Meet The Authors Showcase Edition #2 (2 of 3)

A showcase with @proudly_an_empress, author of Made a new me

1 what inspired the idea of your story? 

I got the idea for this book around my birthday(28/04), I was going through paranormal books to read on Wattpad, most of them had to do with devils and demons. 

I checked the meaning of paranormal and it is basically abnormal things that happen in a realistic setting that can't be explained by science.And that's when the idea hit me, I could write a book that involves heavenly supernatural beings instead. The ideas kept flooding in from then.

2 what was something you struggled with for your story ? 

I struggled with giving each character their distinctive personalities, and I struggled with trying to polish my grammar because English is not my first language. I'm currently working with two editors and I still edit with Grammarly app and Pro writing app, so it takes me a day to edit a chapter or half a chapter after I've waited days for my editors, I try not to pressure or rush them because they have their lives. 

I'm a fast-paced person, so I like doing things quickly when I'm not procrastinating. It's not really fun waiting but I still do, so I'm currently focusing on getting the story completed.

3 what has been the overall response to your story from your readers? 

Pretty much 95% of my readers who comment love my book, especially my protagonist. It's quite thrilling and nice.The other 5% criticize my book which I don't really care for except it's a correction of some sort. 

A lot of people are able to connect with my protagonist because they can relate to a lot of things, and she's made human just like them in all her imperfections.

4 what did you enjoy writing most of your story?

I enjoyed writing the lines where Isabella gives her lessons that she learnt from her ordeals and how the new and improved her is an independent confident self-loving young lady.I hope young people would learn to stand up for themselves like Isabella.

I  also loved writing the scene where Isabella met God in heaven, I believe that's my best-written part of my story and I love it. 

 5 is your story a stand alone novel or a piece of a series?

It's a series, initially, I was going to make it a stand-alone novel but as the story progressed I realized that my ideas would be too much for the book and it would exceed the purpose of the book. That's why I decided to make it a series instead. Although I won't write more than three books, I may end up writing two, it all depends.

 6 what would you like your readers to take away from your story? 

I would love my readers to take with them some realistic knowledge, life lessons, hope and a new remorse to be true to themselves despite the circumstances.

7 what's a piece of advice you would provide to another writer, when it comes to focusing on their story?

I have 4 advice for writers out there, they are:-i) Let your gut feeling or instinct guide you when you write the draft of your story, it makes it easier for the juices to flow.ii) Don't push yourself, have time for yourself to relax after writing a chapter, it would help prevent writer's block.iii) Research is key, you wouldn't want to put out there some questionable information. While you research, more ideas would come to mind which would sharpen your focus on your book.iv)Last but not the least bear in mind that you can't please everyone, which means not everyone will like your story, so instead on focusing solely on what you think readers might want, focus on writing what you feel is right and keep editing or rewriting till you're satisfied.

 8 does your main character share any similarities to yourself? 

Well, yes Isabella shares a bit of similarities with me, like some of her experiences with bullies, and abuse. 

I do try to separate us a lot because it's a complete imperfect human being I'm trying to create in my story, so while I gave her few of my experiences I try not to mix our personalities up, especially because I'm writing the story like it were Isabella telling it and not the author.

9 what's something you believe would draw in new readers?

YOUR COVERS!!! 

If you want people to get interested in your book, you must have an amazing attention-grabbing cover.People say don't judge a book by its cover, well they do.

Your cover has to display the feel or what your book is about beautifully. A great cover always attracts new readers.

 For example; I saw this really nice looking cover of a book on Wattpad, it had millions of reads too, but the book was rubbish and I didn't get halfway.

Meanwhile, another day in the book club I'm in I was assigned to read a book, the cover was just weird and unappealing I felt like the story would be horrible, so I kept it for last minute, I found out the book was so amazing! I can't wait for the author to finish writing it.

As you can see, I am the new reader I checked out the book with the good-looking cover but dreaded opening the odd-looking cover book.So you might have a great story but no one wants to check it out because the cover is not nice.

So I'd advise you to ask your current readers for the opinion of your cover or a critic, it will help. 

 10 do you have any future projects? 

I have quite a few coming up, about six different stories in distinct genres. If you check out my profile you will see four new stories that I'm yet to begin. A romance novel, mystery/thriller, werewolf and fantasy. These are the genres my four books are respectively