Welcome to The Bookish Babe's stop on the Vain Blog Tour! The tour is hosted by InkSlinger PR Blog Tours. My stop includes a guest post and giveaway!
Category/Genre: Young Adult ContemporaryPublisher: Self-Published
Publication Date: 12/25/12
If you’re looking for a story about a good, humble girl, who’s been hurt by someone she thought she could trust, only to find out she’s not as vulnerable as she thought she was and discovers an empowering side of herself that falls in love with the guy who helps her find that self, blah, blah, blah...then you’re gonna’ hate my story.
Because mine is not the story you read every time you bend back the cover of the latest trend novel. It’s not the “I can do anything, now that I’ve found you/I’m misunderstood but one day you’ll find me irresistible because of it” tale. Why? Because, if I was being honest with you, I’m a complete witch. There’s nothing redeeming about me. I’m a friend using, drug abusing, sex addict from Los Angeles. I’m every girlfriend’s worst nightmare and every boy’s fantasy.
I’m Sophie Price...And this is the story about how I went from the world’s most envied girl to the girl no one wanted around and why I wouldn’t trade it for anything in the world.
***
“Hold me tighter,” I whispered against his teeth. He clutched me closer yet not tight enough. “More,” I demanded.
He drew me firmer against him and I felt every ridge of his body.
“Is that close enough?” he laughed into my throat.
“Perfect,” I told him.
GUEST POST
The Hellacious Sophie Price
Sophie. Sophie. Sophie. *sighs* Where do I even begin?
When I sat down that first night after hashing her character out, my fingers sat motionless on the keyboard. Not because I couldn’t conjure up some nasty things. After all, what are imaginations for? It was because I struggled with the delicate balance that is her character.
I knew she had to be salacious, cruel, egotistical, of course, vain and someone with a complete disregard for anyone other than herself but I also knew that there had to be room for the reader to still believe in her, still find her likeable or at least hope to like her. In the beginning, she was the hardest character I’ve ever written simply for the fact that I felt I had to somehow convince the reader she was beyond redemption then turn around and redeem her but also make it believable.
I decided to fill her up with every conceivably vile attribute I’ve ever encountered in a girl. The sum of which would turn people off but keep them drooling over the pages to see what terrible thing she would do next. We’re voyeurs all of us. You’d be lying if you said you weren’t. (But that’s okay because we’re all human and what makes us human is what makes us so wonderful, so beautiful.) So I took that along with me. I also knew that she would only be convincing enough in that respect because, in order for people to act as Sophie did, they’d have to be one of two things: evil or truly lost. If I’d gone the way of evil, no one would have read past the first page because evil turned good isn’t as convincing nor as dramatic as someone lost. You lose a connection to that type of character but lost? Lost has potential to be believable because nothing is more attractive in someone than hope. It’s limitless.
Which is why I went with my gut. I told myself over and over again, “Write this book for you and for no one else.”
So I did.
Truthfully, I never thought anyone would read it. I thought its subject matter was unattractive because the character was so impossibly rancid or that her route to redemption was too heavy. I thought many would read the first few pages and drop it or get the gist of her from the synopsis and let her go which is why I wrote with such abandon. I wrote her the way I wanted her, never thinking for a single moment what anyone else would think or want because I just never thought another soul would truly read it besides the occasional Fisher Amelie fan.
And writing with such abandon was more freeing after the first chapter than I thought it could be.
Which is why when The Bookish Babe asked me to describe the challenges of writing an unlikeable female character, I knew my answer would be an unexpected one because the challenges of writing Sophie Price weren’t the character itself, really, it was my own insecure hang-up’s.
So I hung up my hang-up’s and wrote what I felt and what I felt was Sophie Price and all her ugliness and all her beauty. She’s my favorite so far, not because she was the last character I wrote but because she came from the depths of my heart.
VAIN Playlist Here!
The Hellacious Sophie Price
Sophie. Sophie. Sophie. *sighs* Where do I even begin?
When I sat down that first night after hashing her character out, my fingers sat motionless on the keyboard. Not because I couldn’t conjure up some nasty things. After all, what are imaginations for? It was because I struggled with the delicate balance that is her character.
I knew she had to be salacious, cruel, egotistical, of course, vain and someone with a complete disregard for anyone other than herself but I also knew that there had to be room for the reader to still believe in her, still find her likeable or at least hope to like her. In the beginning, she was the hardest character I’ve ever written simply for the fact that I felt I had to somehow convince the reader she was beyond redemption then turn around and redeem her but also make it believable.
I decided to fill her up with every conceivably vile attribute I’ve ever encountered in a girl. The sum of which would turn people off but keep them drooling over the pages to see what terrible thing she would do next. We’re voyeurs all of us. You’d be lying if you said you weren’t. (But that’s okay because we’re all human and what makes us human is what makes us so wonderful, so beautiful.) So I took that along with me. I also knew that she would only be convincing enough in that respect because, in order for people to act as Sophie did, they’d have to be one of two things: evil or truly lost. If I’d gone the way of evil, no one would have read past the first page because evil turned good isn’t as convincing nor as dramatic as someone lost. You lose a connection to that type of character but lost? Lost has potential to be believable because nothing is more attractive in someone than hope. It’s limitless.
Which is why I went with my gut. I told myself over and over again, “Write this book for you and for no one else.”
So I did.
Truthfully, I never thought anyone would read it. I thought its subject matter was unattractive because the character was so impossibly rancid or that her route to redemption was too heavy. I thought many would read the first few pages and drop it or get the gist of her from the synopsis and let her go which is why I wrote with such abandon. I wrote her the way I wanted her, never thinking for a single moment what anyone else would think or want because I just never thought another soul would truly read it besides the occasional Fisher Amelie fan.
And writing with such abandon was more freeing after the first chapter than I thought it could be.
Which is why when The Bookish Babe asked me to describe the challenges of writing an unlikeable female character, I knew my answer would be an unexpected one because the challenges of writing Sophie Price weren’t the character itself, really, it was my own insecure hang-up’s.
So I hung up my hang-up’s and wrote what I felt and what I felt was Sophie Price and all her ugliness and all her beauty. She’s my favorite so far, not because she was the last character I wrote but because she came from the depths of my heart.
VAIN Playlist Here!
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About the author: Fisher Amelie is the author of The Leaving Series, Callum & Harper and Thomas & January. She began her writing career as a copywriter for an internet marketing company wherein one of their client's said, 'Hey! You're funny. You should write books'. Which in turn she said, 'Hey, get out of here! This is the lady's restroom.' While washing her hands and the embarrassment from her face, she thought they may have had a valid point. So, she took the thousands of hours of writing stories growing up, tucked them into her pocket and began writing and writing and writing.
Connect with Fisher at:
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