SPOILER ALERT!

This will contain facts about The Siren and the Singer (companion novella to Beyond the Tower centering around Alyna and Aysela the sirens- GO READ) but no spoilers if you want to read that. HOWEVER, there are MAJOR SPOILERS to Beyond the Tower. Hopefully if you're here you've already read it, but if you're one of those people who skips ahead to the last chapter (ahaha me), don't read if you don't want the ending spoiled. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED

Fun Facts!

1. One of the characters in Beyond the Tower is based very closely off someone I know in real life. Even their name/appearance is similar, as well as their personality.

2. Aysela originally had red hair like Ariel in Disney's The Little Mermaid.

3. Aysela has six sisters. In early drafts of The Siren and the Singer, their names are Alyna, Alysse, Aymee, Arya, Avlyna, Agiya, and Aysela. Ultimately, only Alyna, Alysse, and Aysela are mentioned.

4. All of Aysela's sisters names start with an A and have a Y.

5. In The Siren and the Singer, it is revealed that Alyna is a twin, she is only heir by eleven minutes.

6. My favorite character is Liliana. I love the character arc she goes through and think she is the most relatable. At times I know I can act like a spoiled brat (hopefully not as bad!) but at the end of the day I love my friends and family.

7. Most of the inspiration for Rapunzel (Ivy), Snow White, and The Little Mermaid (Aysela) is from the original Grimm/Hans Christian Anderson versiones. Cinderella (Kamella) was largely inspired by the Disney version.

8. I imagined the Stylunian castle to look like Sleeping Beauty's castle in Disneyland, California.

9. The kingdom names were mostly me pressing random keys on the computer until something sounded cool.

10. When I started writing Liliana I knew what I wanted her character arc to be like so I gave her a name similar to someone I really admire.

11. Liliana ended up having a character similar to one of my real life friends (you know who you are ._.). It was completely unintentional and subconscious until she while reading my draft pointed it out. From there on out it was more intentional.

12. I wrote chapter one before I decided what to name Ivy.

13. Leon and Liliana are best friends and both have names starting with a L. Liliana and Ivy are sisters and both have plant names. This was unintentional.

14. Originally Snow was going to stay sweet the whole time and end best friends with Ivy. However, I decided the story was boring without a plot twist and there needed to be something big to show Ivy accepting Liliana.

15. Ivy was originally going to go to Charnell's ball right after Dawsburg (before I even planned Aysela). I changed my mind and made it the climax.

16. Since Snow was going to be best friends with Ivy to the end, Aysela was supposed to be a very minor character. She would only show up in part two (Ivy would save Snow without her, and she would never have attended Charnell's ball).

17. Prince Florian is the name of Snow White's Prince in the Disney version. He and Snow were originally going to end up together, and his kiss would have woken her. However, when Snow went bad I decided I didn't want her related in any way to Leon. I kept the name Flor because I got attached to it.

18. Charnell was originally named Charming. I couldn't keep referring to him as "him" though without sounding weird and thought Charming was too much of a giveaway, so I named him Charnell.

19. It took a long time to decide on diamond slippers. Some other I considered were iron, glass, and crystal.

20. Originally Mother was going to be named Gothel (this is what the witch is named in the original, not just Disney) and Grandmother would be named Hazel.

21. It also took a long time to decide to make the slippers that killed the evil queen the same as "Cinderella's" glass slippers. In the original Snow White, the queen is forced to dance to death in hot iron slippers. I decided that two pairs of significant slippers were too many and condensed them to one.

22. In the first draft, Ivy killed Alyna by stabbing her. The scene was too quick for my taste, and I also didn't like the guilt Ivy dealt with later for directly murdering someone, so I changed it to being pushed out the window.

23. Ivy wasn't originally going to have the "immunity." I pretty much had no idea where I was going when I started writing and needed a reason to get Ivy to go to Mirshcon, so I thought it up for the sirens.

24. Originally, Liliana lives. However, after I read Heartless by Marissa Meyer I had to re-evaluate my life and when I could start reading again I decided my book was too much like a happy Disney fairytale. I am much happier with the new version (although I do have the old draft saved for a little fluff happy ending).

25. The version posted is my third attempt at the ending. After the first one where Liliana survives, I wrote one where Ivy willingly goes with Snow, but that was too much of a giveaway to her malicious intent so I changed it to the whole trap thing.

Acknowledgements: thanks so much to...

Serivea I actually love you so much omg it makes me so happy from random fangirling at lunch to when you're pointing out my millions of mistakes rip and you've helped make this soo much better

EAB2003 first person to read Beyond the Tower! I love reading all your comments each week

fairylore1 first reader/follower ever, thanks so much for sticking me for all this time <3

danycatlover ahh I love your comments so much it makes me soo happy to see you're connecting with this story love love love

no_kidding love your comments you're such a great person plus your success is so motivating <3

And  my other amazing readers dancingbunny14 donnawarren56 marzikins DollfaceandBookette BarbaraJune KittyCluck Rmbourge1 i_Halcyon_i Bookworm2808 holdorfgirl Slabby-rose  white_chocolat Raverie kaciam Galasriniel_00 and all 21,721 people who have ever clicked on my book <3 I'm  sorry if I missed you, I'm still blown away by the number of readers I have and am grateful for you all. I'll be going back and dedicating chapters to yalls soon ;)

For the Future:

I have some thoughts for a sequel incorporating other fairytales floating around in my head, but have not started writing it. If I wrote one, would you prefer a direct sequel (still Ivy POV) or more of a companion (more closely related than The Siren and the Singer though)? Would you prefer to continue to interact with existing characters (Leon, Snow, Aysela, Kamella, Charm, etc) or meet a whole new cast of characters? Also do we have any ships I should expand on lol.

I'm probably not going to be immediately posting new stories on wattpad. The earliest would probably be summer (I blame my math class). I however am always writing, and have some projects on my private documents I'm currently working on/thinking about. Some ideas are a futuristic science fiction/fantasy sort of like the Lunar Chronicles by Marissa Meyer, another urban fantasy like my first story, The Sleeping Girl (which is posted here!), or a paranormal story about a girl being haunted by dark monsters. Or of course, a sequel or another fairytale retelling. I'm curious to hear what you would like to read!

Also, does anyone know anyone who would want to make a new cover for this book?

Finally, now that I'm not posting I should have more time to read so if there's something you'd like me to check out, feel free to shoot me a read request, although I won't guarantee reading anything (sorry high school calls rip). I'll try hard to read it if you've stuck with me on this book.

Thanks for everything!

~wisteria~