Originally, I wasn’t planning on sharing this because sometimes characters based on an author can raise concerns. Yet, I’d prefer my character to be seen as a Mary-Sue rather than have people think I condone bullying.
Amber’s character reflects my own childhood, growing up in an environment similar to the mindset of the Fae Realm.
From the age of twelve, I’ve had an urge to share my story, hoping to reach out and show the impact of the bullying and emotional abuse I endured.
Bernice’s character is loosely based on my mother and her treatment of myself and my sister. Carly and Sierra, while mean to Amber, are not based on my sister, though the attitude is. Carly and Sierra used to be different background characters a long time ago, but eventually got rewritten as Amber’s siblings for this book. They were already ‘mean’ girls, so they worked for this story and they tied in with the eight siblings plot line.
The reason this story was written is because about five years ago, an online acquaintance shared a piece of advice after I opened up to them.
A basic summary is this: “Why not turn your story into fiction and let the world experience it? If you’re truly looking to have your voice heard, write a book that resonates since you like writing stories, rather than venting online. You can reach people more that way.”
Amber, Ben, Ellen, Michael, Jared, Hank, and Stan, as well as some background characters, like Sierra, Carly, Sheila, Shelly, Tara, Natalie, and Lydia (the last three based on girls who bullied me, later apologizing when I was seventeen) have existed since I was twelve.
My friends and I used to like to write stories together, and the characters were created, though Amber was my very first. It used to always be Amber, Ellen, and Ben for the longest time before the others were created. I met the real ‘Michael’ shortly after our fiction club started, and it eventually became a lifelong friendship.
Jared, Hank, and Stan came next - Jared always being Amber’s boyfriend at some point. I really enjoyed creating them, especially the core ones, but I couldn’t find their place in a proper story.
During high school, my stories were similar to the show “Degrassi: The Next Generation,” my favourite show growing up. But I wanted more for these characters, especially Amber, who I created before the others, and whose background was based on mine.
At first, I hesitated to fictionalize my story for people to read due to the potential problems of characters seen as self-inserts, especially one going to a magical school.
I prefer writing fantasy or science fiction stories with magic over any other.
Researching other authors, particularly my favourites growing up, like Laura Ingalls Wilder and Lucy Maud Montgomery, prompted me to try, knowing others had done it too.
Different perspectives were added so it wasn’t just through Amber’s eyes, given the story’s origin, and how the character is tied to me, because I never intended to tell the truth about Amber’s origins. I felt I should in August 2023, so this note was added to the back of book one, and added to the front of book two.
Tiffany’s character kind of goes through what I did in my Zartoto series, but most bullying and emotional abuse towards Amber mirror my experiences. Amber’s ordeal in the first book, where she’s held down and washed, happened to me using a garden hose at a pool party I attended.
They wanted to make sure I was ‘clean’ enough for the pool, and not gross. I was always called ‘a dirty’ though I was very clean. It was a cruel prank I’ve never gotten over, but writing about it is therapeutic and so it helps, and it’s why I included it.
Escaping the bullying was impossible. I faced it at school and then at home, my mother and sister blaming me for the bullying, embarrassed by my clothes and hair.
My mother’s mantra was: “Style your hair properly and this wouldn’t happen.”
My sister added that my appearance embarrassed her. She often took it out on me, and would bully me too, or encourage others to do it because maybe I’d get the hint and change, and I’d stop walking around looking like a mess who doesn’t take care of myself.
Around fifteen, after the hair washing incident, I returned home from school to find my baggy clothes gone. My mother, fed up with my complaints about the bullying, took me shopping for only feminine clothes that weren’t loose. I wasn’t allowed to wear my hair down or wear baggy clothes anymore.
I have sensory issues with certain clothes – dresses or skirts, for instance, catch my eye, but I find them uncomfortable against my skin. I’d love to be able to wear them, but I struggle because it’s uncomfortable for me.
Tight-fitting clothes aren’t my cup of tea either. It’s frustrating because despite my discomfort, I was coerced into wearing such clothes anyway, and I’d get yelled at for getting upset when I had to wear them.
I’m the most comfortable in baggy clothes. It’s a challenge when personal comfort clashes with external expectations. I hated when skinny jeans became very popular because it was hard to find loose fitting jeans.
I refused to style my hair up because wearing it long and down helped hide my face, but it always tangled easily when it was down, no matter how much I brushed it. By the end of the day, it would be very frizzy and a ‘rats nest’ as my mother called it.
Kids mocked my appearance as “ugly,” and I used my hair as a shield, though it backfired. They targeted me more. It didn’t help that I’ve been struggling with PCOS since I was around thirteen/fourteen either.
But even once I was forced to change my style and wear my hair up, it was never ending. People knew my mother was forcing me to dress differently, and mocked me for that.
Mr. Hornora is mirrored from the principal I dealt with back in elementary school during eighth grade. His demeanour closely resembled Mr. Raditch’s from “Degrassi,” in the way he handled Rick’s bullying situation in “Time Stands Still.”
However, my principal was even more severe in his approach. He often lectured us that we were thirteen, and we needed to stand up for ourselves because no one would when we grew up. Bullying apparently built character because it taught us to toughen up and stick up for ourselves.
I agree that sticking up for yourself is something valuable to learn, but there are people like me who were sometimes too scared to. He once told me something like: “Good luck in the adult world then, you’ll be eaten alive if you continue to refuse to stick up for yourself. Other adults don’t care about you when you’re an adult.”
There are times when I’ve found he can be right when it comes to that, but the older I get, the more I find he’s wrong too. It depends entirely on the person. Many adults will, and do stick up for people, even if they don’t know the person. I’m one of those adults who will stick up for people because I know what it’s like to be bullied. Any workplace I’ve worked at also have anti-bullying policies and at my current job, bullies are written up.
I’ve also had many adults reach out to me privately on social media to stick up for Amber, and to tell me off for putting her through so much, so that’s another instance where he was wrong. One person even told me that Amber isn’t ugly, but I’m probably ugly myself and I should watch who I call ugly. Since Amber is based on me, that is something I’ve been called a lot since I was a child, especially once I started PCOS during puberty.
Back then in my old town, bullies were never punished, and the kid made fun of was made to feel bad for ‘snitching.’ We’d be asked if we tried to tell the bully to stop first before we went to a teacher, and if we said no, we’d be told to stick up for ourselves instead of going to a teacher.
The reason many characters are intentionally unlikable is to show how some people embrace the mindset that the inhabitants of the Fae Realm have — that bullying “toughens” people up. If given the chance, there are people who act cruelly due to no consequences, which is why characters like Lydia exist.
The Fae Realm was written to mock that kind of mindset, and to show how toxic it is.
I aimed to illustrate that even some of the main characters are flawed enough to adhere to that mindset, given that it’s how they were brought up.
You’re not meant to like them because they are meant to grow from that type of thought process, and look back and reflect on their actions.
I didn’t want to just write the main characters all as perfect, while the background characters were terrible. It was meant to show how that mindset can bring the worst out of even people you’re supposed to like.
If you tell people they can be harsh, some take advantage of that.
I witnessed how contagious that type of mindset is myself, because once people knew my mother and sister were okay with the bullying, because it would force me to ‘dress better,’ and to wear my hair properly, so it wouldn’t be a ‘rats nest,’ they got worse.
Even my close friends would do it, but they’d claim it was out of concern. They’d say it was tough love, not caring or trying to understand why I dressed the way I did. I still can’t figure out why to this day people felt as if my hair or clothes affected them. This type of bullying went well into my twenties until I decided to move to a bigger city.
Ben was written unlikable intentionally because he was a privileged spoiled rich kid who grew up in the Fae Realm. It was the same with Ellen whose biggest stresses were her little brothers pranking her, or the fact she’s not allowed to date. Her family isn’t rich like the Hoofers, but they’re well off enough to afford six kids. They’d be considered upper middle class in the 80s/90s/early 00’s.
Ben and Ellen aren’t based on anyone. Most characters aren’t. Only Mr. Hornora, Tara, Natalie, Lydia, Bernice, and some mentioned below are loosely based on real people.
Justin and Sierra’s relationship is based on a real life couple, though the couple in that relationship aren’t like Sierra and Justin, especially the wife. The woman I know is very kind - she’s happy she was included in a way. They are a couple I grew up with.
My family and the small town I grew up in harboured the same attitudes as the fae in this book. This was a small community with about 6000 people, so it was a small town where everyone knew everyone. There weren’t too many other towns near us, and the closest city was over an hour away.
After a student’s suicide in 2002, change began. Anti-bullying campaigns emerged in schools and workplaces in my town, but some still mocked them, deriding motivational speakers or posters.
A lot of the posters were ripped down or vandalized. Thankfully, things are a lot different now, my nephew goes to that school and bullying isn’t allowed, though I’m sure it still happens, but it’s not condoned or seen as a way to toughen a person up enough to stick up for themselves, and to prepare them for adulthood.
My aim is to share my story through characters because my past bullying led to severe social anxiety. My silence was perceived as weakness, as kids and adults made comments about my clothes and hair, leaving me too scared to speak up.
If I did, I’d be told I was too sensitive, or to get over it. My sisters favourite thing to say to me was: “Get over yourself, you bring it on yourself by choosing to dress like that,” if I complained about people making fun of my looks, my hair, or clothes.
Many have apologized, even those who hosed me, but the damage lingers. I rarely leave my house, enjoying very early morning hikes to avoid people because I have severe social anxiety.
Though people don’t really make comments on my appearance anymore, I’m still fearful they will because that stuff has a lifetime impact on people. Isolation for me began long before Covid-19. I haven’t stepped foot in a store in over seven years because I can just get everything delivered. I refuse to be in pictures or videos unless I have no choice, such as for work.
The characters undergo growth as they mature, gradually recognizing their hurtful deeds. Without revealing too much, by the conclusion of the fourth book, the Fae Realm undergoes a transformation into a more positive realm. Looking back on those times, its inhabitants view them with embarrassment.
Characters like Mason, Michael, Denver, Ernie, Brody, and Mack are based on real people who also struggled growing up. I am sharing their stories with their permission. My story isn’t alone, and my voice speaks not only for me but for them too.
My main goal is to shed light on the emotional abuse that’s been inflicted on me, with the hope of preventing such damage from happening to others.
I aim to assure those who’ve gone through similar experiences that they’re not alone in their struggles, while also highlighting the potential harm for others who haven’t gone through it, to see the impact it has on people.
Yet, there are moments of doubt when I question if I’m conveying my message effectively because Amber’s treatment has upset people. I’ve come to realize that sharing my story through fiction has inadvertently upset many readers, and I genuinely apologize for that.
That’s precisely why I’ve chosen to open up about my personal experiences in this note and to confess that Amber is a reflection of myself and my childhood. As I said before, I’d rather get backlash for writing what may seem like a Mary-Sue, instead of having people think I believe bullying is okay, or that I’m a bully myself. I just want my story heard, and I wanted it to be real, so I didn’t hold back. My goal has always been to write about real and tough topics, especially ones I’ve been through.
There was a point where I contemplated taking down the first book from Amazon, and abandoning the whole project, because the stuff Amber went through offended people enough that I was getting private messages on social media about it, and the last thing I wanted to do was upset people. However, after I announced I would on social media, people reached out to encourage me to continue the story.
So, I have, driven by the desire to provide closure to those few who eagerly want to witness the story’s conclusion, but to also show the impacts of bullying, especially when it comes to lookism.
I also tried to keep the book authentic to their ages to show their growth from thirteen to twenty-four. As the first book was written through a first person perspective through twelve/thirteen-year-olds, I wanted to try to stay true that.
I’ve saved every diary or story I’ve ever written. I read everything I wrote from when I was twelve/thirteen to put myself in these characters heads. I wanted them to sound thirteen since it’s first person perspective.
However, I promise I’ll refrain from doing the same in future books, though I did the same with book two because I wrote them back to back with no break in between. Book two was finished last March before I received feedback.
In book two, they’ll be sixteen, so I’m hoping they’ll sound more mature from the first book, but I tried to put myself in my sixteen-year-old selves shoes, so there is a chance it could be immature. I fixed a lot of stuff to ensure it’s not too immature. They’ll be eighteen in the third, and nineteen to around twenty-three or twenty-four in the last.
I started the third book in June of 2023, and took in a lot of the feedback I received from the first book, because I believe in listening to people’s criticism. I have been working on changing a lot of things, such as excessive POVs among many others.
The only reason there were so many before was to hide the fact Amber was based on me, (but to also warm myself up to Carly and Sierra, because I hated them. I still kind of do) but now that I’ve told the truth, the story will mainly be the four main characters in the third book, but Amber’s and Michael’s most of the time with Ben’s and Ellen’s only cropping up once and a while.
When I originally wrote it, I mainly had it as Amber telling the story, with Ben and Michael cropping up at times, and Ellen had the fewest chapters. I plan to do it that way after the second book.
Cheerleading or sports also won’t feature in the third book, unless the characters just bring it up in conversation. Only the Fight Club will be included.