What Inspired me to write ‘Our Beautiful Cage’?

The year 2023 didn’t start well, and it just kept getting worse. Despite having a fantastic full-time job, I made the tough decision to quit in April. The main objective was to get my house in a good state to sell, and I got it on the market in May.

By that time, I’d moved back in with my parents, and I wasn’t feeling great about life—in fact, I was feeling terrible. Depressed, hopeless, isolated—you name it.

One day was particularly bad, and I was moping in bed while watching the Coronation and thought: what would it be like if England was ruled under an absolute monarchy? And this one question sparked a chain reaction.

Remember, I wasn’t in a good place at that time, so my thoughts didn’t trail down a warm, sunny path. Not only did I build a world that was as miserable as me, but I also created a character—Clara Rosewood, and she became my outlet. She’s someone who lacks purpose, tries to do her best for people, and has no confidence to take risks, which is how I was feeling. I won’t go beyond that because I don’t want to give away the story, but I grabbed this idea by the horns and ran with it—after all, what did I have to lose?

That’s an idea of what inspired the initial idea, but as you can imagine, loads more came into play when I was fleshing out the story and building the world, so I’ll share a summary of other stuff that inspired me:

Beauty Ideals

What’s hot right now? Non-invasive procedures to maintain a youthful appearance. To be clear, I don’t have a negative view about this, but I wanted to take this trend and write it into my story, which is how I came up with ‘the blossoming ceremony’. In ‘Our Beautiful Cage’, every eighteen-year-old girl will attend this ceremony to freeze their youthful appearance. It sounds great to some, but the intentions are sinister in my dystopian future—it’s just one method used by The Crown to subjugate women in the empire.

Social Credit Systems

I took this concept and made it work for my story. Every country in the Anglo Empire is clean and picturesque. Everyone is provided what they need to survive, but they own nothing and live in fear. For some, it’s easy, but not for others.

British Tabloids

I find headlines fascinating, mostly because they focus on peoples’ mutual hatred for a certain thing, person, or group of people. I very rarely see British news outlets successfully share a story where something good is celebrated. This is how I thought of the Harvest Festival, where communities gather to celebrate rebels being executed. I wanted to use my perception of our society and amplify it (don’t forget, I wasn’t in a great mental place when I wrote this book).

Social Media Influencers

If you read my book, you’ll find one character in particular who’s an Ideator (a dystopian version of a modern-day influencer). Her name is Baroness Somerville—she’s the empire’s sweetheart and the epitome of pomp and pageantry. I wanted a character that people (particularly children) idolized because we know small groups of people on social media have a huge influence over large groups.

I hope you found that interesting. I’ll share more in the future.

Thanks for reading!

If you’re interested in purchasing ‘Our Beautiful Cage’, you can find it here.