Interviews With Wattpad Authors

Interview with english-rain

I interviewed Katy, otherwise known as english-rain, next, who's story Why He Jumped caught my attention and compelled me to ask for an interview. There are many, many incredibly written stories to choose from. Here's the interview!

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Who is your favorite author(It can be on Wattpad or in general)?

That is a tough question! I have a lot of authors whose works I thoroughly enjoy. As of right now, Khaled Hosseini is my favorite writer. I just think his books are a work of art and his stories have never failed to make me watery-eyed. Truly a genius.

What inspired you to write Why He Jumped?

Almost two years ago, a boy in my school committed suicide and for some reason that made an absolutely pivotal impact in my life. I'd always wanted to write a story about death and depression, something about a friend grieving over the loss of another friend, but the words never came to me. It was only his death that triggered something deep within me. Maybe it was because he walked the same way to school as me, and I saw him almost everyday. I never really knew why I felt so connected to his suicide, even though I'd never said two words to him. It was an almost traumatic experience, I suppose.

What was your reaction when you first hit over 1 million reads? How did you feel?

Aha, to this day I still cannot believe the success of Why He Jumped. It blows me away, honestly. The fact that it even managed to hit a thousand reads, let alone a million (two million now!) was still a shock to me. I can still remember waking up everyday and watching in awe and wonder as the views on my story increased from one thousand to two thousand to six thousand in just a month!

Is there anything specific you did to have your story become so popular? If not, why do you think it did so well?

Pure luck, my friend. Pure luck!

Is there a writer on Wattpad, or an author in general, who influenced your style of writing?

I remember John Green's books being a fad at the time I was writing WHJ. It was probably him to be honest! His writing made an impression me at the time, and quite a lot of people say WHJ reminds them of Perks of Being A Wallflower. Although I've never read the book, I can definitely say from having watched the movie that the style was influenced from there as well.

Can you relate to any of the characters in your stories. If so, who and in what ways?

Although the events in WHJ are absolutely and utterly pure fiction, I can safely say that the characters are very real to me in a sense that ALL of them have little pieces of me and my friends woven into their personalities. I don't think I meant for it to be intentional but it just sort of happened! So yes, I can definitely relate to all of them. Matt being the one I can relate to the most, I guess, because he WAS the main character and the grief he felt mirrored mine (my grief was not quite as powerful as his was, but it certainly was similar in some ways.)

Before your stories became so popular, could you ever imagine yourself to be in a such a position?

DEFINITELY NOT! Haha never even in my (here comes the Taylor Swift reference...) "wildest dreams"!

How did you find about this website [Wattpad]?

I actually heard of it through users on this other writing site called Booksie, and a lot of them were moving onto Wattpad as well. After some time, I decided to give it a go and, well, here we are now! :)

Lastly, do you have any advice for up and coming wattpad writers?

If you want to be wattpad famous, I suggest you sell your soul to the devil.

(I mean, thats how I did it, at least!)

Thank you for interviewing me! I really enjoyed answering these questions. Hope you have a lovely day/night! :)

Katy xx

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Thank you a massive amount to Katy!!