Paula developed her skills and love
for writing fiction in a very, very interesting Nigerian boarding
school, where the lack of television meant she had to invent
entertainment for everyone else. She loves reading manhwa, watching
Indian TV dramas, listening to music, and writing short stories.When not
doing any of those or in the classroom handling R code, she’s refining
her LinkedIn or taking Instagram selfies.
She lives in California with her family,
including her two fellow triplets, and is currently dreaming of a future
PhD in public health—and maybe another novel.
Visit her website or connect with her on Facebook and Instagram.
The Inspiration Behind Shape of the Sun
By Paula Omokhomion
Shape of the Sun was really inspired by how fiction canon traditionally does not express male leads in an unflattering manner, and going further, how some actually have male leads that do terrible things but put in major efforts to compensate for it, which could come off as whitewashing in realtime. Raj, SOTS’ male
lead really is that central character that is by no means misunderstood and is particularly consciously unreliable. There is also meta-fictional commentary on whether romance can really wipe out negativity as well as the effect of family neglect and performative masculinity.
Like for instance, what is it like if the nice guy isn’t actually nice or how do we deal with a villain that we can see being molded into that in real-time, but at the same time isn’t some hidden innocent or wholesome person. There’s all these contradictions in traditional fiction roles, and that was intentional because in real life, there are many people whose lives mirror that of what leads are especially if they have everything that anyone would want, but at the same time, do not have the traditional main character energy of being Mary Sue or just kind and bright and always willing to help and so on. If you think about it, these sort of people are underrepresented, at least in my perspective.
Summarily, I was most interested in a honest male lead, especially since the grace that extended to male leads are usually not granted their female counterparts. So here was a dude who was thrown by the author under the lamp to be scrutinized.
I also think that it was interesting writing characters that are majorly high-income or part of high-society in one way or the other. In that way, we have a good view at the rot that might come with wealth, and the struggle is less of fighting against the system and more of fighting against oneself to thrive or not to thrive within the system.
Concerning the publication process, I got self-published through Draft2Digital, which is a very cost-effective and proactive way of getting your work out there and on different retail platforms. I didn’t really think traditional publishing matched with my intent for SOTS which was a very independent and small work.
I hope everyone enjoys reading it, and I am always open to feedback. Happy reading!
