The REM Trials

Phantom Facts!

I know I mentioned this before, and now that the book is finally complete (book 2 is up!), it's here!

Feel free to comment more questions. I'll add them and answers as they come in.

Let's get started:

Where did you get the idea for Lia's powers?:

The idea for Lia's powers actually came from an entirely different book idea I had before I decided to write Phantom. I had been driving around at night with my mum, and I kept watching the shadows that fell on our faces from the street lamps. It eventually turned into this idea about a society secretly run by people who could manipulate shadows, which let them essentially blackmail people in and out of power until they had control of pretty much everything. The main character was going to be one of these people. Unfortunately, as I started working on it, I began to realize that no matter how it ended, it would feel overdone, expected, stiff, or cliche. So I put the idea away for a while, until I got the idea for The REM Trials and Lia.

How did you pick Lia's name?

I'd love to say that her entire name had a deep meaning and reasoning behind it, but only parts of it did. Amelia and Lia came from my apparent tendency to gravitate to names with that "L" sound. (Some examples from actual characters I've written are Ophelia/Lee, Ellanoi, Ellie, etc.) I honestly think it stems from the fact that my parents almost named me "Elizabeth," and I just barely missed getting to be called "El" or "Ellie." I'm still a little bit salty about it. The rest of her name, which in its full glory is "Amelia Claire Bright-Stark," came from her mum's name as her middle name. Her last name I decided to put a twist on it since she goes "supernova." So I went with "Bright" because if you take the "k" off of "Stark" or read it quickly can look like "Bright Star," which also fed into her grandparents calling her their "little star." It all just felt right when I put it all together, and it's one of the few character names that I didn't inevitably change.

What is something important about Lia that wasn't always shown?

Well, as I hope I've made it clear, Lia suffers from severe anxiety. Fun fact, this is a little piece of me that made into her as a character. I have been learning to handle since I was a little kid. One thing that I included—and wish I had shown more of—was the lasting effects, and the momentary pieces that highlight what is dealt with aside from panic attacks and overthinking. I showed a bit of it in chapter 39—if I remember correctly. It was in the dissociative episode she has before her Dad's speech. The way I described it came directly from my own experience. I feel like I'm on a pendulum swinging in and out of my body or entirely separate from it, entirely unable to connect with myself. It felt really important to me to share that, since it is something a lot of people deal with. I've always wanted people to see pieces of themselves in the stories and characters.