This page will hold a few extras and things related to the story, such as some information about what inspired us to write it.

About

Bethany

This story was written as a collaboration between myself and Amber. She wrote the first part of it and I really loved Zac’s voice in it. Like a lot of her readers, I wanted to see a sequel to it where Zac would get his revenge on Taylor. We talked about it, and she wanted me to try writing a sequel from Taylor’s perspective.

So I did. And it was basically all downhill from there. I loved his character. He was evil and cocky and so much fun to write. We planned for the story to only be three parts, but it kept growing. I blame Taylor for being too damn wordy. But it’s such a wonderful, fun story. That may be an odd way to describe such a dark story, but it was great fun to write it. I really love the way the two of us worked together to make it happen.

Amber

They say great writing often comes from dark times. Such was the case of Four Letter Words, written no more than a few hours after a very messy (and long-time coming) break-up. I had to get my frustrations out, and Zac was my semi-willing vessel. I combined my pain, with the alternate-reality we’ve collectively created, and FLW is what was birthed. It made me feel a lot better, and it gave an interesting perspective on the Zac we all know.

Then Bethany came along. She was looking for ideas of what to write; she had mentioned a sequel to FLW, so I suggested she show us the flip side of the story, and that is how The Game was brought to life. Of course, being one of the best cliffhanger writers I know, she of course left it completely open, practically begging for a third.

I had never co-written anything before, and so I thought it would be a nice way to round out the story, by tag-teaming for a closing chapter. And then… something interesting happened. The more we got into these characters’ heads, the more we wanted to see. We weren’t satisfied, simply glossing over the messy details. The reality of such a situation would be far from pretty, and yet it’s something so rarely focused on to such an extent.

With that, it didn’t take long for three to become four, five, and six. We nicknamed it the “neverending zaylor”. It became a beast, something that completely took over our lives for almost two weeks. We were trying to pinpoint the exact words and phrases, so much that more than once we were stuck for two hours or more, on a single line. But such attention to detail more than paid off, in my opinion.

For me at least, writing can be a truly cathartic experience. Such has certainly been true for this story. I didn’t realize it at the time, but I was channeling my own emotions even more than I knew. Zac’s final line in particular strikes a strong chord with my own experiences. I feel like, through helping Zac find his strength, I’ve found some of my own. And that alone makes it all worth it.