Acknowledgements:

Wow. It's totally insane, but I finished a novel. Even though I completed Comet before, this is my first completed plot line, and the first story I'm confident enough in to actually let people read. So I think thanks are in order for some people who helped get me through it!

Danny G.—my best friend and the only person who literally reads everything I write. He doesn't exactly give me the greatest feedback and assumes everything I write is amazing which, of course, it isn't. But all the same he makes me feel confident in myself and I love him for it.

Ally My Love—if I were either a lesbian or a man, she would literally be the love of my life. The ABSOLUTE BEST friend anyone could ever ask for. If it wasn't for her saying, "GO WRITE I WANT TO READ THE BOOOOOK!" every other day, I probably wouldn't even be halfway done with it by now. And if I didn't have her to pull me out of my slumps and down days, who knows where I'd be right now. Certainly not saying that I've completed my second novel at the age of 17 ;)

Chopsticks—probably my best "fictionpress buddy," she read the first half of my story, and is going to read it straight through once I finish putting it up on wattpad to help me with things like pacing. Now if THAT isn't a good, helpful person, I don't know who is.

MY FREAKING AMAZING BROTHER ELIJAH—because his witty humor and impeccable delivery helped me, someone with a horrible sense of humor, to create the voices of Lilyana and Hiero, two very sarcastic and witty characters. Without his influence, I wouldn't have been able to come up with half of that stuff.

MY EVEN MORE FREAKING AMAZING SISTER, RAVEN—because she named the Raven War in the book (I wonder why xD) and gave me Hiero's basic personality traits and appearance. And because she knows me better than anyone ever could and believes in me and tells me I can when everyone else says I'm a dreaming fool.

So thanks to all those people, and thanks everyone who's read this story through. I appreciate it so much and hopefully I'll be able to further improve this story.

Remember everyone . . . don't forget to smile :D

Tower of Dove FAQ:

Questions friends, family, fictionpress members, AND wattpad members have asked me about the story! I'd thought I'd answer them in depth instead of say, "oh, just because," since I do this sort of weird stuff when I get bored. And cause, well, the story is done.

That is, until I go back for rewrites and edits . . . *sigh*

How did you come up with Lilyana's character? She's so odd.

Hmmm I remember back when this story was just mulling around in my head, I had imagined Lilyana as being a very sweet, understanding girl. She even looked different—I'd imagined her with short, straight, dirty blonde hair and green eyes. But Hiero's character I was having so much trouble thinking of. I mean, who could I put in a roll that only appears half the story—maybe even less—but still make you love him? So I asked my sister what she thought I should make him like and she said, "You should make him have like, black hair with REALLY green eyes and be all sexy and stuff, and make him one of those cocky jackasses who really have a heart of gold!"

That's her favorite type of guy. I thought the idea was good, since girls typically like that sort of male lead, and decided to go with it. But the problem was, the sweet Lilyana in my head just DID NOT match up with the cocky Hiero my sister had suggested. So I decided to go back to zodiac signs, which is how I base my main characters. The traits she had described to me seemed to fit a Leo, so I was like hmmm, if I want to make a girl who will conflict with him but at the same time match each other, I'll do his opposite sign! Then BAM, Lilyana became based off an Aquarius, with her analytical nature and emotional detachment from people and herself, mixed in with extreme sarcasm (one of my brothers is an Aquarius, everything he says is sarcastic) and accepting nature (even though she's stubborn as hell, she doesn't give a damn that Hiero's a commoner or the son of a rapist. See? Opposite signs complete each other!)

I switched her eye color to brown because I hate romances with the same eye color, and the short hair just DIDN'T fit brown eyes in my head so I made her have long, curly blonde hair. (Yeah . . . I'm very particular). But in the end, I was happy with their looks and demeanors.

Where'd you get the idea for this story?

I really don't remember the EXACT moment I decided to make this. I just remember that back in November or December, I wanted to do a loosely based Romeo and Juliet story, just for fun and to write something outside my Eternal Forces series. Originally, this was going to be a short story about seven chapters. But, being the do-everything-to-its-fullest-or-don't-do-it-at-all person that I am, I ended up planning out a whole book. I didn't want to do it EXACTLY like all the other Romeo and Juliet stories, though. So I warped it. I was like, "Hmm instead of doing feuding families, I'll just have them be in opposite villages in a war! And I'll have him be a commoner! And I'll have them find out a lot later!"

At the time, I was discussing all this with my sister because she was home from college. I remember sitting on my bed and being like, "Ugh, that means I have to kill my main characters -.- I hate doing that." And my sister, being the happy ending lover she is, went, "No, don't kill them!" and I was like, "Uh, okay. I won't." Because I basically listen to everything she says because she's usually right anyway.

But then how would I capture the plot of the two nobles' deaths ending the feud? That's when I realized that for one, because Hiero's a commoner no one would care about his death, and two, Lilyana was going downhill anyway. That's when Posy came in. She was my second Juliet. But I needed another Romeo, hence the creation of Kissa. They became the other half of the star-crossed lovers, even though they were only eleven and twelve. Hiero and Lilyana's love started the cycle, Kissa and Posy's ended it.

You write this almost like it's a fantasy book. Why do you do that?

Honestly, I didn't do that on purpose at all. Originally (okay, don't laugh at me) they were going to be fairies. Yup, little fairies that live in a forest, wings and all. The first chapter was written as if they WERE fairies, haha. So it WAS fantasy at first. That's why the story has no set time in history—it's just floating in space. And that's why the villages have bird names. Lilyana was going to have pink wings, I remember (which is why she's always wearing pink) Hiero was going to have green (so I just bring a lot of attention to his eye color) Posy was going to have silver (her silver star curtains and masquerade mask) and Simeon was going to have yellow (his hair was originally brown . . . so I switched it to golden blond). It was completely unintentional, but it turned out okay I think.

How'd you come up with the title of the book?

Oh my goodness, I spent like three hours doing this. Haha so the idea was still fairly vague in my mind and because one of the initiating conflicts in the story IS the Raven War, I was thinking I could name it based on a raven (off topic, but I named it the Raven War because my sister's name is Raven and she yelled at me to do it. It was originally going to be the Crow War, haha). So I typed 'raven' into google, and somehow I ended up learning that a bunch of raven's are called "a conspiracy of ravens."

I thought, well, I COULD name the story Conspiracy of Ravens.

. . .

But I didn't like it. And, I thought it didn't fit Lilyana as the protagonist at all. So I was like, well, the opposite of a raven is sort of like a dove, right? I could call it Conspiracy of Doves?

. . .

That was even stupider. So I went to google again and tried to search ravens another time. One of the links I clicked brought me to Wikipedia. It was an article focused on a myth about the Tower of London. It was said ever since the 1800's or something that so long as there are ravens atop the Tower of London, there would be peace in their lands.

I was like hmmm. I could do the same thing, but with a dove. So BAM, I created the Tower of Dove, which basically symbolizes the strive for peace in both the war, and for Lilyana's peace within herself.

Why did you give Hiero and his friends so much background if you didn't even use it in the story?

Okay, well, originally I was going to tell this from both Hiero's and Lilyana's POV. Actually, I'm considering adding chapters from Hiero's POV in editing, but that's a HUGE maybe. I most likely won't do it, but it's a possibility. So when I was planning the story out, I gave them all histories. I think the thing I most regret in writing this was the lack of Rhea and Teo, and how they and Hiero act around each other. They really are just best friends who love to get into trouble and pick on each other. And Rhea is probably one of my favorite female characters I've ever created. But who knows, maybe I'll recreate her in another story under a different name.

How'd you come up with so many weird names?

I spent hours on , wrote down ones that caught my eye, picked out the best ones, and began to shape them into my characters. I'd already had Lilyana's name picked out, actually. I saw it while finding names for the nanowrimo book I was writing back in November and was like, that is SUCH a lovely name. So I wrote it down, thinking that it sounded like the name of a princess.

Now, Lilyana doesn't much act like a princess. Princesses don't exist in her world, either. But in a way, I've always thought of her as a princess. And Posy I always felt was a princess at heart as well.

Did you want to kill Posy and Kissa?

Okay, my brother asked me this one. And I'm going to say OF COURSE I DIDN'T FREAKING WANT TO THEY WERE SO ADORABLE AND AMAZING I LOVED THEM! But I didn't have a choice. The story writes itself and as the author, I'm just the one who tries to make it sound good. Life isn't all fairytales and happy endings, like Posy discovered.

Since this is based off of Romeo and Juliet, then which characters are based off of the ones in Shakespeare's original work?

I was waiting for someone to ask this forever, and then in like chapter seventeen my good old buddy Danny G. did! Not all of them are based off of Romeo and Juliet characters, and some are done only VERY loosely, not keeping true to the roles. But when I started out, this is what I MEANT them to be.

Lilyana – Juliet

For obvious reasons

Posy – Juliet

Her death ends the war, or in Shakespeare's terms, the family feud

Hiero – Romeo

Duh.

Kissa – Romeo

Same reason as Posy

Simeon – Paris

Except he lives

Miette – Juliet's nurse (lolz)

Dobry – Friar Lawrence

In Romeo & Juliet, Friar Lawrence was basically the catalyst for the two's deaths. In Tower of Dove, Dobry does the same when he plants the idea that ending the war is the only way to get Hiero back and make Lilyana happy.

Calanthe- Mr. Capulet

She forces Lilyana to become engaged to Simeon, just like Juliet's dad did to her and Paris.

Rhea – Benvolio

I didn't have a Mercutio because his character always annoyed me, so I was like eff him :D

And that's about all I can remember that I did consciously. The other characters just shaped themselves out of my version of the story.

Why did you make Simeon so likeable when he's Hiero's rival?

Okay, first off, he's really not much of a rival. I mean really, come on, was there even a chance he stood against Hiero? No. If Lilyana had taken the time to get to know him better when they were younger and put two and two together on why he is how he is, they probably WOULD have been great together. As perfect as everyone wanted them to be, but that's not how Lilyana is and so of course it was never even a thought in my mind.

As far as why I made him likeable, well, I had originally planned for him to be really mean. But that just DIDN'T fit the story or help develop Lilyana as a character at all. Amethyst was the real mean one. A bit psycho in her own way and I actually feel kind of bad for her. Simeon was just unfortunate enough to have to be raised by her, a crazy single parent who also happened to be ruling the village. So he just came out likeable. Also, where Hiero is the type of character my sister likes for a boy, Simeon is the type I like. I tend to create characters like him in every story I write lol -_-

How DID Amethyst react to Simeon's relationship with Rhea, anyway? You never made that clear.

Ah, well, maybe I should go back in edits and make it clearer, then. Well, Amethyst and Simeon had been fighting. Like a lot, which was implied in chapter seventeen I think. Somewhere around then. Well, because they had been fighting SO MUCH BEFORE, she didn't take it as bad as you would think she had. Mostly because during their weeks of fighting, Simeon stepped down from gaining the title of premier after his mother. Because Lilyana also refuses it, the title ends up going to Faye and whoever she marries. So yeah, because Simeon basically said, "Eff you Mom, I don't want to rule," it wasn't as big of a deal to her. Especially since he planned to leave the Quail, anyway.

Did you feel weird writing Posy's POV after you had done Lilyana's for so long?

Not really. Posy and Lilyana both rock to their own beat, in very different ways. And it was kind of nice NOT writing from Lilyana's POV for a few chapters because I'm not naturally that sarcastic or witty, so I had to think really hard to become her. Posy is more like how I am naturally. Because, okay I won't deny it, I'm more than a little bit weird. I used to hate it when I was little because I never had many friends, but I'm okay with it now because my odd view of life and people better ables me to write unlike most teens my age.

Ah, but anyway . . . Posy is a lot like how I was when I was a kid. So writing from her POV was almost like a trip down memory lane. Although the way she thinks of Kissa was a LITTLE odd for me. I kept thinking "I really hope no one thinks I'm a pedophile. I'm not attracted to twelve year old boys. Hell, I'm not attracted to most boys my age! WHERE ARE ALL THE SEXY TWENTY-FIVE YEAR OLDS!"

Haha so in short, no it wasn't weird. It was easier than Lilyana. Although I've become so accustomed to writing Lilyana's character and it's actually SO much fun. She's really one of the greatest characters I've created, and it makes me sad that her story's over :(