One dream down, a million to go: Emma Miller ticks being an author off her personal To-Do list with her debut novel, ‘The List Of Things.’

The following interview contains minor spoilers for A List Of Things

While her debut novel may have come out on August 1st, Emma Miller has been an author for much longer. A proud fic reader, the Atlanta-based storyteller has penned multiple Harry Styles fanfiction stories on Wattpad, starting in 2019 and culminating in her viral hit Cherry and its subsequent spin-offs. The fandom-centric tales carried her and her avid 14.5 million readers through the pandemic and beyond. This same encouraging community gave her the confidence and assurance to take the subsequent steps toward her career goals. In 2022, Emma truly began to take her talent seriously, challenging herself to write a wholly original work starring characters of her own making. What she uncovered was an entire world.

The List of Things, Miller's debut, is a reimagined and well-mixed combination of several classic scenarios, a fresh take on the ever-popular instances that leave romance readers giddy and unable to keep from peaking ahead. The first tale in her Checklist Romance Series, The List of Things, centers on an unlikely pair: Bellamy Archer, the perfect example of a "golden retriever boyfriend," caring, attentive and known for his long-term relationships, and Kamryn Hart, a romantic cynic with a reputation for one night stands. When the star quarterback discovers his tutor believes the love showcased in films and on television screens will only ever be fictional, he sets out to prove her wrong. Their experiment is deemed "no strings attached. But, with tropes like forced proximity and opposites attract, what could go wrong?  

Emma was happy to speak to The FMC about how writing her debut differed from her hit fanfiction, her decision to self-publish, her goals for the future, and more.

Congrats on The List of Things. How was your release week? How are you feeling now that it is out?

It was good! Even though Amazon started shipping the pre-orders early, a lot of people didn't start reading the book until it was supposed to come out. So, it turned out better than I had expected, honestly.

I'm glad. I hate that that happened.

Me too. But, at the end of the day, worse things could have happened.

That’s true. How are you feeling now that it is out and in readers’ hands?

The writer part of me is like, “Okay, next book. Let's go.” But, I’m also trying to enjoy the release, sit in this time, find new content on my story, and see what people think. It's so much different from anything I've ever done before. I don't know how to go about my life now that I have published a book. What do I do? How do I act? Do I tell passersby that I have a book out? [laughter] That is one of the reasons my brain has latched on to when I will announce book two.

I did notice the title page said book one.

There will be a second book. Book two is actually almost done being written. So, it will be out a lot sooner than you think.

One thing I’ve learned talking to authors is most of the time, when they have a book that has just been released, they have another one that has already been turned in and a third in draft, so you’re in the right cycle.

My goal was to be done with book two by the time The List Of Things was released. But I don't have hard deadlines because I'm a self-published author. It's a little bit harder to keep any mental schedule because I’m not required to. I’m on my own timeline. I'm setting my own pace. I hope one day I won't have to do that, and I will have to answer to a publisher and a literary agent, but for now, it’s all me.

There are definitely pros and cons to both ways of doing things.

I finished writing The List Of Things last August. It didn’t release until this year because I went back and forth about which path to take. I did like months of research on what I should do and just could not decide. This book probably would have been out at the beginning of Summer if I had started the editing process as soon as I finished writing it, but I didn't because I didn't know how I wanted to publish it.

What made you eventually land on self-publishing?

I am very lucky to have the platform I do. A lot of my following came from Wattpad, which means a lot of my following came from a story that I wrote. People already believed in my writing. One of the biggest challenges with self-publishing is creating a fan base and/or following around your work. Because I already had that, in a way, it felt almost foolish not to use it to my advantage. Now, with the success of The List Of Things and how well it's been doing if I ever do decide to traditionally publish, I have an example of what I was able to achieve on my own.

How was writing this novel, and the subsequent ones you've already started working on, different from Cherry?

With Cherry, and just Wattpad in general, telling a story feels so much safer. You have consistent feedback. Anytime I posted a chapter of Cherry, I would get DMs about it. I could read all the comments and watch all the TikToks. I had instant feedback on what people wanted me to do with my story, why people liked it, and what they didn't like. When I'm sitting by myself in Starbucks writing a chapter for the novel, and I'm like, “Oh my God. This is so good. I can't wait for someone to read it.” No one was there to agree, and there wouldn’t be for eight months. For me, that was the hardest difference. Another big difference with this one was that every character came from my brain. Obviously, Harry Styles is a real person. He exists. I already know what he looks like. Additionally, Cherry was based on real life. I took things that had already happened and based the plot around his songs, so the inspiration I needed was almost curated for me.

What are some things that you liked better about writing the novel?

I liked that there wasn't a guideline. I could make my characters be whoever I wanted them to be. I feel like there’s less stigma surrounding this. At the end of the day, when fans read fanfiction, myself included, we imagine the protagonist with someone like Harry Styles, who is real. Because of this, there is a lot of pressure to make that person perfect. They need to be great. They need to be worthy of the man Harry Styles is. Bellamy Archer is from my brain. He's not a real person. So Kamryn, in turn, can also be someone I just created. She can be whoever I want her to be. There are no characteristics she has to have or criteria she has to adhere to. I love Kamryn. She's perfectly imperfect. I like that she's going to be judged through a different lens than if this was a fanfiction

Going back to what you said about “curated inspiration,” what inspired The List Of Things? How did you come up with that story?

With a lot of my stories, I’ll have a small plotline in my head, or I'll think, “This trope would be really cute and this scenario,” so I already knew I wanted to eventually write a sports romance with a rom-com vibe. Then I listened to the song Like The Movies by Laufey, and I was like, “Wait a second. That would be a really cute story. I don't think any of the things she mentions in the song are in The List Of Things, but it was my main inspiration. I also took a little bit of inspiration from other sports romances. I really like Icebreaker by Hannah Grace and The Off Campus series by Elle Kennedy.

Music is very influential in The List of Things. The songs you chose played a role not only in your writing process but also in the plot. Were there any songs that didn’t make the cut?

I can't think of any off the top of my head, but there were a few. I have a playlist on my phone called ‘Bellamy and Kamryn,’ and one called The Official List Of Things Playlist.’ Every time I heard a song that reminded me of Bellamy and Kamryn in any way, I put it on their playlist. The other playlist is the one I listened to while I wrote the book. Both of those got sorted through to create the playlist that was in the novel. There was definitely a lot more Taylor Swift originally and a few more Harry Styles and One Direction songs. Honestly, a lot of people have told me they were surprised there weren’t more Harry songs on the official playlist.

You’re a multifaceted person. You’re allowed to listen to more than one artist.

Right? I get where they are coming from, but also, look how much Taylor Swift is on there. There are six songs, I think, maybe more. I had to narrow it down.

Without giving too much away, was there any point in writing the novel that you got stuck plot-wise?

Honestly, this was one of the easiest books I've ever written because I gave myself the perfect guideline. Because the novel centers around a list, most of the drafting process was just figuring out what I wanted on the list, when I wanted it to happen, and how I wanted it to happen. Deciding what movies and TV shows I wanted to play off of for the list was a little bit challenging. I got stuck there. But once I started writing it, it flowed because it was just deciding the order. I got stuck a few times during the editing process because, to quote my editor, “Bellamy was too perfect,” which was very true. But I felt like he needed to be as close to perfect as humanly possible because of who Kamryn is and the internal conflict she struggles with. It was a fine line I had to dance on in that sense. So I did get stuck a few times trying to make him perfectly imperfect.

Are there any instances in the story you’re particularly proud of?

I love the whole aspect of New Year's sprinkled throughout the entire thing - the theme of New Year's, its role in the plot, the aspect of why it was important, and the quote surrounding it. It's a very unique part of who Kamryn is. I loved taking all the cheesy classic tropes and writing them in new and exciting ways. For instance, the rain scene was one of my favorite things to write and go back and read. I love that part. Bellamy is perfect in that scene, especially when you also have Kamryn‘s thoughts alongside his actions, which I still find so funny.

We touched on this, but your two main characters are highly inspired by rom-coms. In turn, which authors inspired you as you were writing or now?

Romance authors, in general, are a huge inspiration to me. The new age of romance has taken the genre and twisted it completely. I will go ahead and pay homage to where I came from and say MysteryMixtapes, the author of the Stall series on Wattpad, is one of my favorites. I love how she writes her female main characters in all her books. Hannah Grace is a very big inspiration because she also came from Wattpad and moved into self-publishing and is now a traditionally published author as well. I really love Avery Keelan. She was a Wattpad author and now writes hockey/sports romance. I think she's amazing. She’s super funny. It’s hard. I know so many self-published authors now that I’ve gotten into the space. Seeing them in Barnes and Noble when I go just makes me think, “I want to be like that.”

It's cool that you've found that community. Moving forward, what can readers expect from your literary universe?

I want to do an interconnected standalone series. I wouldn't recommend reading them out of publishing order, but the second book will focus on friends you meet in the first book. It is going to be different because it will be a dual-point-of-view story, and it will have tidbits of Bellamy and Kamryn from their time together in the first book and after.

That's exciting. Did you always intend to make a series, or was The List Of Things standalone when you started it?

During the whole process of writing The List Of Things, it was meant to be a standalone novel. There was an original ending that tied everything up in a bow and told readers where each character ended up. But then I was like, “What if I gave this person a little bit more character depth and changed some things around, and then I changed some things around again to give this person a little more character depth.” It felt right. When I handed it over to my editor, she said, I can't believe you were going to leave this as a standalone. [laughter]

It's exciting that it has become a bigger world for you to play in. Lastly, since this is the FMC, which FMC archetype do you relate to the most?

I would be The Boss. A few are calling out to me, but that is what my gut is saying.

It really is just a gut feeling. [laughter]