Authors Alexa Young and Sarah Skilton visited Daniel Pearl Magnet High School students in the MPR on Dec. 10 to discuss their books, “Frenemies”and “Bruised.”

The event began with the authors asking each other questions about their books.

Skilton told students how she got her ideas for her book “Bruised.” Just like the main character, Imogen, Skilton did karate and was a black belt which helped her when writing her book.

“I wanted Imogen to do karate because it was something that I knew about, not something that I needed to look up,” Skilton said, “When writing her character, I got out all my old books about karate, which gave me great memories.”

She was inspired by her favorite books, featuring Marvel characters Kitty Pride and Wolverine, along with Joss Whedon’s “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” TV show. In these works, the main female characters had powers, so Skilton wanted to change it up and have a girl who didn’t have powers but had to work for it and as a result have the powers ruin her life.

“I wanted to take a real girl with no superpowers, testing her to her limits,” Skilton said.

Before becoming a young adult fiction bestseller, Young shared that she worked for a magazine. She began freelance writing  when she did well on a college paper. However, before that, she felt she was never a good writer. Young still works for a magazine and writes on her free time.

The two authors agreed on how much work it is to write a book and how it takes several tries to get published. Skilton announced she is working on a new book “Persuaded.” Young is also working on a new book, but the title can not be announced till further notice.

“I do like writing for magazines but it’s not as fun as writing books, writing books is like playing with dolls, it’s just so fun,” Young said.