Once Upon A Time ✓

afterword

× author's note ×

once upon a time was my way of expressing my inner emotions, with some exaggerations and fantastical ideas as such the dreams that kaylee and gabriel experiences.

i need to admit; i never actually believed in myself throughout this whole writing journey. sure, i had several daydreams of what this book may become, but there was always some voice in my mind to bog me down.

i do agree it isn't that great and would need to be improved if i wanted the story to flow better and show the emotions better.

i'm still very thankful though, to all those who read this till the end. i'm forever grateful because it makes me super happy when someone actually enjoyed my work enough to read so much of it.

after being blessed with the experience of participating in this contest, let's just say that i'm very interested in participating again next year, maybe even with a partner ;) when the time comes for onc iv y'all can pm me and we'll see if I'm willing.

× book unravelling ×

the story focuses on our main protagonist kaylee, who has major depression, or also known as major depressive disorder (mdd). for the specific type of depression we're talking about, mdd, it is a psychological disorder that can stir up in a person who is experiencing stressful life events.

kaylee does not experience all the symptoms of depression, but experiences some, so don't get confused why she lacked several symptoms and accuse her of wrongly stating that she had depression. as i read up, not all patients have all the symptoms.

as for the occurrence of her dreams; she is very different in her dreams than she is in "reality". in her dreams, she is interpreted as more jolly than her reality, but still slightly downcast. her dreams were basically an alternate universe where everything was supposed to be "perfect", in a way that means that her and gabriel's "stressful life event" did not occur, showing how "perfect" their lives would have been if those did not happen.

so basically, her dreams basically force her to be happy and she can't really help it, her depression bogs her down thus why she's not that cheerful.

sure, she is happier in later chapters but that's only because she has gone through the slow healing process for very long and have managed to recover. i may make a bonus chapter to show you how different she is from her old self, just so that you can understand that even though she somewhat healed, she is never the same again.

where do her dreams come from? they are something psychological, made up by her own mind. it will remain a mystery how she shared it with gabriel, though.

does gabriel have depression too? this is honestly up to the reader's thinking because gabriel didn't get a diagnosis, so i wouldn't say that he had it or not. he could just be suicidal and nothing more, for all we know.

what genre is this story? general fiction. it's a little of everything.

× fun facts ×

• i was tempted between choosing these prompts (15 and 4) and prompt 42 (you sold your soul to the devil years ago. today, he gives it back and says, "i need a favour."). it was gonna be a romantic book, but the idea i had for that book wasn't too great.

• i honestly had no idea how to develop the plot.

• the ending had been on my mind since... a while. i had mental battles regarding what ending i wanted - sad or happy? in the end i made a poll on instagram and people chose bittersweet.

• about five chapters in, i made chapter outlines for all the rest of the chapters. in the end, i steered away from what i had planned multiple times, but it was for the better :)

• i never actually believed in myself to hit the word counts on time nor did I believe myself to actually pass the rounds.

• remember the boy who yelled "gay!" in the first chapter? that was inspired by a boy in my class. now instead of saying "gay" or "you gay", he says "your mum gay".

• amelia didn't exist until i started writing that chapter.

• sophie was not supposed to exist. she basically came to existence because i feared that chapter five was too short.

• sophie's character is mostly based off of me. we share the same view points and the same behaviour.

• kaylee and gabriel are actually soulmates! what? i know lol, this is so out of the ordinary but if their dreams could occur, then why can't soulmates happen? i mean, i did somewhat hint that they were soulmates cos who would trust another so easily in such a short time? they also felt a connection and both somewhat "fell in love/like" in the short time they spent together. of course, nobody knows soulmates exist ;)

• after the announcement of the round two results, i had to rush to get chapters 9 to epilogue (15,000+ words) out to complete the book. did it all under one week, phew.

× special thanks ×

my special thanks goes to @mariz-j and @Agnxxes! they were both there to read and vote on chapters whenever they were released and supported me throughout the book. ily babes <3

and of course, thank you to those you made it to the end xoxo