All the Feels
Page 24
HW: Where did you get the original idea for All the Feels? What sparked Liv and Xander?
DS: The two big sparks were: (1) I had a brother-in-law who, if he is not at work, is in cosplay. He is an amazing person, and I love that! Because of course I do cosplay whenever I’m at Dragon Con or a convention, but to cosplay as a way of life is a very different thing. And (2) I happen to be close personal friends with @CoulsonLives. She was the driving force that brought Agent Coulson back to life. When she saw Marvel’s The Avengers where he gets killed off, she was like, “THAT IS NOT HAPPENING.” And she started this Internet movement to bring him back from the dead, where everything was hashtagged #CoulsonLives. And I saw her changing the world in a way and thought, Wow, that is a really cool idea! I would love to write about that. Not about her, of course, because she’s a private person, but what if you decided that canon is not going to be canon? You’re going to change it. So those two ideas together sort of bloomed into this beautiful little story that I loved writing.
HW: What is the best writing advice you’ve ever heard?
DS: At first, I gathered all these quotes, thinking I should use this one or that one, but for me, the best writing advice actually came from my dad, who is a hiker, and he would get us kids to go long distances with him. He would say, “Oh, it’s just over that hill,” and we’d be like, “Where?!” “Oh, just over that little turn there in the trail.” And we would go on these crazy-long torture hikes. But we would never really notice how long they were, because he was constantly lying to us and making us break it into little segments.
So when I was starting to write my thesis, I remember talking to my father and I was panicking, “Whoa, it’s a book! You have to write a book!” And I remember him saying, “Well, you just break it into little parts. You write sentences and you make them into paragraphs, and then you put them into chapters, and you do a few chapters and you’ve got your thesis.”
Although my father passed away before I really started doing novels, I really have always stuck to that approach. I just tell myself, “I’m going to write a thousand words today.” I never, never worry about where I’m going next; I just keep going forward. And I think that’s the best writing advice. You just have to keep going.
All the Feels
Discussion Questions
1. Have you ever been devastated by the death of a fictional character? Who and why?
2. Liv takes her fortune cookie fortunes very seriously. Do you have any superstitions?
3. Liv is so upset by the end of the last Starveil movie that she takes it upon herself to start an online movement to change it. If you could change the ending of any book, TV show, or movie that you were disappointed by, which would it be and how would you change it?
4. Xander is very into steampunk cosplay. If you could pick any era’s fashions to dress in, which would you choose?
5. Liv and her fandom friends are so passionate about their fandom that they create their own fan content. Have you ever written fanfiction or made fanvids, photo manips, or other fandom-related creations? If so, what were they? And if not, what book, TV show, or movie would you like to create things for?
6. Most of Liv’s friendships are conducted online, but Xander worries that she doesn’t socialize enough in real life. In your opinion, are online friendships any more or less beneficial than offline ones?
7. After Liv’s fandom life takes off online, her mother becomes increasingly worried that it will negatively affect Liv’s schoolwork and ultimately forbids her from participating. Do you agree with Liv’s mother’s actions? Why or why not?
8. When Liv first arrives at Dragon Con, she feels like she’s finally found “her people.” Have you ever had that experience? When and where?
9. At Dragon Con, Liv finally meets Thomas Grander, who plays Matt Spartan, but he is not at all what she expects. Have you ever met a celebrity, and if so, were you surprised by what they were like in real life?
10. If you were going to Dragon Con, who or what would you cosplay as? Why?
Maybe We've Had Better Ideas
It’s not until Friday afternoon that the idea of a “kiss cam” is taken seriously. I promptly dismissed the idea upon its initial suggestion, knowing that things could get out of hand if left up for discussion. The case was closed after that—or so I thought.
Things are starting to go haywire at our chosen lunch table. Lenny brings up the comments from our last vlog and begins coming up with an argument as to why we should do it. Jasper leans over the table to see the evidence himself and quickly tries to rope me into the idea.
“Juniper, it’s the absolute worst idea,” Allison remarks when it looks as though I’m going to give in.
I know it’s a bad idea—a funny and unpredictable idea, but a bad one, nonetheless. I know what she’s worried about, but there is no way anything between Jasper and me could develop now. We’re just friends for a reason. Why ruin a good thing with complications? I figured that out freshman year when he started dating Bree. I had a crush on him and I thought maybe he liked me back, but then he went and dated her instead. I decided then and there not to let him get to my head. Everything with him was just friendly, and feelings were never allowed. No complications meant no feelings could get hurt.
And kissing without the complication of feelings? What could be so bad about that?
I had previously thought I would never give my kisses away so easily, but after sifting through the comments, I have to admit our viewers’ reactions are worth it. There’s something thrilling about having people so invested in you. It’s like being persuaded onto a roller coaster you’d never dare to ride otherwise and ending up drowning in your own giggles as you swoop down a near-ninety-degree drop.
Plus, it’s fun reading about the excitement people get from a segment where their ship is smashed together by the lips. I’m a crowd-pleaser, to say the least, and it’s not even like Jasper and I are doing anything bad. Our viewers know that there’s nothing actually going on between us—they only wish there was. We’re being teases, and that’s what makes it exciting.
But Allison dropping her two cents into the piggy bank of opinions makes a good dose of reality shoot back into my system, and my excitement deflates like a balloon. She’s seen things go terribly wrong between Jasper and me before. Maybe she’s right and I can’t justify the idea the way I thought I could.
Sighing, I lean away from the computer screen. “She’s right. This is ridiculous.”
“We all know kissing between friends never goes well,” Allison tacks on.
“We’re not normal friends,” Jasper reminds her. “We live on the Internet, and this kind of thing happens on the Internet all the time.”
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DANIKA STONE is an author, artist, and educator who discovered a passion for writing fiction while in the throes of her master’s thesis. A self-declared bibliophile, Danika now writes novels for both adults (Edge of Wild, The Intaglio Series and Ctrl Z) and teens (All the Feels). When not writing, Danika can be found hiking in the Rockies, planning grand adventures, and spending far too much time online. She lives with her husband, three sons, and a houseful of imaginary characters in a windy corner of Alberta, Canada. danikastone.com. Or sign up for email updates here.
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Contents
Title Page
Copyright Notice
Dedication
Epigraph
Part One: Boulder, Colorado
Chapter 1: “My precious!”
Chapter 2: “I am a leaf on the wind
.”
Chapter 3: “I solemnly swear that I am up to no good.”
Chapter 4: “So say we all!”
Chapter 5: “This is my timey-wimey detector. It goes ding when there’s stuff.”
Chapter 6: “My ‘people skills’ are ‘rusty.’”
Chapter 7: “Don’t talk out loud. You lower the IQ of the whole street.”
Chapter 8: “I’d just as soon kiss a Wookiee!”
Chapter 9: “Once more, with feeling.”
Part Two: Atlanta, Georgia
Chapter 10: “Don’t try this at home!”
Chapter 11: “Inconceivable!”
Chapter 12: “We’re all mad here.”
Chapter 13: “A spark could be enough to set them ablaze.”
Chapter 14: “The truth is out there.”
Chapter 15: “Only one man calls me darlin’.”
Epilogue: “Everything is AWESOME!”
Acknowledgments
Swoonworthy Extras
“Shadow Soul”
About the Author
Copyright
Copyright © 2016 by Karin Anastasia Goble
Excerpt from Kiss Cam copyright © 2016 by Kiara London
A Swoon Reads Book
An Imprint of Feiwel and Friends
175 Fifth Avenue, New York, New York 10010
swoonreads.com
All rights reserved.
Spartan’s face in images in Chapters 3 and 6 © CURA photography / Shutterstock
Malloy’s face in image in Chapter 6 © Stefano Cavoretto / Shutterstock
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Stone, Danika.
Title: All the feels / Danika Stone.
Description: First edition. | New York: Swoon Reads, 2016. | Summary: “When uber-fan Liv’s favorite sci fi movie character is killed off, she and her best friend Xander, an aspiring actor and Steampunk enthusiast, launch a campaign to bring him back from the dead”—Provided by publisher.
Identifiers: LCCN 2015026919 | ISBN 9781250084095 (paperback) | ISBN 9781250084101 (ebook)
Subjects: | CYAC: Love—Fiction. | Friendship—Fiction. | Fans (Persons)—Fiction. | Motion pictures—Fiction. | BISAC: JUVENILE FICTION / Love & Romance. | JUVENILE FICTION / Social Issues / Friendship.
Classification: LCC PZ7.1.S754 Al 2016 | DDC [Fic]—dc23
LC record available at http://lccn.loc.gov/2015026919
Our eBooks may be purchased in bulk for promotional, educational, or business use. Please contact the Macmillan Corporate and Premium Sales Department at (800) 221-7945 ext. 5442 or by e-mail at MacmillanSpecialMarkets@macmillan.com.
First trade paperback edition 2016
eBook edition June 2016
eISBN 9781250084101