A Plate Full Of Mom

A Plate Full Of Mom.

The BEST Things About Wattpad – #3 – The People Out There

Recently, I had a stroke of good luck to land on a very beautiful novel on Wattpad. It was titled “Dark Blue”. With a very very interesting and attractive cover and a blurb, the book instantly drew me in and I decided to sit down and read it.

Dark Blue (@starfromouterspace)–
What would you give to not have to tread on eggshells everyday, scared off tipping the balance? What would you give to be able to believe in yourself just once? What would you give to be able to just speak up and say what you want to say?
Someone, somewhere would give anything.

It was the very simplicity of the book that drew me in. The author had tremendous knowledge of character development and by the time I was on the second chapter, her characters had already sprung to life inside my head.

What actually sets this book apart is the way it connects to the readers instantly. Each one of us has been in a place where it is difficult to find our voice and we have to remain confined in the shadows because we are afraid to say something. Or simply put, we don’t have a choice.

The story is about your average, next door girl whose parents have high expectations from their only daughter. We see them everywhere. And the characterization is utterly beautiful. The thing that sets it apart from the many Wattpad novels I’ve come across is that the girl’s clothes aren’t described! It is sincerely irritating to come across novels which focus more on their character’s dressing sense rather than what she is going through. With intricately weaved details and beautiful descriptions, the writer has certainly managed to make her novel stand out.

The girl loves the night sky. In fact, when the world grows darker, she finds her escape. She finds her voice in the midst of the never-ending darkness. For her, the stars speak a million stories. For her, the world up there is better than the one where she lives.

Her dialogues are sincere and touches a reader’s heart. I remember having those goosebumps while reading certain parts of her story.

Though the character is projected to be a confused teenager at first, one later finds out that she was in fact bullied. Living in abject fear, she has lost her ability to voice her opinion. She fears them. She is afraid that if she says something, something will happen to her. So she keeps quiet and agrees to their every word.

Until, she meets Oscar.

Recently, I had an opportunity to have a short interview with the author. Here’s what she had to say about the questions posed by me-

Me – Tell us a few things about yourself?

She – Hello and bonjour world, my name is Yueh-Chia (known as  starfromouterspace, or you can just call me Yuey) and I’m 16 and from England. I am slightly crazy, actually like school (please, no hate) and I like watching sport. I have a bad habit of leaving mugs on the windowsill (record I think is 10 so far) but I think I am getting better. Physically cannot survive without music, and have had break downs when I couldn’t find my iPod. My favourite band is The Script and I have crushes on cartoon characters…. (But how can you not love Flynn Rider or Hiccup?)

Laughs way too much at the smallest of things, hate when people judge on assumptions and the past, always thinks of comebacks several hours too late, and wishes one day that I would stand up on a podium and comeback at all those people who hate and bully people for being themselves.

Perfectly alright being on my own- remember, one is never alone.

Why did you join Wattpad? Had you always been looking for a site where you could share your work or you happened to stumble upon this site for free books?

Well, I think I was looking for free books to read, and I stumbled across Wattpad. I read books on Wattpad for about 7 months, and then I made an account around July 2013. I’ve always written from when I was younger and it took me a while to pluck up the courage to post my first story on Wattpad.

What is your favourite pastime? Let us put it this way, what is one thing people will always find you doing whenever you are free?

You will probably find me listening to music and probably dancing like a lunatic in my bedroom. Or playing the air guitar. Or singing horrifically out of key and pretending I’m a pop star. Or else on my laptop or phone reading on Wattpad, drawing, re-reading books and writing.

What is the craziest thought that has crossed your mind?

Generally I have a lot of crazy thoughts…. I think one involved a mono-rail, a jet and a quest for one of those highlighter things with five separate colours……. And that mono rail looks suspiciously like the train in the Hunger Games, actually now looking back at it…. I should sue… (strokes metaphorical beard).

Ever read a scene from a story and wished you had been there? Please tell us what scene it was and from which book?

Ah. Now that is a difficult question. There must be hundreds of scenes that I wish I was in. From the top of my head currently, I would say the end scene from ‘Between the Lines’ by Jodi Picoult (random fact, that’s where I got the name ‘Delilah’ for ‘Dark Blue). I won’t give it away, but I think it’s very magical. Being in Harry Potter- I would have loved, loved to have gone to the Yule Ball. In fact any scene with a ball, I would wish to be in.

Where do you get inspiration for writing your stories?

I get my inspiration from music- in my stories, there are quite a few song lyrics and references and normally I take the plotline of songs and transfer it into a written story. Good music contains so much meaning. I also get inspiration from surroundings, nature and landscape and design- sometimes I combine the two together. For example I once wrote a story called ‘Nuvole Bianche’ based on the sky and the piano piece by Ludovico Einaudi.

Twelve years from now, where do you see yourself?

Twelve years from now, I see myself as being a successful designer or top engineer or a bestselling writer. Maybe I’ll have found someone (at fricking last) to settle down with and I see myself treating my Mum and Dad to everything they deserve for their support during my whole life (wishes can come true, can’t they?)

What is your craziest wish? Becoming a bestseller or maybe flying?

I have a lot of crazy wishes. Being a bestseller would be one- how awesome would that be!? Sometimes I wish that I was a popstar, a movie actress, director (fat chance) or a Disney animator. Being a spy or scientist for MI6 would be extremely wicked or a commentator for F1. I also wish for world peace, gender equality and no racism. I won’t list all my wishes because that list would go on forever and ever and ever.

Share with us some of the cuisines you’ve tried and the best from the lot.

I’m actually originally from Taiwan, though I was born in England, but I’m afraid you wouldn’t be able to tempt me with chicken feet or pigs trotters- but I do love a good Hot Pot at Chinese New Year. I also love sushi (especially rice and seaweed triangles) and spaghetti and satay rice. Sometimes, it’s a Chinese food overload, and then I crave good old British classics like Fish and Chips. Or a nice chilli con carne.

I’m suddenly hungry! Do you ever plan on writing an autobiography?

Haha, one step at a time. But I think I might- it would be very cool and it might just show people how crazy I am. Fingers crossed that if I ever do write it, that it will be an auto biography telling the story of my blinding success rather than a fall from grace.

How would you describe your everyday life? Cliche?

My life is….. well ‘normal’. I suppose with the occasional drama along the way that even I don’t think is drama, until I’m telling someone and they’re staring wide eyed at me and telling me ‘how the hell is that not drama!?’. I go to an all-girls private school so there can be a lot of drama, but it’s how different people look at normal. For example for some people, partying every day is normal, but that’s not normal for me. But nobody’s life is just normal. It’s all different to everyone’s perspective.  It’s actually quite difficult to write an average character in a story- there’s just the creative side of us that makes a rather stereotypical average character- like in movies, that average character in a movie is just NOT average in real life. We just, without knowing really, create an average character that maybe we would like to relate to, but then we throw all the drama of a story, and it goes from average to unbelievable. You can do so many things with a made up reality, but the hardest of all is replicating the human being in writing.  A cliché characters life would perhaps be made out to be ‘perfect’- and that doesn’t exist. It’s quite similar to the average character. When does it stop being average before it becomes cliché and vice versa? What do we expect?

What, according to you, is the most overused plot on Wattpad? The bad-boy-falls-in-loved-with-an-innocent-girl or I-live-with-fifty-handsome-boys or I-love-my-brother’s-best-friend? Do you think that writers are looking at the market status before coming up with a story?

Oooh, now I have to be careful here and try not to go into a rant. I would definitely say ‘bad boy’ stories- any story with ‘bad boy’ in the title, has a ‘bad boy’ in it and a ‘nerdy/innocent’ girl who happen to fall in love with each other, get on my nerves- essentially they are re-using plotlines and it becomes very difficult to distinguish whose original idea it was (but now I just doubt how it ever started as an original story and it literally just popped out of nowhere.) Why can’t they put a spin on it, or explore different types of relationship or have two ‘good’ characters for once?  The living with loads of boys one I think it was over used, especially when the ‘Walter Boys’ was around. It could be an original idea if instead it was just… well closer to ‘normal’ people! (and we’re back on the ‘normal’ subject) Normal people with normal problems and not just people with the looks of a super model and the luck of a field of four-leaf clovers. It’s quite nice however to see takes on other fairy tales (Cinderella is probably used the most often) but I think that maybe people should try to look at in a different perspective – maybe something like ‘Sydney White’.  Fan-fic wise, I don’t normally read fan-fic, but I’ve currently been reading loads of Dramione fan-fics and seriously, it’s quite hard to see who stole from whom. I could rant a lot more about fan-fics (One Direction and Werewolf ones especially) but I won’t rant about it. For now.

I do think that some people do look at the ‘Whats Hot’ lists before writing. Most often I would see ‘bad boy’ stories with un-imaginative titles being uploaded for just a few days, yet it would’ve already attracted many views, even if it was poorly written (and believe me, I have seen some shocking stories, no offence to anyone). It’s just as though there is a mini media centred, celebrity style world where ‘bad boys’ is the equivalent of trying to achieve that size 0 figure in reality.  I think it’s a shame because some people only look for reads and votes and they don’t particularly care about structure and whether it is unique; once again the thirst for popularity has crept in from a celebrity life or playground and tainted something. But stories are about creating your own realities – maybe there aren’t enough bad boys out there, or people are just pining for Harry Styles (which I just don’t get. Sorry to One Direction lovers, I just don’t get the hype around him.) To aspiring authors, try and break out of the mould and just write something, taking your time, so it’s so different that it seems crazy and most importantly, you feel and love – but in the end, you’ll feel a lot better about writing it rather than a recycled idea. Write for your own sake – not to become a ‘media celebrity’ or to gain popularity. If you persevere, you will get there a whole lot quicker than you think and with much more satisfaction.

Do you think 13 is an unlucky number? And I promise this is the last question! You must be bored!

You know what, no. I don’t think I do. Numbers are like humans. A number is a number and why hate or be scared on a particular number when there are millions and millions of numbers out there you could hate or be scared of?

Finally a big thank you to the brilliant akan_great16 for interviewing me.

*And in a voice that Elvis would be proud of.. ‘THANK YOU AND GOOOOOOD NIGHT’ (cue the credits)*

So there you go! The novel “Dark Blue” has been added to Wattpad’ sponsored reading list “Emotional Ride” and can be found by clicking on the book cover at the top or here.

With 63.1K reads on it already and a massive amount of support, there’s no doubt the book is going to go all the way to the top. There’s a sequel to the book as well, titled “Light Blue“.

A huge thank you to @starfromouterspace for this amazing interview session.

Stay tuned for more interviews from Wattpad authors.