“Was It My Fault?” Author, Malynn Sobek: A Deeper Look Into Her Book

by: Keira Ashley, Staff Writer

Grief, quite a theme that Malynn Sobek, a 15 year old self published writer wrote about with her new book, “Was It My Fault?” In this article, we will dive deeper on how her book was inspired and made and her as a writer.

What made you realize you wanted to start writing?

I realized I wanted to start writing when the Idea for “Was it My Fault?” popped into my head. I’ve always loved writing essays and stories for school, and poetry when I was younger. When I thought of this story, I really wanted to write it because it was a story that felt like it would have a lot of shape and have a chance to show a lot of messy emotions that people have a hard time expressing and understanding, especially kids my age. I wrote this during a turbulent time of my life, and it really allowed me to express my emotions about a lot of different events in a way that let other people understand. It’s also a great way to relax and just let the story play out on a page. I wrote a lot when I was little, but I didn’t realize how much opportunity I had missed until I started developing this story, and I really fell in love with the process. I also had a lot of friends and family that helped encourage me along the way!

At just 15 years old, Malynn has accomplished what many in her age could only dream about. Using her emotions as a way of writing the book is outstanding.

How does your book, “Was it My Fault?” relate to in real life?

“Was it My Fault?” wasn’t entirely based on real life events, but the emotions of the book come from my personal experiences with death. I personally have had three teammates pass away in their teenage years, but they passed away due to vehicle accidents. That topic seemed too sensitive to write about, but I also had a different relationship with everyone that I’ve seen pass away. I realized that everyone has a different experience with the passing of a loved one, and I wanted to capture that feeling to the best of my ability by using a multiple POV story. I also wanted to capture the idea that no one truly knows everything that goes down within the brain of a person before they die, and their stories are not told by the deceased person themselves, but by the people who think they know them best. Another aspect I tried to incorporate in the book was the struggle with the aftermath of events like this, it is difficult to try and figure out what really happened. It can be really hard to accept the truth, but even harder to find out what really happened when the person who has the answers is dead.

Losing someone to death is a tragedy, and no death is ever the same, but having people to help you get through it is so important, and I wanted to give people who might be struggling to have hope something new to encourage them to keep moving forward.

The mindset that Malynn has put into her book is something rarely seen towards other books, making her an extraordinary writer.

What was the most challenging part of writing Was it My Fault?, and how did you overcome it?

I would say that The most challenging part of writing “Was it My Fault?” was the timeline. I knew pretty early on what date and what time I wanted my main character, Charlotte Barlow to die, and so each chapter starts off with this kind of countdown of how many hours and minutes are left until her death. The tricky part about doing this is that I gave myself a time limit in which I had to accomplish everything, and it got really tricky trying to figure out the logistics of how much time I wanted to spend on specific events. Ultimately, I ended up having to cut out some events because they just weren't going to be helpful to the story, and they wouldn't fit within the timeline I wanted it to be in. To do this, I kind of just ended up like taking a step back and looking at the story's big idea I originally had, and looking at it helped me realize that some of those smaller details wouldn't be what the characters wanted to remember about their best friend the few days before she died. So, I had to take out some smaller details about characters that would’ve been nice to have, but including them would just end up hurting the story in general. It also was really hard to actually write the death scene, just because I had grown so attached to Charlotte and the process of building her character, that I even didn't want to write the one scene that was the reason why I wrote the book. I honestly took a pretty large break in my writing at the time to collect myself to write it, because it was so important to me that I got it perfect. I would say I did pretty well based on the reactions I have of people reading it, and the trick I used to overcome those hard challenges while writing is to just take a step back, look at your story and why you originally want to write it, then continue with the main idea in the back of your head, and knowing what you want as a reader to get out of your story, not just as a writer.

A good recommendation, especially when things are overwhelming in writing. Taking a step back and think of why you wanted to write it in the first place really is how you can end your story in the way you wanted it to end.

Are any of the characters in your book inspired by real people?

A couple of characters are inspired a little bit by real life people. They aren’t inspired necessarily in looks or attitude, but in their central character trait, or main reason they are part of the plot. Nicole was inspired by an experience of a friend hiding the truth from me, so I incorporated that into her character. Brennan was created out of a friend who I had once been super close with that decided they wanted to be in my life and out of it at the same time. I purposely didn’t use names of people I knew in the book, but I tried to make the characters seem as realistic as possible. I will admit that Oakley, Levi’s younger sister, was a character inspired specifically by my experiences as a child around the passing of my teammates. As these events occurred, even though I hadn’t specifically been friends with my teammate, I still felt the after effects of his passing and wanted to honor him and his character, like how Oakley didn’t hesitate to take Charlotte’s number when she started playing basketball. Other than that, I wouldn’t say there were any characters that were directly inspired by a person, but there were definitely character aspects and scenes inspired by people.

Characters in books can sometimes be inspired by real life people, especially what Malynn did to her book. Not necessarily in the people themselves but the personality and aspects of them.

What message or impact do you hope readers take away after reading your book?

I’d say the big idea I want readers to take away from this book is that grief isn’t the same for every person, but that doesn’t mean you have to go through it alone.

I’m sure many people are familiar with the 5 stages of grief, but it’s not as simple as walking through the steps to get to the acceptance part. I purposefully had my characters all go through different stages at the same time in the book. It made it so all of my characters could end up helping each other get through the different phases that they struggle with. When I was dealing with the passing of my teammates, I got to watch a community be built around these people who were willing to help each other through struggles and admit they had these struggles themselves. I tried to have Levi, Nicole, Zander, and Brennan be able to build that community and help each other through each of those processes. I wanted to express the importance of having people around you to help support you through hard times.

Death shouldn’t be the end of a relationship with a person or a collapse point for a friend group or community, it should be a sort of reset point where you get to find something new in life. It’s going to be hard, and the younger you are, the harder it is, but it shouldn’t make you feel hopeless, it should let you know how many people you have that care about you.

Grief is such a sorrowful word. A lot of people experience this. The way Malynn wrote about how to overcome grief with the right people is something many should take into heart.

What does your writing process look like—from the first idea to the finished book?

So I am a chronic pantser, I don't really do a huge plot outline, but I always start off every book kind of the same. I basically write the synopsis that would go on the back of the book first and then I take a second and I really try to decide who I want my characters to be. A big part of any story I write is picking the names for my characters, so a ton of research went into looking into names that meant very specific things to my story. A few examples are how the name Levi actually means to join because of how he’s the glue of the group after Charlotte passes, or how Brennan’s name can mean both sorrow and bravery. Another thing I really liked doing in this book is using nicknames. Both Charlotte and Zander were names I picked because of their ability to have nicknames. It is important that the name Charlotte means light, and Zander means protector, but I like the use of nicknames in a relationship because it makes it feel like the two of them are closer. With the many combinations of Charlie, Char, and Cal, as Charlotte’s nickname, I really wanted to let my characters be able to have a different type of personal relationship with Charlotte. I also really liked having Zander's name just kind of be abbreviated to Zan because it was just so affectionate. After I picked the character's names, I really tried to write the exposition down to the best of my ability. The first four chapters are what I really think builds a story, so I tried to make them be as interesting, base building, and informative as I could. After I get those four chapters down, I try to let myself enjoy the story. When I'm writing multiple POV books, I try to let myself reset every single chapter that I write and look into what my character wants out of the situation, how I want to build my main character up in this scene, and how it relates to the plot. Since in this book technically “main character” doesn't actually get a pov, it really allowed me to be able to develop different aspects of this character based on the different people she was around. It was also nice to not plan out every single detail of my book because when I get to a certain point. I have a really good idea of what I want my characters to be like. I feel like it's more natural to build characters as you write. I didn't necessarily get the idea of having each of my characters go through the different stages of grief at different times until I was about to start writing the second act of the book. It really allowed me to open up that story, and when I went back to do other edits, I got to add foreshadowing and really explore the different emotions I wanted each character to express. After I finish my first draft, I usually edit the manuscript twice myself, focusing on line edits, fixing plot holes, and simple things like spell check. After I do those two edits myself, I'll have a friend or two read it. This was my debut novel, so I didn't really have a fully formed process to start with. I'm writing my other other novels right now, I have a much more formed process. But after I had finished with my line edits on Google docs, I went on to Kindle unlimited, and was able to format my book and then my parents ordered the first copy. I had thought I had gotten all of the formatting issues lined out, but my mom ended up giving me basically another round of edits to make to the book perfect. As of right now, I'm really happy with what I have out there for purchase, but I would say I am a lot more excited about the projects I'm working on right now. I'm hoping that the next book or books I end up publishing will keep getting better, cleaner, and have a more developed plot. I really do enjoy that I self-published it, but I am hoping that in the future maybe I can get more traditionally published.

The writing process in the first place is different from the final book itself. Fixing plot holes, and spell check. Malynn has been given the opportunity to write and we’re all here to read and follow her next journey in writing.

Writing at such a young age can be hard enough in itself if you don’t have the right resources. So, salutations to Malynn Sobek for making it work for herself as she published her debut novel “Was It My Fault” that is out now on Amazon.