The student news site of Londonderry High School

December 7, 2021

Horan’s inspiration came from reading what she wanted to write

Horan started writing her book, Rolling Hills and the Lost Key of Peachtree Palace, when she was in fourth grade. “I just really hope that I can make my book like a home for my readers,” Horan said. (Photo used with permission from Michaela Horan)

During the writing process, Horan took inspiration from other novels she read at the time, in particular, Keeper of the Lost Cities, by Shannon Messenger, and The Rosewood Chronicles, by Connie Gylnn; two of her favorite book series. Horan admires these authors’ writing styles and expresses it in her own writing. 

Horan said reading their books definitely “made me want to write my own.”

“There’s this quote somewhere, by someone, that says, ‘write what you want to read,’” Horan said. “I definitely think I did that. The plot at first was very simplistic, but I would say I got more of the ideas from the books I was reading and thinking ‘oh, this would be cool, but what if it was like this instead’ and I would just go back and add it in. It started as not really a book and then I just kept adding stuff, and adding stuff, and adding characters and plot lines until it kind of made a thing.”

Currently in the process of writing the sequel to Rolling Hills, Horan has taken inspiration from one of her favorite books, Six of Crows.

“I adore Leigh Bardugo’s writing style,” Horan said as her eyes lit up with joy, “so I’m definitely going to get a lot of inspiration from reading their writing.”

Horan feels that she has a connection with her characters and sees them as her “friends.” When creating them, Horan prefers not to make them similar to people she knows.

“People always ask if I base [my characters] off of anyone, and I don’t because I am too scared that I’ll come to hate the person that I base them off of in real life,” Horan said. “I think that my characters are kind of like my friends in a way and I see myself in certain parts of them and them in certain parts of me. I definitely want them to be really relatable and I want them to be the kind of characters that people my age, and also people older or younger, can relate to.”

Horan often had moments while writing when ideas “just appeared.” Although she recently started writing her sequel, Horan has already experienced memorable moments where “all the pieces began clicking into place.”

“Those [moments] are my favorite to write,” Horan said, “because when the characters get excited, I get excited.”

Horan started writing Rolling Hills when she was very young and doesn’t remember the reason why she decided to take the idea, and transform it into a story. What she does remember, is where she was given the opportunity to create it.

“I was in a really great English class in seventh grade and we had a lot of free time to do creative writing,” Horan said. “We had a lot of freedom in that class to write whatever the heck we wanted and I think somewhere along the way I was like, ‘oh, here’s this. Maybe it would be cool if I actually finished it.’”

When she finally did finish writing the story, Horan remembers crying because she was so happy.

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