Apartment No.4

Q&A part 2

Q: I'm wanting to write a story and I don't really know where to start, what tips can you give me?
Think about what genres you like, do you want it to be fanfiction so you don't have to create characters? Do you like romance, teenfiction, humour or action?

Are you wanting to write a historical fiction? Are you ready to put in the research to make it accurate (and if you're not following history you need to make sure you acknowledge that in the description or in an author's note)?

A fun way to start is thinking of names – a handy way to do this is to use your best friends' name or a celebrity who you really respect like Emma Watson or Ryan Reynalds (obviously change their last names or switch them around ie. Emma Reynalds, Ryan Watson.)

If you think of a plot WRITE IT DOWN so you can revisit it. I had no idea about half of the things that were going to happen in this book but I wrote them down. Plots will come to you in the writing process, it's natural, and it's always good to have multiple plots ie. Ashley and Lucas, Mason hiding the story of Claire, Ashley finding out about Claire, Ashely and Mason fighting over money, Mason and the doctor, Mason and being expelled, Ashley being pregnant, Ashley losing the baby, Claire having surgery, Claire needing a kidney, Claire not waking up for ages etc. These are little plots but they're constant forms of drama and you need that.

Give each character a background, someone could be really mundane and boring while the other person is like daredevil and adventurous – how do they clash?

Q: If Mason and Ashley had a song what would it be?

Oooh, that's a good one... and kinda hard haha. Well, I think for the earlier sections where Mason and Ash are trying to fight their feelings for one another would probably be 'Worst In Me' by Julia Michaels and 'Say You Love Me' by Jessie Ware. For the rest of the book it's hard to narrow it down but what I think is pretty close to what I'm thinking would be 'Please Keep Loving Me' by James TW. Listen to these two and you'll know what I mean aha.

The song 'Shove It (ft. Spank Rock)' by Santigold is definitely how I feel about Lucas hahaha.

Q: When you introduced Mason as a character, did you have a different ending in mind?

Similar to a question before I was meant to finish this long before the Doctor Ross introduction but I continued. From memory when I first started writing I don't think I had a solid outline of the story so here we are! Completely improvised haha

Q: What area of England are each of the characters from?

So, because I love history the place I chose to place O'Brien University was in Cambridge. Not a cheap place to live but I just love the history of the city I couldn't help myself (which is kinda ironic because I literally didn't bring any of the history into the book).

In terms of accents, everyone has Contemporary RP (see video down below for more info) although, (I'm laughing while I write this) I gave Mel a scouse accent just because I love how sassy the Liverpool accent is and Mel is just the sassiest person EVER and I love it.

for more information on these accents, I recommend checking out the YouTube video: Regional British Accents!🇬🇧 by Being British: Joel & Lia

Q: What was Ross's first name

Not gonna lie, I have absolutely no idea hahaha. First name Doctor, last name Ross.

Q: Why did Ashley have a miscarriage?

There are a number of answers to that question and I won't go all medical on you, but a lot of the time miscarriages happen because it's your bodies way of dispelling something that hasn't formed properly. So, from my perspective but it might be different to yours, Ashley and Mason's baby just wasn't the right baby for them, the baby had issues developing and so Ashley's body decided to naturally reject it.