercover grammar freak

d) It might have gotten buried somewhere o_O

e) I actually don't have an answer..

...If your question isn't listed here, it's up to you to figure out under which letter it belongs...

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1. How do you get inspiration to write a story? When you get an idea in your head, how does it develop?

Okay, its story time! Like a lot of writers, I'm an avid reader, although lately my reading has been cut short tremendously in the past few years due to the types of books out there now. Don't get me wrong, you are all free to read whatever you'd like, but personally, there aren't a whole lot of published books out there that pique my interest. Perhaps it's because my taste in genres have matured and changed, or maybe it's because I'm too stubborn. All throughout middle school, I was raving over Harry Potter, The Chronicles of Narnia, The Lord of the Rings, Artemis Fowl, The Inheritance Cycle, The Inkheart Trilogy, and so much more! That had to have been the peak of my reading years and I miss it a lot! As the years passed, I began to read less and less and it felt like a part of me just broke off and flew away. I stopped reading as much as I had used to because there simply weren't a whole lot of books that garnered my interest.

We tend to underestimate "the power of the pen" (or keyboard?). If you take a quick look back at the past 10-15 years in books, you can see a whole variety of genre trends. There was the whole Harry Potter phase (though, we all know for HP lovers, it is never just a phase), and the whole fantasy era where we had books like Eragon and Inkheart. A mere few years later, despite the fact that vampire/werewolf stories had existed for a long time (*cough* Dracula!), there was a huge influx of vampy/wolfy stories after Twilight. Then we had the array of dystopian novels, such as The Hunger Games and Divergent. And as of late, we find an increasing number of books based on erotica.

Well, in case you've been hibernating for awhile, that's the past decade of books in a nutshell for you!

My interest began declining after the vampy/wolfy phase. I did in fact read Twilight, and while I did think it was well written, I wasn't so fond of the huge vampy/wolfy fad that had followed with nearly every other book around that time. To me, it felt kinda overdone and I wanted something fresh. I mean no disrespect to readers/writers of that genre - this is all just my opinion. And it all went downhill from there for me. If you look around, you will definitely have a vampy/wolfy or erotic book thrown at you at some point, whether its online or on a bookshelf. Again, you're all free to read whatever you'd like, but personally those genres did not appeal so much to me. They don't make me sad or give me a heavy heart (perhaps it's a bit concerning that I actually want to be sad....)

They may be interesting for a while and may serve as leisure reads, but I really wanted a book that tugs my heartstrings. I can get quite indifferent and emotionless at times, so I was on the hunt for something raw. Honestly, only one book has ever really made me feel emotional and hopeless was A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini (you have to, have to, have to, have to read that one!) where a main character lived a life of misery and despair from childhood and beyond, and never got a happy ending, and I was absolutely traumatized for the weeks that had followed. I've read a whole lot of fluff in my wee little lifetime, but (I think this may be the case for many of you), stories with sad endings stick with you longer than stories with happy endings.