Interviewer: minnyurii

Interviewee: JenniferFarwell

'22 RGAs Winner - Third Place Overall & First Place in Teen Fiction

Please introduce yourself.

Hello! I'm Jennifer Farwell. I write teen romance and celebrity romance with a lot of love, laughter, and happily ever after.

When did you join Wattpad and why?

I joined Wattpad in 2014, and began writing on Wattpad in 2015. I was with a hybrid publisher at the time with books available on retail sites, and I was looking for somewhere I could write stories for my existing readers that would let them follow along with me as I wrote.

What inspired you to start writing?

My imagination. I've been writing since before I physically knew how to write down words. When I was very young, like ages 3 to 5, I would recite stories to my parents and they wrote them down for me, and then I began writing my stories down myself. There's a sentence in my author bio that says, "I've been writing since the day I picked up a navy blue crayon as a toddler and began scribbling on my parents' freshly painted white walls" and this is true!

Tell me about your story that won in the Rose Gold Awards.

One Night Only is a celebrity teen romance that includes friends-to-lovers, a hidden identity, a secret revealed, and love conquers all tropes, while also exploring the main character's struggle with anxiety and post-traumatic stress following tragedy. The story peels back the celebrity persona to humanize a 17-year-old pop star as she tries to overcome a traumatic event and finds friendship and love in an unexpected place, and then deals with the consequences of her decision to keep the celebrity part of her life under wraps while trying to protect herself, her mom, and her new love interest and his family.

How did you come up with the story idea?

It came to me in bits and pieces over time and had multiple sources of inspiration. One of the elements of the story was loosely influenced by the news reports of the Manchester Arena attack after an Ariana Grande concert in 2017.

How long have you been writing it?

The original story was written over about a year and a half. Then I decided to add six bonus chapters to it as an epilogue. After that, I began writing a companion story to it called Love Fool, which has now turned into its second season.

Who is your favorite character in your story and why?

Although you don't see much of him, Deni's best friend, Sawyer Santiago, is probably my favorite. He's a true best friend through everything, calls Deni out on what she's avoiding when she needs to hear it, and is always supportive.

What is your favorite chapter/scene and why?

There are a few scenes, so it's hard to choose! I don't want to spoil any of the scenes for someone reading this interview who hasn't read One Night Only yet, so I'll go with Chapter Twenty-Four. Specifically, Deni and Hunter's banter and flirting while in the lake, and then when Paisley, Hunter's sister, interrupts them inside of the cottage. I love the unresolved romantic tension in these scenes, and also the comic relief Paisley provides while also pointing out what's obvious to her and that Deni and Hunter have been dancing around with each other.

What do you love about your story? What makes it unique and interesting?

One of the things I love about it is being able to include my current home of Los Angeles and my childhood home of Thunder Bay, Canada and surrounding area in it. The lake setting in the story is where I spent many summers growing up and it seemed like the ideal place for Deni to be able to easily hide out. 

What do you plan to do with your story in the future? Will you try and get it published, or just keep it on Wattpad?

I'm planning to keep it on Wattpad for now, especially as I continue with its second season and possibly another story in the series.

Have you made any other accomplishments with your story? If so, what are they?

One Night Only in its original form was shortlisted for the 2021 Watty Awards, received third place in the Rock Fic category of the 2023 Punk Rock Awards, and was Wattpad's YA Romance profile's book of the month in May 2022.

Are you writing or planning to write any other stories? If so, tell me a bit about those.

Right now I'm writing the second season of One Night Only, and I'm also writing On the Way Down, which is a second chance celebrity romance with some romantic suspense elements.