Author Spotlight

dpriince

This month, we bring you @dpriince and we're excited!

Q: Is This Is Me Trying the only story you've written?

A: It is so far. I've been writing fanfiction for the last few years, and the odd original short story for my university writing classes but This Is Me Trying is the first novel-length story I've ever committed to and written in full.

Q: How do you plan out your stories?

A: First, I get an idea of my concept, then I plot it out. I start from beginning to end and I dot point chapter by chapter what happens, where it takes place and what important info is revealed. It's all very logical. I have a word doc too where I write snippets of inspiration, just lines and dialogue and concepts, then I add them in where I see fit as the story goes. Other than that – I put actor faces to each character to make them feel more real. I make playlists. I write backgrounds and extra moments. I do a lot of unnecessary stuff that makes my brain get into each character's head. It's like being an actor, except you're playing every single character and you have to know every single emotion and issue they are feeling.

Q: Do you have a favorite author on Wattpad? If so, who? What story is your favorite?

A: I haven't read nearly enough Wattpad pieces to say. I've only been active for the last two months or so and I don't spend a lot of time reading. But any story with lgbt+ characters, diversity, and dark themes gets a good review from me. I'm a real sucker for those!

Q: What do you hope your readers will like best about your stories?

A: The characters and the meanings. I think there is something incredibly relatable about both. Whether it's a young queer kid being able to recognize their sexuality, or someone finding strength in the empowerment of SA survivors, or even just learning about the hardest parts of depression meanwhile knowing that it's not forever. I think that's really important. Stories with real world themes come across as incredibly 'the world is evil and everybody suffers and your life will be miserable' and that is so disheartening for people with trauma and mental illness to simply see all their representation as something so negative and uninspiring. It's really not that hard to write a story that doesn't romanticize mental illness, while simultaneously giving people hope. I want readers to come out from reading anything I write and think 'wow the world can be really hard, but we need to make it better for people' rather than just give up. I want it to be a story that brings awareness to hard things, but with compassion and not exploitation.

Q: Do you have a message for your readers?

A: Exactly as above. Also you should always enjoy what you read, and what you write. I wrote my story for myself first and foremost, but it was important to me that it had real world value.

About the Author

Q: What is the most challenging thing about your writing process?

A: My perfectionism. I write something I really love, then come back and read it over and I'm like 'What the hell is this? Why did I think this was good?' and then I rewrite. I think there are only a select few works of mine that I can reread without cringing and wanting to edit. This Is Me Trying was a much harder edit than any other because I knew it was all my own work. I wasn't basing it off other characters and fictional concepts, it was all my own. So I struggle now re-reading the first few chapters, there are so many that I'm not happy with and so many (much more recently published ones) that I am really proud of. As I publish it now chapter by chapter I've started editing the original, and even that edit I read over after a week and find issues with. I'm a big perfectionist in that way. I always push myself to be the best.

About the Story

This Is Me Trying is a story that explores the aftermath of a sexual assault, following both the victim after the culprit's murder while delving into the depths of mental illness, abuse, addiction, suicide, and depression. Read this very realistic tale of struggle and hope on our Who Said reading list!

Q: What do you like most about Olivia Holland?

A: Her character flaws. She deals with a lot of feelings of being a burden, and that is what makes her so relatable for people dealing with the same kind of trauma. It was important to me that her flaws weren't 'anger issues' or 'is a huge bitch' or something problematic. Her flaws are what inhibit her character growth. She's stuck in her nostalgia, and her past, as well as her pain. Olivia is a hard working person, she's loving and good to the people around her. This trauma makes her feel like a burden, which is something crafted by her overt independence and how busy her life is – her ambition and the way she strives for nothing less than perfection. Which makes her very different to Noah and Natalia. Olivia's growth over the narrative is the way she comes to see her own worth, even with her pain and trauma. Overcoming that is an incredible part of trauma recovery, which is what makes Olivia such an empowering character.

Q: Are any of the characters based off of people you know?

A: Not directly. The background characters – most of which are mean teenage boys – are taken from my own experiences in high school. The way the characters talk, the views they have, specifically around lgbt+ issues, is very true to what I was witness to in high school a few years ago. But other than that Noah and Natalia's home lives have aspects I've written based on some stories my friends have told me about their lives. Everything else is inspired by other characters and concepts, things I would have liked to have read/watched.

Q: What is your favorite scene? Why?

A: I have too many to choose from. I love so much of what is to come with the story, but so far my favourite scene is Noah playing the piano in what I think is chapter seventeen, maybe earlier. That scene plays out in my head so romantically between him and Scott, which is ultimately acted upon a few chapters later but I think there is so much intimacy in these two playing a piano together, the openly gay unapologetic boy and the closeted bisexual popular boy. It's intimate, it's romantic. It was really important to portray the relationship between Scott and Noah as seriously and as romantic as the relationship between Noah and Olivia. I wanted there to be no doubt of how it can feel to be bisexual. It surpasses sex and gender, it's truly an ability to love anybody who cares deeply enough for you, and for Noah that's what he wants as he pours his heart out to Scott with all his regrets and his self reflection.

Q: What was the inspiration behind This Is Me Trying?

A: Real life, and a lot of horrible, awful, no good portrayals of sexual assault survivors, rape apologists and drug addicts in TV and film. I hate unhappy endings, and I hate when things are so bleak there is almost no purpose to the telling of their story. There has been a consistent romanticization of depression, suicide, and addiction in teen television, and This Is Me Trying is heavily inspired by the bleakest, most badly written parts of that stuff. I wanted to make something decent, where the depressed girl recovers and is her own character, un-reliant on men, while still writing about how awful and miserable depression, sexual assault, and all those things are.