#tpoas

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Guess what? I made a real and actual WIP page! Please check it out --> The Price of a Smile WIP page

The code for this page has been written by @pidgeonbooks and can be found here.

I have also updated my synopsis:  

Will has never felt like he found his passion in life. Not in high school, at least not after he had to drop out of art class - a request of his father - and not in law school. Where most of his fellow law students are eagerly looking forward to the future, Will would rather just.. stay in place. But his brother (and roommate) is moving out to live with his girlfriend and Will has to look for a new place to live, and some new roommates.  But his life is shaken up even further when he receives the worst news: his exam results were not good enough to let him continue to the next year - and Will has to drop out of law school.   Now Will is faced with a choice: does he continue to follow in his fathers footsteps or does he dare to choose his own future? Can Will, with the new support of his new roommates, stay on his own path? And what will he do when he seems to be getting closer and closer to the boy across the hall?

Background image by Cara Gonier

Tag list: ask to be added or removed!

@theforgottencoolkid @jeeanmoreau @milestogobeforeiwrite @writingrailroad @chalky-charlie @at-thezenith @arkarchive @ofvisitorsthefairest

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My beautiful babies. I can and I will never stop making new picrews these chaotic roommates. Picrew by @ummmmandy.

Our main character Will. Kind of a dumbass, gets into fights, secretly really into art, has daddy issues, hasn't realised he's bi, smiles when he's nervous, has trouble trusting others.

My baby boi Alex. Loves to bake and will cook for you even if you don't ask, has a room filled to the brim with plants and knows obscure details about all of them, openly gay but still a little shy about it, dyes his hair blond, Polish parents, loves his family.

Ben, loves sports a lot, got into uni on a sports scholarship, he's on the rowing team now, it's pretty intense, he's friends with all the lads, honestly just wants to chill out and have a good time, really messy room but he couldn't give two flying fucks, will pull pranks on you.

Rosa. She's Portugese and if you confuse it with Spanish you will be in trouble. She's brutally honest, if you don't like it you can leave tbh, but if she finds her people she will protect them fiercely, she is studying maths and nobody ever guessed that, she loves that, she really is a geek tbh.

Daphne, she's french and she will be snobby about wine and bread you can't escape it, a very honest person, has little shame about anything really, will tell you about her IBS, she's gay but in the closet, has a big dumb lesbian crush on Rosa because I mean who doesn't.

The price of a smile taglist

@theforgottencoolkid @jeeanmoreau @milestogobeforeiwrite @writingrailroad @chalky-charlie @at-thezenith @arkarchive @ofvisitorsthefairest

Wip page

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WIP intro: The price of a smile

NA contemporary story about university life set in Amsterdam. It will have ownvoices bisexual representation.

Synopsis

The story follows Will, a young student who studies law. Although 'studies' might not be the best term, his last exams were a disaster and actually the entire year has gone terribly. Will doesn't love law, he only chose it because its a sensible and good choice. It's the best road to a well paying job so that he can move away as far as possible from this damned place and his parents.

Will is forced to move out from his comfortable apartment that he shares with his brother Joseph because he's planning to move in with his girlfriend. After a couple lf failed meetings with potential roommates, Will gets a tip from a friend about a last minute opening in an international house. When Will meets with the house he feels right at home. That's where Will meets Alex, another new resident who Will thinks is fascinating in a way be can't quite explain.

But then Will gets the email he's been dreading. Unfortunately his exam results were insufficient and he's forced to drop out of law school. He's faced with a crossroads. What will he do now? Drop out of uni and just start working? Try law school at another university in another city? Or maybe this is just the opportunity that he's secretly been waiting for, maybe this is his chance to study what he's been pining after since high school. The degree that, according to his father, would be utterly useless and a complete waste of time. Maybe, if he's brave enough, he'll dare to sign up for Art History.

The story further follows Will as he defies his parents and his own expectations and as he discovers more about himself than he ever thought possible.

Basic info

Genre: Contemporary

Themes: bisexuality, accepting yourself, choosing your own future, coming of age

Stage: working on the outline

Characters

- William 'Will' Turner

- Aleksander 'Alex' Dabrowski

Tag list

If you're interested in this project, feel free to ask to be added to the list and I'll tag you in my upcoming posts!

@theforgottencoolkid

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The price of a smile

So I want to talk a little bit about my current project The price of a smile.

You see I have been wrecking my brain over where to start this story. All the outline tips say to show the character in their act 1 world, to show how much they need to improve. And on the other hand I read a lot of books that are set around academic achievement with similar themes as this story, start out much earlier than I am (think Radio Silence by Alice Oseman). A lot of stories explore the character struggling and struggling on in the field they hate only to have a breakthrough at the end to follow their heart and choose what they love instead of what people want them to choose. The decision only comes in the last act of the book and you just have to imagine the characters are happier than they were.

Here's why I wanted to do this different. I chose to make Will change his field from law (the thing he hates, but what his father wants him to do) to art history (the thing he wants to do) in the beginning of the book. His inciting event or catalyst will be that he fails too many exams and is kicked off the course (because this dumbass needs to be forced to quit or he would be miserable for the rest of his life). And I want the story to focus on this choice and how it impacts his world. He obviously enjoys himself more, he starts to lift out of the depression state he had been in and he starts to do art again himself. And I want to focus on that, I want the readers to see that. How making a daring choice (because you better believe his parents are displeased as hell) can lead to something wonderful. That's the message I want to give to my readers and that's why I shifted the timeline this way.

I just want to show people that life can get so much better. I want to give them hope in their struggles too. And I hope Will can do that for some people, even if it's just one person, even if it's just me.

Sorry for the long rant, I just really wanted to share my thoughts on this with you all.

On another note: if you know of any books with similar themes/settings/choices, please let me know! I loved Radio Silence by @aliceoseman and Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell for starters and the gang from The Raven Boys by Maggie Stiefvater and The Foxhole Court by Nora Sakavic really inspired me to create my own gang of idiots.

Read more about The Price of a Smile here

Taglist

@theforgottencoolkid @jeeanmoreau @milestogobeforeiwrite @writingrailroad @chalky-charlie @at-thezenith @arkkarchive @ofvisitorsthefairest

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Character intro: Alex

Story: The price of a smile, my current contemporary WIP.

 - Character intro for Will, the main character.

Name: Aleksander Dabrowski

Age: 22

Location: Amsterdam

Ethnicity: Polish

Sexuality: Gay

Role: Love interest

Alex' parents moved to the Netherlands when he and his sister were very young, but he's still close to his Polish roots. He visits family in Poland every summer.

His hair is naturally as dark brown as his sister and father, but he has dyed it white blond since the beginning of high school.

He's very close with his family, especially with his elder sister Karolina. His father is a fishmonger, famous locally for his seasonal herring, and his mother is a nurse at the local hospital. Karolina is going to college to become a hairdresser. Alex is the first one in his family to go to university, which is something his parents are immensely proud of. He's in his second year studying biology. He's had a passion for growing plants for a while now. It started when he had hit a low point of depression and his sister gave him a few easy plants to take care of. Slowly but surely he got into the routine of watering them and making sure they got enough sun. He started to look up info about how to best take care of them and though it might not have cured anything, it was a tool for him to get to a better place. His sister has always been his biggest supporter and managed to get him out of his shell and into the world when he came out to them. She taught him everything he knows and he is immensly grateful to have her in his life.

When he's not studying or obsessing over his plants, he loves to cook and bake and he can be often found in the kitchen, usually in the middle of the night. He hasn't been able to shake the insomnia yet so he likes to spend his nights baking cookies.

He's not as outgoing as Will, he enjoys to just sit around and enjoy the company rather than be in control of the conversation. He has a keen eye for people though and he quickly sees the grimaces between Will's smiles and takes an interest to him.

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These are some of the core songs from my WIP playlist: Tastes like youth.

You can check out the full playlist on Spotify here.

WIP page

Tag list: @theforgottencoolkid @jeeanmoreau @milestogobeforeiwrite @writingrailroad @chalky-charlie

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Lemme reintroduce for the hundredth time because I can't get enough of these picrews: my disaster bisexual son Will and my disaster gay son Alex.

Characters from my current WIP The price of a smile.

Character intro for Will + Alex

Make your own here! By @petitser on twitter.

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Story: The price of a smile (university WIP)

Name: William Turner

Age: 21

Location: Amsterdam

Ethnicity: caucasian - dutch-english

Sexuality: bisexual, though he doesn't realise this at the beginning of the story

Role: main character

Will is a young student and the main character of this novel. The story follows him as he struggles with his law degree and as he breaks apart when he fails his exams. With the help of his new roommates however, he makes the decision to change degrees to art history, at the cost of his father's wrath.

Personality

Will is pretty pessimistic and tends to assume the worst in people first. He cares a lot about what people think of him, though, so he puts extra effort to appear happy and to be helpful. The forced smile he wears almost feel like a second face. He's very good at reading people and tends to adapt himself to what he assumes that person likes to see, that way he easily falls into favor with people and everybody usually likes him, at least on the surface. But underneath that smile Will feels alone, even when he is surrounded by people.

He also has a lot of trouble sleeping because he hates to be alone. Growing up he always slept in a room with Joseph so they'd never have to be alone, but since Joseph got a girlfriend, Will had to move back to his own room. When he's alone his thoughts tend to spiral and he gets panicked quickly, so he usually surrounds himself with other people or other distractions to keep his thoughts at bay.

Family

He has a complicated relationship with his father, who was sure he would become a lawyer like him and disapproves greatly of this change.

Will has one older brother, Joseph, and he would do anything to protect him. His entire life he has been taking blows for him. He has always believed that his brother was better than him, and he would gladly sacrifice himself in order for Joseph to succeed. That includes acting out to his father to redirect his anger away from Joseph.

Hobbies

Growing up, Will developed a silent passion for art. He wasn’t exactly encouraged to take the subject at school. But he found his way in the art room anyway by convincing the art teacher to let him study there during his free hours. The smell of paint, the chatter of the students, the calm air of the teachers kept his mind at ease. He started painting a little by himself, but when his father found some of his work he ripped it up and told him to stop wasting his time on hobbies that serve no purpose later in life. He learned to keep his art hidden since then.

excerpts will be added once I start drafting.