Am I Writing A Book? Meet the Characters & Background

Hi everyone! Sorry to disappoint y’all with the title, but I’m not actually writing a book. I love being on the reading/reviewing side of the book world, and I don’t think writing stories or novels is in my cards at the moment. With that being said, I’ve been thinking a lot lately of what my nonexistent book would contain. Like all good books, this one would be inspired by life with dreams mixed in it. And, no I’m not talking about actual dreams you have while you sleep like Stephanie Mayers but more of the daydream where you are consciously able to daydream of things.

In high school, I took creative writing and loved it despite having to read my stories out loud because it was where my inner book nerd could come out. I knew that it wasn’t in my cards to become an author because I can’t flesh out ideas. I’m able to write a pretty solid outline, but I have trouble writing conversations and adding all of the little bells and whistles that makes a book extraordinary.

But I wanted to sit down and just play around with the broad ideas of my imaginary book! Like all great books, there would be a lot of parallels between me and the main character since it’s easier for me to visualize her.

This would a version of my *perfect* book with all of the little elements I’ve been dying to see in one book.

Genre: YA (possibly with some slight NA stuff) Contemporary

Warning: this would be a book filled with tropes, new love, swoon worthy moments, laughs, and all the feels

Setting: a relatively small town in the south (possibly around a college town, I have decided if I want the MC go to a university or a tech college – it’ll probably be a tech school since you can get in and out in about 2 years)

Will everything in the book be absolutely realistic? Probably not because this is my dream, but we’ll see.

Also, in this post, I’m just talking about the characters and some of the background stuff before the story would take place because I started writing and it developed more than I thought it would.

Main Character

The main character would probably be based pretty heavily off of me: Chinese, short with a small frame (roughly 5 ft.), adopted (because I need more of these books in my life, but I’ll talk about this later), quiet but sarcastic, a hopeless romantic, and prefers to immerse herself in music and books. She’d have dark black that falls a couple of inches past her shoulder blades and dark brown eyes. For this post’s sake let’s call the MC, Isabel (Iz/Izzy for short). Iz almost 20 and is about to start nursing school where she will have a few close friends and talks to most people when they start a conversation (because even though she’s coming out of her shell, she’s still an introvert at heart); she’s book smart and street smart.

Hobbies include: reading (duh), listening to music (5SOS, The Vamps, One Direction, some Green Day, Blink 182, All Time Low, a lot of the top 40, and a lot of smaller British bands), photography because she has a bookstagram, blogging, gardening, math (yes I know, what a weirdo), playing with her mini schnauzers. I don’t know about the pet chickens yet since it’s still undecided where she lives (it might have to be a flashback to her childhood pet chickens).

I’ll just go ahead and say that Iz is super sarcastic; she knows when and where she can let a sly remark loose and you better watch out if you’re on the receiving end.

Family:

I want to say that Iz’s family is super close with her adopted mom and dad, older brother (Damon, 20 because I have a plan and he needs to be close in age to Iz, and will most likely be their parent’s biological child), younger sister (16 maybe and might also be adopted), and a couple of her 1st cousins and few other relatives.

I’ll be honest, I haven’t given much to thought about the parents…

On to Damon. All of the siblings are super close (think on the lines of To All the Boys), but Iz and Damon and like glue (and no there’s nothing romantic going on between them, this isn’t that kind of book). They’ve always done things together despite Damon being one of THE popular kids in school who’s smart and crazy good at basically any sport and Iz being the sister who is perfectly fine sitting in the corner reading a book and studying for the next test. Damon has that open and honest personality that makes people naturally gravitate towards him and want to be his friend. He’s one of those genuinely caring people that lives life to the fullest without any regrets.

The younger sister is the artist and dreamer of the family. She’s a slightly above average student in school and is about to enter her junior year of high school. She in the drama club helping with the set and costume design and often plays in the school band. She doesn’t know where she wants to go to college or what to study.

Oh, a side note on the siblings, everyone is taller than Iz (imagine that). Damon is about 6 ft and the younger sister is about 5 ft 5 in.

On to the part that I’ve been dying to talk about! The honorary 4th child of this household, Will! Will is Damon’s friend. They have been friends since preschool and Will has spent so much time at Damon’s house that he’s considered to be a part of the family. Around the time of elementary school, Damon, Iz, and Will became inseparable always doing things together, and between Damon and Will, making Iz socialize with her classmate in high school. Will also played baseball (swoon) and ran cross country in high school.

He has boyband blond hair that only he can pull off in college and has the bluest eyes and he’s slightly taller than Damon. Will is easy going like Damon but is a little more reserved than him. Plus, he can play the guitar.

Background Info (the spring before the book would take place):

Both Will and Damon are sophomores in college about an hour and a half from where they all grew up. The college is on the smaller side, and they live together in an apartment about 15 minutes away from the campus. Will is on the baseball team and is studying engineering, while Damon plays football and is studying wielding.

Iz has been taking the basic college courses at a technical college and is still living at home with her parents and sister while visiting the guys every now and then when they all have a free weekend. The school that she’s currently enrolled in has a pretty decent nursing program, but she has her heart set on attending a nursing program that is difficult to get into and closer to Damon and Will (about 20 minutes from their apartment).

In the spring of the school year before Iz is hoping to get into nursing school (either at her current school or dream school), she gets letters back from both of them… Iz graduated as salutatorian in high school and had all A’s in her college classes except for that one B in bio. She knows that there’s a good chance that she’ll get into her dream school, but the self-doubt is setting in because she’s a worrier.

As she starts to open the letter from her dream school, Iz takes a calming breath and tells herself that she’ll get a good education at either school. She starts to feel light-headed as the paper is taken out of the envelope *queue dramatic music*…

Playlist:

So these songs are kind of a hint as to what I’m hoping will happen!

• Why Don’t We Go There by One Direction
• Could The Be Love by The Wanted
• What Makes You Beautiful by One Direction
• Heart Attack by One Direction
• Dive by Ed Sheeran

Happy reading until next time,