Behind the Story #1: LikkleAngel

Behind the Story Saturdays are my new biweekly feature posts that spotlight Wattpad writers! For inquires on being hosted, please visit the Wattpad page on my blog.

Today I have the honor of introducing LikkleAngel!

Author: LikkleAngel
Series: None
Genre: YA, Contemporary Romance

Summary from Wattpad: 

"Being a teenager sucks, all you can really do is stumble through the years." School. Grades. Judgements. Bullies. Popularity. Mood swings. Peer pressure. Dating. Willow Jamison is, popular, friendly, and is a head cheerleader with a passion for dance. Not to forget she has two hot guys trailing after her. That's pretty much as close to perfect as it gets. Except she doesn't like either of them. She's not interested in finding love, but her friends are determined to find it for her. Derek Reeds is pretty much invisible. He keeps to himself and doesn't really care what people think of him besides his three best friends. He's determined to make it through the hell of high school and leave the limelight for people like Willow Jamison. They're both teenagers, and yeah it sucks to be stumbling through. But it's not so bad when you find the right person to help you.

Interview

Let’s get to know you first:

Faith gives off a whole list of talents to Carter in Let the Games Began. Do you have any hidden talents? 

I don't really have any talents but I like writing song lyrics, and butchering songs by trying to play them on my guitar.

So far the interactions in Let the Games Began have mostly been challenge/dare based. What is the best dare you’ve ever given or received? 

I don't like playing dare games much to be honest. Though the most embarrassing dare I've ever done was to ask out a guy in my class. I was bright red. I stuttered through most of it, and then walked away hurriedly before he could answer. Afterwards my friends explained to him about the dare, he was pretty alright about it. :)

All your characters have their own unique quirks. What are some of yours? 

I could give you a whole list but I'll just tell you a couple: (1) I was scared of Mario and Luigi as a kid and (2) I will sing Les Mis or any Disney song ever at every given opportunity. Always.

Now we’ll get to your writing: 

Putting your stories/ideas out in the world can be pretty scary. What pushed you to share them on Wattpad in the first place? 

Well, I've always loved writing but I don't let people I know read my works (that's the only thing about sharing my writing that terrifies me). What got me to first share my stories was the fact that my sister published hers on Wattpad, and I thought "why not?". 

Do you always plan your stories out ahead and how do you organize yourself/your writing? 

No, a lot of the time I don't plan my story out before posting them. I usually have a vague impression of where I want the story to go, and then I cling to that and create the story around it. When I do get around to fully planning my story how I do it is I bullet point all the things that I want to happen, Then I make a brief chapter by chapter plan using the bullet points as a guide line. 

Do you think of the title or plot first? 

It changes. Sometimes I don't have a title or plot. With Darkest Fears I saw a picture online, and I created a scene from that. Then my story plot was entirely based around that one scene, and that's the case with most my stories. I'll write or plan a scene, and then I'll work it out from there. However with With Every Breath You Stole and On A Rainy Tuesday, it was the title I thought of first.

Have any personal experiences shaped your writing? 

I try not to let personal experience affect my writing because I like to make my characters different from me, but yeah, it definitely does. For example, some emotions I write from experience or even some scenes are written because of something that happened recently inspired me. Take the scene with Willow and Derek where she reads his palm. This happened because a few days before, my stomach was hurting something awful and thoughts like "this is how it ends" were in my mind , and with my pain-addled mind I thought for some reason that the next logical step was to look up palm reading to check what my life line had to say about it. Turns out the life line has NOTHING to do with the length of your life so THAT was a lie.

Derek is adorably awkward. Did you create his character with this in mind or did it kind of just happen? 

It was planned. Sometimes it actually makes his character quite difficult to write but it's well worth it. Derek is one of my favourite characters. :) 

What’s the easiest and most difficult part about writing Stumbling Through? 

The most difficult was progressing the story because of Derek's awkwardness. It was difficult to make the story roll along like it usually does which is why I was stuck for so long and made Willow's character more blunt than originally planned. The easiest part of writing Stumbling Through is Willow and Derek's friendship to love aspect. I adored writing about them getting closer, first as friends, then more of a subtle change rather than the love-hate I usually write. It was refreshing, and I was actually chock full with ideas that wouldn't work for other stories.

All of your characters have such different personalities from Daniel in How to Turn a Good Girl Bad, to Derek and Willow, to Faith, to Noah from Coffee Shops and Christmas. How do you come up with your characters’ personalities?

I work hard on making all my characters have at least one thing that defines them and them alone. I do this by giving them the small quirks you mentioned earlier. Though a lot of the quirks never make it in to the story, although it helps me build up an idea on how they'd react to certain situations. For one example, Willow from Stumbling Through used to stay awake until 11:11 every night to make the same wish which to me makes her an optimistic. She's not sure about where to place her beliefs but she wants to believe in “something bigger.” It almost makes her mind jump to things like ghosts when she's home alone, hence why she doesn't like being alone. Also, her weird food habits are born from the fact her Uncle eats weird foods. It makes her feel more like a family to have that in common. Those things won't make it into my book but it helps me decide how they'd react in certain situations and to draw lines between my characters!

Most of your novels are romance based, do you think you’ll ever try writing a different genre?

My stories will always have a humour/romance aspect because that's what I enjoy writing. Teen fiction is just what I enjoy writing the most.

Quick Round: 

Dogs or cats? Dogs. Though I do have a cat, dogs are more loyal which I like.

Cake or ice cream? Ice cream

Outside or inside? Depends on the weather but outside almost always.

Reading or writing? Writing, though I do love reading.

Dystopian or Utopian? Dystopian

My Thoughts

I love all of LikkleAngel's stories, but I have to say that Stumbling Through is my favorite one of all. Wattpad is filled with Bad boy, good girl stories nowadays (not that I don't like them) so it's refreshing to read something that's different. Stumbling Through still has the same aspect of "opposites" attracting, but Derek is super adorable and Willow isn't your stereotypical cheerleader so I can't resist reading. So far in the story, Willow and Derek's relationship has definitely progressed in comparison to the beginning (no spoilers!), and I can't wait to see what else is in store for them in the upcoming chapters.