A/N so I just finished writing the epilogue and I just wanted to write some facts about the book and why some things are a certain way that you or may not find interesting. Enjoy! Or not... Up to you!
1. Daniel was never meant to be the antagonist. Originally I wanted him to be a minor antagonist, you know the common brother who acts he hates them, and then when he found out about the abuse he would does a one-eighty and becomes their protector, however they found out to fast about it and I still needed conflict. I wrote that the police noticed child neglect and possible abuse, so of course they would have to follow up.
2. Sign Language was one of the main reasons I made Delia mute. ASL and Deaf culture is something I have been interested for a really long time, I even wrote a research paper about it for school. Delia's last name and the last name of the police officer were actually the last names of people I had watched give TedTalks. Knill and I believe Sun Kim was the other one. I remembered the last names because I had to write them for my bibliography and work cited.
3. Gracen was supposed to be the stereotypical "mother" of the family. However as soon as I began writing the scene were they meet them I realized that for his character to be more realistic especially if I wanted him to be the main caretaker of Daniel and Hunter that he would have to be more observant, intelligent and on-gaurd then I had planned.
4. As you could probably tell, I added a bunch of little experiences from my own life. The lemonade story, the code Drew and Artie spoke, Obi-ski-watton-tatton (I don't remember how I spelled it) and the pine tree were all things that I got from my own life. The pine tree is one we climbed in our neighborhood and the code is something me and my best friend use, it is much harder to understand when you speak it.
5. When I got further into the book it felt like the characters were the ones writing it. I don't mean they possessed me or anything like that. I mean that when I started out I set character types for them and tried to make decisions based on what I "knew" about them and eventually once I had done it enough, I would certain times were I knew exactly what they would say.
6. I had planned on the abuse being mostly psychological and most of the insecurities and fear they had stemming from neglect. However as I began to write that changed I wanted their to be solid evidence that it had happened, so that changed once again.
7. Andre and Andrew were created for two reasons: to support Delia and to make the older brothers realize that how there were acting was not appropriate. However because they got so little time in the book they weren't as prominent as I had originally planned them on being.
8. I'm never going to put POV's before I switch it. I understand that putting that before a chapter is common practice especially on Wattpad, and it prevents the readers confusion. However if the reader needs to be told exactly who the view is from, then it means I'm not doing my job well enough. And I feel that it takes away from the mystery and deduction skills needed to be a educated reader. That's just how I personally view it, I don't mind other people doing it, I just won't.
9. I'm never adding aesthetics for the characters. Again part of the fun in reading a book is figuring the characters out and watching them grow. To me it's essentially reading the ending before the book. And if the aesthetics are to vague to convey the characters fully then it isn't any better, writers spend time and energy making their characters 3D and life-like and then someone boils it down to a couple words about their personality like "cold, silent type" or "energetic and talkative".
10. I always aimed to be as realistic as possibly. The book is obviously fiction, but I didn't want it to be far-fetched, so I tried to keep the police, other characters, and reactions as close to what I believed where logical reactions. It wasn't the best but I tried.
11. I wrote most of the book on my phone. Up until around chapters 50-60 I had been typing the chapters out on my phone, because I hadn't got my new laptop for school yet. It's kind of funny now because if I start to type a word that starts with "D" the suggestion that comes up is "Delia".
Thank you to all of my readers who have followed my journey, I appreciate the support.
Till' my quill begins to write again,
BookwornwithaQuill