Role Model | Lee Taeyong

Author's note

You have just finished Role Model!

Wow.

That's all I have to say. I feel like I've been writing this book for ages and it feels so unreal to finally publish it to the world. Truthfully, I went through a little bit of writer's block halfway through, where I went several days without writing even though I try to normally complete a chapter every day. I think I started this book in august?? Somewhere around that time, while I was still writing His Cinderella.

I actually feel pretty impressed with the plot of this book. Like many of my other books, I end up writing too many sub-plots that I end up forgetting and it turns into a whole mess where I just keep on adding more chapters... But this time, I feel like there was just one main purpose. And honestly, I'm happy with that.

This book was heavily inspired by the Japanese mystery movie, The World of Kanako. I have really mixed thoughts about this movie because on one side I loved it but on the other hand I'm still traumatized by it (and I don't really get disturbed by film that often). I personally can handle many disturbing things in movies and TV shows such as abuse, violence, sexual assault, etc... But I will probably never watch this movie again. Like if you're reading this and you're considering watching this movie, don't. It's a great movie, but don't watch it (but if you want to it's on youtube. be prepared)

I'll give a summary, though. It starts with a girl named Kanako, and her friend (or boyfriend I don't remember) commits suicide by being bullied by a bunch of kids in their grade I think or they push him off a building. So to get revenge, she decides to basically ruin their lives. She gets them hooked onto drugs, kills them, and even gets them r/ped which was very very unnecessary. Yeah, I really dislike this movie. But as you can tell it shares major themes with this book, or the main theme, revenge.

I cannot decide who exactly is the villain of this story. Because I world argue that Narae and Taeyong are both the main characters, but neither one of them are particularly a hero. I guess they're both villainous protagonists, but definitely Narae more because she's a literal serial killer.

I have a feeling like the ending was a little short, so I'm gonna do a quick summary so I can tell you guys the things I interoperated when writing. The thing is, I sort of encourage thinking of your own ending because tbh I like it better when you can make up things that aren't even mentioned in a book rather than the author telling you. But I'm gonna do it anyway lol.

(Next paragraph contains spoilers for The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes, Hunger Games prequel)

Originally, I wanted the book to be Narae killing Taeyong for good in the end. Sort of like the final scene of The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes, "Snow lands on top" when he killed the dean but replace with her name, "Narae lands on top". I decided to make it more heart-clenching I would make it so that she would never really be able to kill Taeyong because she still looks up to him like she did when she was 12. Which I like better.

The book ends with Taeyong reading the note that Narae had left behind, calling him his role model. I could imagine this going one or more ways; Either she knew she wasn't going to kill Taeyong from the beginning, so she kept the note for him to find as a farewell (?) letter. OR she planned to kill him, so she could place the note on his dead body as like a final message. It's really up to you why you think she had the note, those are just my ideas. Anyways let's get into the characters and their designs!

Lee Narae. Often described as if the devil shapeshifted into a teenage girl, by the characters. 7 years ago, her mom sent her older sister Jeongyeon to fetch Taeyong for dinner, and Narae went along. They found Taeyong under the bridge where she died, smoking and doing drugs with his friends. You know that happens next, which led to Narae being extremely traumatized from the event. She became mute, never uttering a single word until she met Na Jaemin and came up with the idea to kill with him. She never thought of herself as a villain, more so as a hero and that she was doing good for the world by doing this to Taeyong. Kind of like Joe Goldberg from You.

I tried to incorporate the real-life actions of serial killers into her persona, but it was never added to the book. I wanted to make her a mundane, normal teenage girl who was bubbly but as you guys know, that's the total opposite of her. I also kind of wanted to add a flashback scene where Narae would kill one of her pets since many serial killers first start with small animals. It was never incorporated in the story, but you can assume it really did happen. It's now that I realized that pretty much every major character has died, except for Taeyong and Jaemin. I definitely did not plan for it to end like that lol.

Moving on to Taeyong. Taeyong is sort of like the main character of a Hollywood action film. A detective, sort of messy, lives in a shithole, only cares about his job, loves drinking whiskey dramatically, and is unconventionally hot. He lives in guilt every day for what he did to Jeongyeon, something that his parents swooped under the rug due to their high power in the town and pretended it never happened. Although he is definitely not a good person, I can't exactly say he was an antagonist either.

Next, Mark Lee. I felt extremely bad writing anything related to Mark in this book because I feel like he was just too lovestruck to realize the severity of the situation he had inserted himself in. Honestly, he wasn't even supposed to be the main character in this book but I ended up adding him anyways. He wasn't really a challenge to Narae and her plan, more so a pest (sorry Mark ily).

And we of course cannot go without discussing Jaemin's character, Mark's sworn enemy. He was popular and liked, so it shocked Narae that such a boy would help her in a severe case. Narae felt bad in the end for him, because he had so much potential and he was wasting it all on her. He was one of the only three people that she cared for, which is why she bought him a ticket to Taiwan in the very end so he could escape going to prison. They were like Bonnie and Clyde and I was even a little upset when they never got together in the end. Truly a perfect example of right person, wrong time.

Also, the characters that I felt had the most potential, Yudo!!1 I kinda wished I planned for them to be this sort of awesome quirky duo, but I never ended up adding it in the book sadly. I really wanted them to be like the comedy relief since this book is so damn sad and gruesome. Looking back at it, I feel like that would've been a good idea. But oh well rip Yuta and Doyoung.

And finally, Kim Yeri. Even though I'm the author of this book I cannot understand why this girl likes Taeyong so much. He doesn't treat her as well as he could, which should be like a princess considering how well of a character she is. Really doing God's work over here lmao.

This book was extremely hard to write, considering the lack of motivation I got. And because my school has started, I only have a few hours every day to relax and to write. But I have some new projects coming out soon, a supernatural skz one and (hopefully) a short Christmas one as well that I hope come around quicker than the others.

I guess that's everything I wanted to discuss?? Idk many thoughts go through my brain at once it's hard to keep track. Anyways thank you for taking the time to read this book! I truly appreciate every single viewer that votes and comments, or even silent reads. Every single notification I get from this app makes a smile churn on my face. Remember to drink water today everyone and let me just say thank you once again!! Love you all so much.!

Sincerely, Vatann_