Why? My Debut Novella

Why write about grief the way I did in my debut novella? Why make it so convoluted? Why make it so deep? Why add romance?

I never really had a plan for how I wanted this book to go when I started it, and I was pretty much winging it. By the end of 2023, I had what I thought was the complete draft, [my first full draft] and I felt it was enough and ready. I showed it to my mom, and even though she has no clue what a Mary Sue is – and neither did I, at the time [princess perfect no flaws character] – she immediately spotted that my character was exactly that, and that she found what she needed to without any obstacles at all. It was incredibly unrealistic.

So I went back to the drawing board. I added more obstacles, I made her more flawed. And then somehow, amidst all that, I turned the ending into the midpoint. I changed the whole course of the story.

It wasn’t really in my hands.

The story took itself where it did and I just wrote it down. I found that giving my character past grief helped make her more real, it was a cheat sheet to making her real and I took it. Why is the villain so completely bad? Why does he think what he’s doing is right? He was no longer the villain–he wasn’t bad, he just–well, I’ll let you read the book and find out. But then I added a new villain, and a family tree. I just couldn’t settle for a simple life in my book, it was too boring for the version of me that wrote it. Pain was the easiest way for me to make the readers care about the characters. And…the deepness–depth–just came?

The romance was a much simpler reason: It came in my later drafts, as I grew older and experienced puberty. That’s pretty much it?

But it was mostly hormones.

I guess?

idk

[written on 18th december 2025]