By: Alana Penn
Fictional stories are like portals to faraway worlds, transporting readers to lands filled with action, adventure, thrills, drama, and so much more. Aspiring writers strive to demonstrate their creativity by bringing new worlds and stories to life through their work. Many may also dream of writing and publishing novels one day, hoping to share their art with the world.
However, it must be noted that writing novels is a lengthy task that demands extreme dedication and a wild imagination, among other things. Few young writers truly understand the struggles of being a novelist like Senior Michelle Omari does. Her current work in progress is a psychological crime thriller titled “Society’s Trial,” Omari said.
“Well I’ve been writing for a while, and mostly what I write is just a bunch of short stories,” Omari said. “So I wanted to start on an actual, full novel.”
Omari began her work on “Society’s Trial” when she was fourteen, so it has been in the making for three years now, according to Omari. Looking up to authors such as Stephen King, she enjoys reading psychological thriller, horror, crime, dark fantasy, and mystery stories, Omari said. She was not inspired by anyone to write, choosing to do so of her own accord, Omari said.
[The novel is] about 16-year-old Jace Woods, who loses his sanity due to an accident which damaged certain areas of his brain,” Omari said in an overview of her novel. “He ends up becoming a serial killer known as Jace the Slicer and later meets another killer named Keith Rockwell, which sparks a friendship between them. Team Foxtrot, a group of four detectives led by Detective Blaise Riley, tries to solve the case.”
As an aspiring novelist, Omari is also well aware of the various struggles writers face, such as not having the motivation to revise and edit her work, Omari said. Writing itself is fun, but revising and editing is really boring and takes a long time, according to Omari. On top of this, she is a busy high school student and works to balance her responsibilities at school while dedicating some of her time to work on her novel.
“I usually try to make time so at any chance I get, I’ll write,” Omari said. “I’ll write in between classes, and I’ll write when I’m in the car. I’ll also write a few minutes before bed, and I’ll write as soon as I wake up.”
An issue that many writers find themselves faced with is the process of finding a publisher to publish their work. Like other aspiring writers, Omari has reached out to multiple publishing agencies in hopes of finding one that would work with her, Omari said. However, it has not been an easy task and the search is still ongoing at the moment, according to Omari.
“I just found a list of publishers that accept my genre, and then I emailed them,” Omari said. “And then, yeah, I got a lot of rejections. But then, there is also this one other author that I’m friends with, and he is getting me connected with this other agent I think I’ll have a good chance with.”
Omari has gained firsthand experience with the various elements of writing a novel through the ongoing process of creating “Society’s Trial,” Omari said. With this, she can relate to the setbacks of other aspiring novelists, Omari said.
“It’s hard,” Omari said. “Once you start writing, then you’re pretty much doing better than everyone else. And even if you keep getting rejections, that’s okay, because at least you actually wrote a book.”
Omari’s long term goal is to get “Society’s Trial” published before she can try to work on more novels, Omari said. It is estimated that the novel will be completely polished and finished in a few months, according to Omari.
Regardless of the various obstacles Omari has faced, she has learned a lot about the process of writing and publishing a novel and has grown tremendously as a writer. She has learned to deal with setbacks and improve from them in order to bring her story to life. Be sure to look out for “Society’s Trial” in the future.