The Stories That Built My Storytelling

How a lifetime of paying attention became the Daughters of Violence Universe.

People often ask where the Daughters of Violence Universe came from.

The honest answer is...

It didn’t begin with Baby Girl.

It didn’t begin when I decided to become an author.

It began long before I ever wrote a chapter.

Every season of my life added another layer to the storyteller I would eventually become.

The first story I remember telling wasn’t with words.

It was through a camera.

I was four years old when photography found me.

Long before I understood composition or lighting, I was fascinated by moments. I wanted to capture them before they disappeared.

Looking back now, photography taught me one of the most important lessons I still carry into every book:

Pay attention.

A photograph asks you to notice what everyone else walks past.

Writing asks the same thing.

In elementary school, I fell in love with books.

Two of the first series that truly stayed with me were Julie of the Wolves and Hank the Cowdog.

They’re completely different stories, but they gave me something similar.

They made me disappear into another world.

They made me care about people who weren’t real.

More importantly, they showed me that stories could stay with us long after we closed the book.

I didn’t know it then, but I was learning what kind of storyteller I would someday want to become.

By seventh grade, words became my own.

Poetry was the first place I learned how to make sense of emotions I didn’t always know how to say out loud.

At fifteen, one of my poems was published.

That moment mattered.

Not because it made me a writer.

Because it showed me that my voice could exist outside of my own notebook.

Then life became my greatest teacher.

I spent nearly a decade modeling.

I became a young mother.

I learned entrepreneurship.

I started blogging.

Each season taught me how differently people experience the world.

How the same moment can mean something entirely different depending on who’s living it.

As life became more complicated, another chapter began.

Mental health awareness.

Therapy.

Personal development.

Not because I wanted material for stories.

Because I wanted a better life.

I spent more than a decade learning how to move beyond the version of myself that survival had created.

I learned about trauma.

Patterns.

Healing.

Boundaries.

The nervous system.

Grace.

None of that erased what I’d lived through.

But it changed how I understood people.

And because it changed me, it changed the characters I write.

Somewhere along the way, I also discovered something else.

Stories weren’t only found in books.

They were everywhere.

A television show that explored family legacy.

A documentary that changed my perspective.

A song lyric that suddenly unlocked a character.

A conversation overheard in a coffee shop.

A photograph.

A stranger’s body language.

A family outing.

People watching.

Life became one long collection of fragments.

I stopped chasing inspiration.

I started paying attention.

Then came social media.

For years, I shared vulnerable pieces of my own life.

Not because I had answers.

Because I believed honesty creates connection.

Looking back, I think I was practicing something I didn’t even have words for yet.

I was learning how to tell difficult stories with compassion instead of certainty.

That philosophy followed me into every page I write today.

Then, in October 2023, I wrote Baby Girl.

I thought I was writing one novel.

Instead, I unknowingly opened the door to something much bigger.

One story became another.

Then another.

Characters connected.

Families intertwined.

Businesses.

Organizations.

Generations.

The Daughters of Violence Universe slowly became exactly what its name suggests.

A universe.

People sometimes assume DOVU exists because I wanted to write dark romance.

The truth is much simpler.

I built this universe because I’ve known what it feels like to believe you’re carrying something alone.

I don’t want my readers to feel that way.

That doesn’t mean I want to tell anyone how to live.

I don’t.

Stories aren’t instruction manuals.

They’re invitations.

Maybe someone sees themselves in a character.

Maybe they understand someone they love a little better.

Maybe they simply close the book feeling less alone than when they opened it.

That’s enough.

People often ask why I built an entire universe instead of writing standalone novels.

I think it’s because that’s how I see life.

Nothing exists on its own.

The people we meet.

The books we read.

The photographs we take.

The songs we hear.

The hardships we survive.

The healing we choose.

Every one of those experiences leaves something behind.

Some connections are obvious.

Others remain invisible.

But they all shape who we become.

The Daughters of Violence Universe is simply my way of honoring those connections.

Not by telling readers what to believe.

But by reminding them that every person is carrying chapters we’ll never fully read.

Sometimes understanding that...

Changes everything.

🖤 Anya Marie Whitmore writes within the Daughters of Violence Universe—where survival meets story.