Wattpad Author Interviews

3. scooby-snacks

She joined Wattpad last year and has amassed over 300k reads on her book No Control, and a further 250k across the two sequels. We talk to Rachel, aka scooby-snacks, about Prosecco, cliffhangers, and the problem that was Sara Sampaio...

Where are you from and what do you do for a living?

I live in the North-West of England and I work for an independent company in their credit department. I look after a very small team, alongside some characters from No Control - Nicki and Sarah. I look at companies' financial information and decide whether or not to offer them credit. I absolutely love it!

How far into No Control were you when you realized you were going to write a sequel? What prompted you to start TWO sequels at the same time?

The idea for the sequel only came when the news articles first surfaced of Sara Sampaio leaving Harry Styles' hotel the following morning in the previous night's clothes. My first thought was wow, lucky girl, then my second thought was, how on earth am I going to write this into No Control? I don't like ignoring the big stories about 1D because the whole point of the book was to follow real-life events, so I made the decision to write it in. I then came up with the story surrounding it, and at the time I was already up to about 150,000 words and around 50 chapters, so I decided No Control would end the way it did because it seemed like the best place to break it, and the story would continue with a sequel. I then realised I was creating even more work for myself because by this point I had already started Trace of Innocence, which meant I would then have to write a fourth book too!

Harry's POV came about because I wanted the readers to get inside Harry's head too, as a lot of things that happen in No Control are centred around Harry, and I wanted to explain his side of things. There have since been many occasions where people have commented 'oh so THAT'S what he meant!' on certain lines in the story, which then creates frustration for them when Jess misunderstands, or he doesn't tell her what he's really thinking. That gets people invested in the story. I was worried how I was going to write the other boys as I had only included them briefly in No Control, but once I got into my stride they became my favourite scenes to write.

What do you think being in a relationship with Harry would actually be like? In what ways would it be similar/different to your books?

I've no idea - probably nothing like how I write him to be in No Control, but who knows?! Other fanfics I've read nearly always portray the glamorous side of dating a famous person, but I wanted mine to reflect the other side of it - the NDAs, the paparazzi intrusion and the constant scrutiny from the world's media. I imagine this would be difficult to deal with for someone with no media training, especially with a band as huge as One Direction, so with the positives come a lot of negatives. The UK way of life is very different to the US in so many aspects, so I prefer it when he is over here with his family because I feel I can write those scenes with more authenticity than I can the US scenes.

Are there any ideas floating around out there for a new fic with brand new characters? We'd like some juicy tidbits please.

Yes! I have a new book planned for when I've finished No Control | Holding Me Ransom. It's a Harry AU, and will be completely different to the books I've written so far, but I can't wait to start writing it. I've only got a loose plot in my head so far; I haven't even got as far as writing anything down, but the longer I think about it the more it falls into place. I also had a plan for a short, famous-Harry fic that would be completely unrelated to No Control, but the more I think about it, the more I think it's been done a zillion times already so I probably won't take it any further.