FatBottomedGirls

1) "Name?"

Sara & Maggie (Mags)

2) "Age?"

Sara: 35 — I used to be embarrassed to admit this on here, but now I don’t give two shits. *sips my vodka on the rocks*

Maggie: Just turned 29! Last year of my 20s. I don’t want to talk about. *chugs wine*

3) "What are your hobbies?"

Sara: Writing with Maggie, watching movies (like A LOT of movies), playing guitar and other stringed instruments with my husband, baking, playing videos games and of course, designing things. I own a graphic design business, so I pretty much live and breath design. I also have two goofy pitbulls (Desmo and Brodeo)  that take up a lot of my time.

Maggie: First and foremost, writing fanfic, of course. I also love drawing and painting. My boyfriend and I love playing music. I sing and play ukulele, sometimes play the keyboard, while he plays guitar and sings along too. I also LOVE DANCING. I can’t forget playing and cuddling with my little pup, Harrison, either (named after George Harrison from The Beatles).

4) "When did you start writing and why?"

Sara: I think it was almost two years ago? I was reading a lot of fanfic on wattpad and told Maggie about it and I think I kind of sucked her into the wattpad world. I was reading a lot of The Walking Dead fanfic and, after seeing Dunkirk, a ton Harry Styles fanfic (yeah I know, I’m late to the Harry party, I didn’t know who he was prior to that, let alone heard of 1D). I called Maggie up one day and said, “What do you think about actually writing something together?” And Maggie pitched an idea that she had been thinking about and I started adding some ideas and it snowballed from there. It was one of the funnest conversation I’d ever had with her. So basically, I started writing because of Maggie and that phone call. However, I don’t think I really found the passion for it until we started writing strictly Harry stories, he truly is a muse.

Maggie: I’ve been writing for as long as I can remember. I’ve always written in journals. Created little stories. Actually, in high school through college I had a lot of teachers and professors egging me on to write professionally but never really went for it. UNTIL FAN FICTION THAT IS! Sara introduced me to it several years ago and I was instantly addicted. Then about two years ago we actually decided to start writing ourselves. It was totally natural. A very organic transition for us. We’re both such creative people and were constantly sharing ideas of our own. It started with The Walking Dead (TWD) fanfiction believe it or not. We were both really into the show at the time. Then Harry Styles came along. We’d share pictures of him and create these grandiose stories based on the most basic of images of him. We eventually fell off of TWD, both the show and writing about it. I think it’s because there was and is so much more we could do with the Harry Styles character. I just remember driving up to Tahoe with her, which is when we birthed the idea of our first Harry Styles’ fanfiction — Carousel. We’ve been pretty unstoppable ever since.

5) "Which was your first story generally?"

Sara: Our first story that we wrote on wattpad was a Negan/The Walking Dead fanfic called Crimson and Clover. But, if I were to go WAY back, when I was 8 I wrote a love story about me and Jonathan Taylor Thomas. Even bound it like a book and designed the cover with cut outs of construction paper. I really hope my mom still has it, I’d love to reread it.

Maggie: The first story I ever wrote was about an apple that was bruised and ugly but its family still loved it. That’s when I was in the 3rd grade. I won an award at my school for it actually! Still have the trophy (just kidding). Fanfic-wise though it was Crimson and Clover. It was a TWD fanfic about Negan. We never finished it and we joke to this day about picking it back up.

6) "Do you write in some other website except Wattpad?"

Sara: All creative writing is exclusively on Wattpad. We tried tumblr at one point, but we hated the lack of interaction with readers. I also write movie reviews for another website.

Maggie: Nope. We’re exclusively Wattpad writers as far as websites go. I hand write stories and build comics on paper though. I keep it old school outside of Wattpad I suppose.

7) "What has given you motive to keep on writing?"

Sara: I absolutely love writing with Maggie. When we write, we’re on facetime in the same google doc, writing and having drinks, listening to music, and acting out scenes and dialogue. It’s so much fun and it is a true creative collaboration. We’ve always been close, but writing has brought us even closer. Also, the readers keep us motivated. We love communicating with all of them and try to respond to every single comment. We’ve met some amazing people through our work.

Maggie: Getting to write and hang out with my sister, for sure. Writing with her is very cathartic. Our brainstorming sessions are always a lot more than just “writing a story,” if that makes sense. We build our own issues and lives into the plots and the conversation almost always turns into something of a therapy session for me. It’s also amazing to see all the wonderful readers comment about how much they enjoy our work. Like I said, Sara and I put a lot of ourselves into our characters and include moments that have happened to us in real life. Each character you read in all our stories is essentially an extension of ourselves, so when people get enjoyment or feel supported or heard as a result of our writing, it feels like we’re helping in a strange way. That’s a very motivating feeling.

8) "Have you ever wanted to give up everything? (writing I mean)"

Sara: Nope. Never. I mean, everyone has those moments where we think, “What the hell am I doing?” But it is never a last feeling. I would miss working with Maggie too much.

Maggie: Definitely not. There are times when work is rough or we’re going through stuff in our personal lives that require taking a little break. But the thought of giving it up completely has never crossed my mind to be honest. I think even if we tried, we’d inevitably go back to it. We have too much fun with it!

9) "Which is your favorite story on Wattpad?"

Sara: That is a really tough question. I would basically point you to our “Favorites” reading list, it’s hard to pick just one. It features work from peanutboyfriend
harryslovehandles_  oceanlyfe RubySlippers_
aggressivelyfriendly  MarylandMansion   chanmapan WhoopsHarryStyles Scene-d-amour and heskindaharry . However, the first wattpad story I loved was Dreamboat by  _DaniMoon_ and I’ve lost count on how many times I’ve read No Fury by sparkflarefire

Maggie: There are a lot. Absolute favorite of all time though would have to be Dreamboat by _DaniMoon_. It was one of the first ones I ever read too. The storyline is just so good!

10) "Have you gained any friendships from Wattpad? If yes, which are your Wattpad friends?"

Sara: I talk/text with peanutboyfriend oceanlyfe ellen_eml and  harryslovehandles_  every damn day and would consider them some of my closest friends, not even lumping them in the category of wattpad friends, they truly are my friends. I’m so thankful we’ve been able to connect through wattpad and I have every intention of meeting them all in person at some point. I’m also in a WhatsApp group chat with some amazing author’s/friends, LipsThatLied  heskindaharry lovealwaysvictoria ellen_eml oceanlyfe harryslovehandles_ and Scene-d-amour . I’ve met so many people on this website that I would consider a friend and it would be impossible to list them all. I absolutely love this community.

Maggie: I can be a pretty closed off person, especially in comparison to Sara (that little social butterfly turd of a sister). But shout out to oceanlyfe ! That’s my girl right there. I love her. And ellen_eml   of Wattpad and they’re just genuinely good people. They’re a rare kind! I’ll drop off the face of the planet for a while but know I can always open WhatsApp and we can pick up right where we left off.

11) "Do you relate with any of your characters from your books? If yes, which one and which characteristics are similar?"

Sara: Mara from Mosaic. Maggie and I are writing her character combining our personalities and experiences (Sara + Maggie = Mara). An anxiety filled, chronic apologizer with a passion for making sure everyone is happy. She’s also clumsy as hell and cusses like a sailor. That pretty much sums me up.

Maggie: I think I relate to all our character but definitely Mara from Mosaic the most. Sara and I literally built that character to be a combination of us, hence her name. A potty mouth baker trying to find herself and apologizes every second along the way. That’s me and Sara in a nutshell. Second would be the barfly in Goldie.  

12) "What did you study/are you studying/do you want to study?"

Sara: I was a music major for three years and was training to be a classical guitarist with the plan to eventually become a college music professor. I began to lose passion for it though in my third year (you either love or hate music theory). During that time, I was also going to a lot of concerts and designing flyers and other promotional materials for local bands, not even knowing that graphic design was even a thing, let alone that people could make a career out of it. My older  sister Deann told me about a graphic design program that was just starting up at CSUS, so I changed my major, got into the program and received my bachelors in graphic design and have been constantly updating my training in everything design related ever since. In the future, I’d love to take creative writing and screenwriting courses as well as expand my knowledge of video editing.

Maggie: I was originally going to school to be an elementary school teacher but I think I severely underestimated the job. A couple semesters student teaching showed me it wasn’t the right fit for me. I eventually got my BA in communications and always planned (still plan?) to go back and get my masters in rhetorical criticism. But alas, mother’s got bills to pay and a dog mouth to feed. Maybe someday though!  

13) "Describe yourself in 3 words."

Sara: Oblivious, friendly and clumsy.

Maggie: Sleepy. Funny. Sweaty.

14) "What do you advise new writers?"

Sara: KEEP WRITING! Do not compare yourself to other authors. Follow your passion, create your own voice. Mags and I wrote for over a year before anyone even took a glance at our work, but we kept at it. You’ll eventually find your audience.

Maggie: You do you, boo. Write what feels right. You are the keeper of your own thoughts and passions. It can be scary writing on an open platform and sharing something you pour your heart into for anyone and everyone to criticize. But don’t get discouraged. Keep writing. You’ll find your voice.

15) "Questions based on 'Goldie': How were you inspired to write this story?"

Sara & Mags: This is tough question. In a way, we were building Goldie way before we actually started to write it. In all honesty, we could answer this a million different ways really. From late night conversations about how long-haired Harry looked like he belongs in the 1970s. Our own obsession with 1970s music and oldies. A culmination of a thousand other story “seeds” we had planted in our brains. To a picture of Elle Fanning covered in gold paint from the movie Neon Demon. *in our best Lindsay Lohan impression* “THE LIMIT DOES NOT EXIST!”

16) "Who's your favourite character in the book and why?"

Sara: Jonesy. I relate to his oblivious behavior in social situations. He’s also the funnest to write — we’ll be writing a scene and Mags and I will just start laughing thinking about where the hell Jonesy is going to fit into the scene. I also love Jimmy. He is the hero of the story and father figures are very rarely portrayed as such in fanfic. He’s basically a hippy yoda.

Maggie: Jimmy. He’s so damn wise and sweet. It’s funny because the whole story, you think Harry is the one who gives Goldie the push she needs to grow — which is true don’t get me wrong — but it’s Jimmy that helps grow her wings and help her really fly if you ask me. Harry is a close second though. This may be a biased opinion considering I’m one of the writers, but the growth of his character is admirable. And, I mean, have you seen his face? C’mon.

17) "If you were asked to publish your book, would you do it?"

Sara: Of course! That’s every Wattpad writer’s dream, right?

Maggie: Is the pope Catholic?

18) "Which is your favourite a) funny, b) dramatic, c) romantic, d) sad scene in the book, until now?”

Sara:

a) Harry, while having a boner, getting pantsed by Matt in Chapter 9. Grimmy yelling “Did you just get a boner from Goldie sucking on a lollie?” all echoey in the venue still makes me laugh. I also love that the whole moment dropped Harry’s ego down a peg or two.

b) Then entire scene at the punk concert in Portland I’ve been in similar situations as Goldie multiple times and it can be terrifying. I also love the visual of Harry and The Orphans walking in silence while Goldie is holding onto him like a baby koala.

c) When Harry and Goldie had sex for the first time — it was also the first time the two of them showed true vulnerability to each other. When we were writing the scene, we had “Moon in the Mind” by Ed Askew on loop. Whenever I hear that song, I just want to cry with happiness.

d) Harry crying, “You promised you’d never leave.”

Maggie:

a) The barfly at the rundown bar The Orphans play at in Chapter 13 kills me every time. When Grimmy whispers at the corner of his mouth “Did you see how many teeth she was missing?” I literally laugh out loud.

b) In Chapter 28 when Harry cries outside of Goldie’s hotel room door, super drunk and emotional. Both he and Goldie come to terms with the reality of their situation in that chapter and have to face a lot of unresolved issues. We wrote it and I still think “Oh no, what’s going to happen?” every time I re-read it like it’s going to be different each time somehow.  

c) My favorite romantic scene is too big of a spoiler, so this one’s for me to know and for you to find out. ;)

d) This moment goes to Chapter 13 too. When Goldie’s dancing at the empty bar and she reminisces about her mom, who passed away. We were listening to “These Days” by Nico while we were writing that scene and that tune coupled with the inspiring words she says to young Goldie make me emotional.

19) "A phrase or a scene that you wrote and you'll never forget. (and why)"

Sara: Goldie’s reaction to catching Harry having sex with the groupie on the balcony. It was inspired by a real moment that happened to us after seeing Harry Styles live.

Maggie: The shotgun kiss scene. It’s the first time Goldie’s ever smoked weed. The visual of Harry blowing smoke into her mouth gives me full-body chills.

20) "How much time did it take to plan the whole plot?"

Sara & Mags: We had a skeleton of what we wanted to happen. An overarching theme to guide where we wanted the story to go. But the story sort of wrote itself chapter to chapter. We do a lot of research while we write and there were a lot of times a chapter would go in a completely different direction than what we started with. We won’t give anything away, but let’s just say the end was not what we originally planned. In a sense, “planning the plot” expanded the entirety of the book. The characters took on a mind of their own and we went with it.

21) "How many unpublished and half-finished books do you have?"

Sara & Maggie: We have two stories unpublished and five in the works.

22) "Have you written books without your sister? If yes, are you going to publish them? If not, is it an idea?"

Sara: We write everything together, but at one point early on we each tried to write a story by ourselves. After I wrote and posted a few chapters, I quickly realized that the reason why I enjoyed writing is because I get to do it with Maggie and I lacked any motivation to continue. And honestly, it just wasn’t as good without my partner in crime. The story was called Dominque — set in present day, Harry is a history professor who falls in love with a woman that he discovered in a text book, a Moulin Rouge dancer in the 1920s. He’s somehow able to travel back in time to meet her. It would be amazing to continue the story, but I wouldn’t want to do it without Maggie. The trailer is still in our book The Drive-In if you want to check it out.

Maggie: I attempted to write a story called Melted Sky by myself. It’s about a young doctor who moves to England to take over her deceased father’s medical practice. She meets Harry Styles, who’s a stuntman with an addiction to painkillers. It’s one of the unpublished books on our Wattpad. Sara and I work really well together. She helps keep me focused on plotlines and without her, I essentially wrote myself into a wall. I intend to revisit it eventually but it’s really hard to work on a story without collaborating with her. The same thing happened with Sara and her book Dominique. She’s the Simon to my Garfunkel, you know? If you want, you can check out the trailer to Melted Sky though. It’s in our book called The Drive-In.

23) "Were you both in the same part in the writing process or one of you had the writing part and the other the edits, videos etc?"

Sara & Mags: We both went into this fully aware of our strengths. Sara is the designer. Mags is the writer. But it’s not that black and white. When we say every aspect of our stories is a collaborative effort, we mean that 100%. While Sara may handle the more technical aspects of design and Maggie the more technical aspects of writing, we never post or write anything without the other’s involvement. We literally sit on Facetime, in a Google Doc and bounce ideas off each other as we write. We act out scenes together. Proofread out loud together. Sara shares her screen to show progress on a trailer while Maggie sends timestamps from movies to help her find scenes to use. We’re constantly sending each other images, songs and quotes via text all day. We do not post anything unless both of us have had a say and are on board with the idea. That sounds like it’d be a tedious, time consuming process, but we’re so much on the same wavelength it’s very fluid for us.

24) "Any spoilers for future plans?"

Sara & Mags: Have you read the teaser for Covert? We’re both really looking forward to writing an action story. We’ve been working on the trailer on and off for a month and plan to start releasing chapter in the next few weeks. We’ve written all our female leads to be a bit neurotic (much like us in real life) but this time around we’re putting Harry against a very strong, independent woman. And they gonna FIGHT.  

25) "Choose- 'challenge' two writers that you want to know about to do this interview like you."

Sara: peanutboyfriend

Maggie:oceanlyfe

CRITICAL QUESTIONS | SARA

1) "If you were transported 400 years into the past with no clothes or anything else, how would you prove that you were from the future?"

I've watched “Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure” enough to know that all you have to do is quote "Dust in the Wind" by Kansas. It worked on Socrates.

2) "If you were wrongfully put into an insane asylum, how would you convince them that you’re actually sane and not just pretending to be sane?"

Who’s to say I was wrongfully accused? This interview is over! *as I stand up from the interview table, sans pants, putting on my giant foam cowboy hat and slamming the door behind me.*

CRITICAL QUESTIONS | MAGGIE

1) "What would some fairy tales be like if they took place in the present and included modern technology and culture?"

They’d be a whole helluva lot shorter and pretty damn boring, if you ask me. Technology makes people too accessible these days so you’d ruin the thrill of the chase which is the key to every great, romantic fairy tale. The prince would probably get tired of the princess playing hard to get and just reactivate his Tinder account and the princess would probably be a self-assured woman who realizes early on she doesn’t need a man to feel complete. This is exactly why Sara and I set our stories in a time where modern technology doesn’t exist or remove technology from the equation in some fashion (e.g. Mosaic where Harry doesn’t have a cellphone). Simply put: Modern technology makes life too easy and romance too disposable.

2) "What is something that is really popular now, but in 5 years everyone will look back on and be embarrassed by?"

Juuls.

Thank you giiirls!!! One of the best interviews I have EVER done , hands down !!!!!! FatBottomedGirls ❤❤❤❤

All the love,
M.