Today I have a very special treat! Back when I was still a fairly new blogger I met this super-awesome blogger named Chantele. She had fabulous taste, and was oh-so nice.

Well, Chantele doesn't book blog anymore. BUT, now SHE'S AN AUTHOR! It's so cool to get to know her both before and after her being published. She's here today to write about:


Thank you so much for having me on your blog today, Enna!

I'm always nervous when people ask me to talk about a certain topic pertaining to my writing. I was happy though, when Enna let me choose between a few different topics to talk about. One of her questions, was how I create real and authentic challenges for my characters.

The truth is ... it just sort of happens! My characters tell their own stories and I just write them down! ;) But truthfully, I love a good story. But a good story has to have believable characters with specific challenges they face throughout the book. In Not Your Average Fairy Tale, one of my main character's, Kendall, loses her father in a car accident. There seems to be a lot of dead parents in YA, so I wanted to make her's a little different. I gave the accident a little twist and had Kendall in the driver's seat when her father died. She has a lot of guilt since she was the one driving, and it was interesting to see how she handled everything. Not well at first, if you can imagine.

When I was writing her story, I kept thinking, how would I ever get over something like that? The truth is, she handled it so much better than I would if something like that happened to me. She's a very strong person, but to make her emotions authentic, (when she showed them) I put my own feelings about death into her character. I've lost a few people during my life and a few of the scenes showing Kendall's grief were really hard for me to write since it brought back so many of my own memories. And for that reason, I think it made the story much better. I believe if you have a hard, emotionally charged scene to write, you have to dig deep into yourself and pull out memories of your own, so the impact and emotion that comes out on the page feels real. I love Kendall's character, not only because she falls in love with a really hot fairy, but because she changes a lot throughout the book. She's very very hard on herself, but there's a point where she realizes how important she is to her loved ones and she has to let go of past things she can't control. Just like in real life. :)

Thank you for having me, Enna!!



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