On "Criminal Offence :X"

It's been about a solid four years since I finished, thought I might come forward and talk about it. By that, I mean the writing process and general idea behind it.

PLEASE ONLY READ THIS IF YOU FINISHED IT BECAUSE SPOILERS AHEAD. OKAY, THANKS!! (:

I began writing this in my sophomore year of high school, after my parents presented me with my very first laptop in the summer! For without the laptop, I don't believe I would been able to dedicate such time in having to hog the family computer for my writing endeavors. (the said laptop is now currently being used by my mother, a bit slow now though, but it's sturdy).


Here are five facts I did on twitter (because I do daily tweet cleanse, it's deleted) before I get into major detail, I covered the basics:

 

yeah, this is how i normally convey myself through twitter.

I guess I was always the creative-writer type; did some diary entries through elementary and middle school, got aboard the ff.net bus with my take on terrible Bleach fan-fiction, then even wanted to start my own paranormal-esque series when the Twilight epidemic began to spread.

But I don't believe I was cut out for creating anything other than realistic fiction. I like real-life too much, mainly high school life (my own high school life inane and boring, sad really). And I enjoyed writing about people just hanging out. Explaining it any further would be weird.

So, I'm a hopeless romantic and I love the whole cliche of "two people falling in love when they really shouldn't" ordeal. That, and the drawing interest of Stockholm syndrome (I'm still fascinated by it). Thus, my Dorothy and Eric were born!

Developing them wasn't too hard, I had influences of other writings to work off of. Dorothy was my first protagonist so everything just kind of flowed, and her reactions were mine, basically. And Eric was just every guy I've ever had a crush on come true (ha).

Another thing I worked to develop was the side characters. I wanted to write a story that wasn't all about Dorothy and Eric, I wanted other characters in the play. I've read so many stories, too much in fact, that was so focused on the romantic interests and simply used side characters to build up the romance. I didn't want Janaki, Shannon, Travis or Aaron tossed aside like they didn't matter, they were important. They're their own people too and I wanted to make that very clear. (I'm not saying I did this well, I didn't. But I tried and am trying further with future novels.)

 I guess what I'm saying is I wanted to also write a story about friendship. Because to me, personally, stories about friendship are foreshadowed by stories about romance. I love romance, but as I'm growing older, I realize friendships are so much more significant!

-THE BIG SPOILER- 

Okay, so, before or at least the first couple of chapters into writing, I knew Eric would die. I barely gave it a second thought too, so I still don't understand my motives behind it other than the fact of him living would cause a whole mess of the police getting heavily involved and the two lovebirds never being able to see each other ever again, probably (of course, they can't with this ending either, sorry). I also believed (in the very back of my mind) Eric was too much of a mess and him and Dorothy would be damaged in the long-run. It just wouldn't work out. It would never work out.

 When I finished writing the story, I was in disbelief. It took about a year to edit it out, then put it up on Smashwords (bad idea, still needed editing). Then it took this summer to put some time aside and really go forth in editing now that I've actually, hopefully improved in my writing (but it still needs editing).

So, I got a kick out of writing this story! I was passionate about it, as I'm sure every writer is passionate about their first story. 

However, this story is not noteworthy. 

It's just another story in the millions of independent teen realistic romances out there. But I'm so glad that anyone would take a chance on reading it and even giving it feedback (good or bad, I don't care). To have people reading it, it's the best feeling! So thanks. Thanks so much! I appreciate the heck outta you all! 

Please, pass it along if you enjoyed it, and here's the playlist if you want to listen to the music behind the writing.

Thanks to all who read it. I mean it. THANK YOU. (: