Cameron Darrow's Blog, page 3

My A.I. Experience (So Far)

Note: this post has been heavily edited/updated. I no longer feel comfortable having any advice/how-to info about this topic with my name on it. I've kept the rest of the post up for the sake of transparency. I did experience this at this point in time, but I will not be using any AI in my work. The story mentioned in this post has been scrapped. See this blog post for a full explanation.



I get it now.

For weeks (months? what does time mean anymore?) I'd been hearing first about the wonder/novelty of AI chatbots like ChatGPT, followed on relatively quickly by other authors saying 'you have to learn how to use this stuff or you're screwed.' 'Learn to work with the robots, not against them.' But AI tools were either little more than a super Google to some, while others were already worried about Skynet or whatever, and I didn't know what to think. It was too big and changing too fast, it felt like.

Putting my cards on the table: I was never against it, I just didn't get it. I couldn't wrap my head around what people were actually doing with it in a concrete, actionable way. 'Oh, it can help you outline.' 'Oh, it can come up with plot elements.'

Oh, okay. WTF does that mean? Can HAL 9000 write a kissing book or not?

I was intrigued, but still confused. So I watched a few YouTube videos of writers actually interacting with these tools, and it finally clicked. Seeing the actual process made everything so much clearer, but beyond that, I understood what I could do with it. And what I couldn't (and won't).

One of the problems I have as a writer is coming up with the things that happen in my stories. Characters, prose, emotions, themes, I think I might be okay with that stuff, but sometimes I get stuck answering simple questions like 'What do they do now?' Adding complications and setbacks doesn't come easy to me when I just want my characters to lay around and talk about their feelings.

So I logged in to ChatGPT* and asked it for help.

EDIT: Removed the entire how-to/what I did section.

And one thing I will not do is ask it to generate actual prose. F*ck that. I write because I like writing. I don't want to reach the day where I call myself a prompter.

But asking it for help? It truly is a breakthrough.

EDIT: Removed advice

Overall, I would say my experience was very positive, and I am genuinely looking forward to using these tools more in the future. And that's what they are: tools. They won't be writing my books, they're just another layer of feedback and some extra help I didn't have before.

For now, I got what I needed for the story I'm working on, and I'm super eager to get to the next ones like I haven't been in a while. I may come back to this topic once the book is out to go over the specifics, but really I didn't do a whole lot more than break through the block I'd been having.

And for that, I told it thank you.

Bleep-blorp. All hail our new robot overlords!


Footnotes:

EDIT: Removed link to YouTube video

*The free, open version. I understand GPT4 is even better, but that's subscription-only as of this writing. I haven't tried Sudowrite or any of the others. Free is free!

Striking While the Muse is Hot

One bit of advice I've gotten, applied, internalized and have no problem repeating is 'don't wait for the muse.' Just write. The key to finishing a book is consistency, not fits and starts of inspired prose or whatever. Even when it's not working, you have to try; maybe it'll unclog something or get the juices flowing, or at the very least you'll have something to refine that will engage your critical brain. You can't wait until you 'feel like it' or have a perfect moment of inspiration.

Because when you do, when you have a real, genuine moment of perfectly envisioning something that just comes to you out of nowhere, it's a race to get it out before it falls apart or evaporates. No matter what you're doing or when, you have to get it out as fast as possible. Can you really write whole book that way?

The one I just had was so fleeting that I couldn't string the ideas together coherently fast enough when I was trying to record them. Like, the process of converting it into language that I would be able to understand later was too slow. I was having the thoughts faster than I could put into language, and trying to make sentences was using up too much of my brain to keep the ideas coming. In the end I had to cobble together a pale shadow of the idea I'd had; it was like trying to transcribe a dream.

It was a character moment, the first really deep, incisive one I've had for the particular pairing I'm working with right now, and I want to say it was glorious, but it was so fleeting. I was there with them in a way I haven't been yet, and it was both validating and frustrating. It told me that I might actually be on the right track with these two, that there's something there between them, but it was a visual, emotional moment. Putting it into words was almost a distraction, as necessary as it also was. On top of that, I wasn't even writing at the time! I was doing something completely separate when the lightning struck.

I've had several moments of perfect clarity like this over the eight books I've written, but they are few and far between, and you can't count on them. Sometimes it's a flash like this one was, and others can be like turbo version of a flow state, where the ideas are coming faster than you can make them into words while you're writing. My brain can't do both simultaneously unless it comes out in the form of prose. Most often I see and feel it, and the transcription can strip some of the magic away.

But I never look a gift muse in the mouth! I'm grateful for all of these moments, and the validation is usually the part that sticks with me in the end. They're like little sparks that get kicked off when I'm on the right track, and encourage me to keep going.

And like other things that run on tracks, they don't react to stopping and starting very well. They might even be slow to start, but once they do it's much simpler to keep them going.

Just remember, you're the conductor. The muse is those dynamite log things Doc Brown used in Back to the Future III. Only working together can make the train fly.

Hitting the Research Iceberg

I remember someone comparing the totality of the work you do in crafting a novel to an iceberg. (A bit of a cliche metaphor, I know, but apt. Hear me out.) The part the reader sees, the finished final novel, is the bit that pokes out from the surface. You can sail around it, marvel at the subtlety of the whites and blues, the penguins and/or puffins living on it, etc. But, as we all know from this metaphor (and movies) the overwhelming bulk of it is beneath the surface. There's a whole mountain under there and you would never know (I mean, have you seen a puffin? Distractingly cute), and unless you're in a submarine or a doomed ocean liner, no reason to really think about it.

But I do. It's what holds up the story. The history and backstory of the characters, the rules of magic, the setting, the history of the world (real or fantastical, the only difference is whether the ideas originate in an encyclopedia or your head); a lot of the whys of the story are down there. Everything in my series bible is down there. Everything I've ever thought about the story, from late-night scribbles that came out of some weird limnal dream state to the inspiration I got on a walk to the fundamental bedrock thesis of why I want to commit to the insane act of writing it in the first place is down there. It is the mass of the story that gives it weight and informs the shape of the bit at the top.

Where does it start? Ideas are a dime a dozen, so it's the fleshing out of those ideas that is the true beginning of the process for me. And that means research.

Research is like an ogre onion--it has many, many layers, and the more you peel away the more you find.

Let's start with something super simple: what does your main character wear? Sound easy, right?

Okay, what time period is it? What does she even have access to? What's her social status/class? Is birth order important (hand-me-downs, etc.)? You may envision her liking purple. Oh, purple was really rare and super expensive for most of human history? Maybe not. Silk. Who doesn't want to live vicariously through their characters and put them in silk? Lovely stuff. Where did she get it? How did she pay for it? Only royalty in Europe had access to it for a long time, but by the '20s you could get silk pajamas and dressing gowns at the department store. Oh, only the posh department store? Oh. Fine, she wears a burlap sack! But her knees are showing now, what a harlot! Damn! Uh, petticoats! All the petticoats! Okay, could she have gotten into her chosen outfit/ensemble alone or would she have to have had a maid/sister/lover cinch her up? Layers. So many layers! Well, summer sucks now. Or does it? What would she have been expected to wear? A hat and gloves, too? Just the hat?

Ad nauseam.

F*ck!

But.

It's not always a cascading chain of questions. Sometimes it's as simple as finding a piece of artwork or a photograph and saying 'She wears that. Primary source. Done.' Or, if you write contemporary, just what that lady at Starbucks was wearing yesterday. Vibes, man. Horseshoes and hand grenades. (To a point. Don't have a character say 'strike three' or 'right off the bat' 100 years before baseball was invented.)

Peeling back the layers reveals more layers, yes, but also enriches the story. The bob haircut Victoria has is iconic to the mid-to-late 1920s, but in 1919? Holy shit, she might as well have had a mohawk. Now she's even more independent and rebellious. Electricity and telephones were still brand new in 1919, now I have the super fun scene of Millie trying to teach 400+ year-old Ivy that telephones aren't dangerous. What lurked under the surface popped up as character building.

Right now, my research involves trawling through real estate listings getting a sense of what the location looks like, the views you could expect and spending inordinate amounts of imaginary money on houses I could never own. My character could, though, and it helps me put myself in her head. Developing her sense of taste and priorities. What color woods would she prefer? Busy wallpaper or solid colors? How does she have her most private spaces arranged? Does her bathtub have feet? Simple things that may never get explicitly mentioned but nonetheless help build up (and inform) a whole personality.

And that's when the layers thing comes up. "Oh, neat, now I know what kind of birds are tweeting outside her kitchen window. Kitchen... wait, where does she buy sugar? There's a field out there. I think. What's the difference between a field and a paddock?"

If I'm making this sound like a lot of work, it's because it is. But I enjoy it. Building that underwater bit of the iceberg makes story choices easier later. It clarifies a lot of things and sets boundaries. That sound bad, but it really isn't. I write fantasy, so magic, right? Magic that can do anything and has no rules is boring and the reason a lot of people who hate fantasy, hate fantasy. Magic that has restrictions and clear limits is more compelling because you can raise the stakes and put characters in positions where you know they can't just magic themselves out of it. It's a tool, not carte blanche to do whatever the plot needs it to. And it has a cost. Guns run out of bullets, mages run out of magic. Or get tired. Or have to sacrifice a puffin to get more. Whatever, they're your rules! Just think them through and stick to them.

Writing a novel isn't a research paper, and while it may be up for peer review, it's not that kind. Ultimately, story is about character, and they come first. If I don't care about them, I don't care what happens or how or why your Dickensian ragamuffin is wearing a purple silk dressing gown.

But what filling out that iceberg can do is make them deeper, richer and more solid. The world they live in is the context for their choices, and their choices tell you who they are.

Just don't get lost. You still have to write the book.

Ramming sp- I mean, full speed ahead!

Complete Series Box Set Out Now!

I am pleased to announce that the box set of the entire From the Ashes of Victory series is now available worldwide!

If you've already read it, thank you! And if you want to recommend it, the set is the place to start. If features all six books plus the short story included in the first box set, all of it on Kindle Unlimited!

Amazon says the total print length is 2300 pages, which is a very big number that makes me wonder how I ever did it. But I did! And I can share it all in one convenient package.

Enjoy!

Back in the Saddle

The last few weeks here at Cameron Darrow's Ye Olde Sapphic Fiction Emporium have been... not great. The Fates intercede when it suits them, not us, and sometimes they do so in ways that demand everything you have and more.

It's not the first time since I've started writing here that they've done so, so I have some practice lurching back into the swing of things. And one thing I've learned is to take my time in doing so. Rushing back in before you're mentally ready is a good way to ensure it actually takes longer and is worse for you in the long run.

Over the course of the pandemic, I didn't take any time off. I was nose to grindstone, head down, escaping into imaginary worlds with my imaginary friends every day. Whether it was to keep the outside world at bay, or because, you know, what else was there to do, I wrote and published four (or five depending on your definition of the pandemic) entire fantasy books, a short story and put together a box set. That's a lot of work, more than I appreciated at the time because I was in the middle of it.

But since the break I took after finishing Pax Victoria, I haven't been able to work up any momentum on any of the projects I've started. They either didn't work, I fell out of love with them or, most recently, outside events came along to arrest whatever I had managed to build up, leaving me to start all over again. It feels like I've been in this constant sequence of restarts and reboots that has added up to six months of nothing concrete to show for it. My average for getting books out is every seven months. Needless to say, that won't be true anymore.

I'm a momentum-driven writer; once I get up to speed, I can barrel through a project through to its end and spin up another one almost immediately. But, like a gigantic flywheel, getting that initial energy into it can be hard. I started in the autumn of 2016 and didn't stop until autumn of 2022 (aside from a brief pause after Hall of Mirrors came out and I almost quit writing altogether). I've never stopped before.

So how am I starting again?

By going back. If you've read this far, you will be the first to find out that a box set of the entire From the Ashes of Victory series is coming! And sooner than later. It will include all six books plus the short story from the first box set, A Christmas in Paris, with a new cover designed by yours truly. Exercising a different part of my creative brain has been fun, and it will be nice to have complete closure on the series.

After that? I have tons of research yet to do for the new book(s), and that occupies the rest of my time right now. This is the first time I intend to do a series from the beginning, so I want to lay all the groundwork and get everything firmly established so I can build on it. That means not only real-world research, but creating the rules for magic and the histories of the characters and the world they live in. There's a lot of whys and hows I have to consider before I can dig too deeply into the plot, something I learned from both the Ashes books and the Alumita books that are out thus far. I have a better sense of what I need to know, what's important and what isn't, and hopefully that will lead to a more streamlined process once I have all the pieces in place.

So! This post may have started out as a bit of a bummer, but things are percolating again, and hopefully I will have more posts about the process and the things I'm considering in building a new world from scratch. Time will tell! But spring is all but here, a good time to open the windows and let in some fresh air.

And to breathe it in, one breath at a time.

What am I Doing?

It's been a month since I conjectured about making my blog bi-weekly, which means things have been either going really well or really bad.

Maddeningly, the answer is both.

For the first week or two after my '2023' post, things were humming along. I was getting words down, the characters were solidifying and the story was taking shape. Then I hit a wall. I don't even know what it was made of or where it came from, it just jumped out in front of me (I swear, officer!). I just... didn't want to do it anymore.

Maybe it was residual burnout from finishing the Ashes books, maybe it was the January blahs, maybe it was... I don't know. And that's scary! I have a ton of ideas, literal notebooks filled with stories and characters, but to just... not be able to do anything with them? I wouldn't call it writer's block (the aforementioned ideas haven't stopped), it was a different kind of resistance. I would sit down at the computer knowing what I needed to get done and how, but I simply couldn't summon the enthusiasm. Putting one word after the other became a joyless slog. I was inputting more and more placeholders for things like descriptions and names; things Future Me would have to deal with, and that's no good.

It wasn't fun anymore. You may have noticed a very short post here a few weeks ago proclaiming the exact opposite, but I deleted it for a reason: it was only true for like... 10 minutes. That was more like a snapshot Tweet--ephemeral and largely meaningless. And for me, at least, I need to enjoy my writing. If I don't, what are the odds you will? Not good, I imagine. I'm not the kind of writer who can just vomit out a manuscript willy nilly; I have to feel it, want it, love the characters and what they're doing. I know that's a privilege, but that doesn't make it any less true. I've set a standard for myself (and for you) that I wasn't even approaching.

So now what?

Not nothing, that's for sure. In my '2023' post, I mentioned that I had a burning desire to do something new. Spoilers: the thing I was doing wasn't the new thing.

So I'm doing the new thing.

Will it work? F*ck if I know! Maybe not. Maybe it'll be my breakout success! I have absolutely no idea, but what I do know is that I want to do it. These characters and the world they live in have been burning a hole in my brain for over two years, but I could never get to them so long as the Ashes universe was taking up so much real estate in there. Is it what I should do? No idea. Only time will tell. But I'm very much of the school of thought that says that authors should write for themselves first. Passion and enthusiasm comes through on the page, and I want to feel that again. I had to write 'Remember, November'. I had to write 'Midnight Magic'. I have to write this new book. Maybe it goes down in a fireball, maybe it spawns a dozen sequels; I'm not in the prognostication business, so I won't say anything that will require wood knocking.

The only thing I do require is your patience while I figure this out. You deserve a book that contains every drop of blood, sweat and tears I can pour into it, not something that's just 'meh' because I could finish it in a few months. You don't want that, and neither do I. My name has come to mean something to many of you, and I want it to continue to. I'm completely independent, I don't have deadlines to meet, so there's no reason you should get anything less than the best from me.

So I'm going to try some things, get the spark back, and that may mean fewer updates. So I ask you to bear with me while I find my footing again and do all of the research this book will require.

Never give up, never surrender!

2023

What-ho, fellow humans! (Oh. Spoilers, I'm not a robot.) You, like me, have survived crossing the threshold into another year! Well done. (Seriously. After the last few years, it feels like a genuine feat and something worth celebrating.)

I had a good, long break, exactly the mental decompression and de-fragging I needed. Getting back to work has been slow, but I don't know anyone who is terribly bright-tailed and bushy-eyed after extended time off.

So now that I'm back, what will I be doing with myself?

New things. The whole time I was away, but especially after the year ticked over, the urge to do something new was a constant, throbbing pulse in the back of my head. Not since I started Midnight Magic have I felt such an overwhelming urge to try things I've never done before. That book was cathartic, super fun and came out really well, and that experience has given me confidence to go along with this newfound desire. Severing the cord of the Ashes books has unmoored me from a lot of mental weight and expectation, and I am eager to take advantage of it.

So what does that look like? Well... it's hard to say. What I will say is that I have no fewer than three books under active development right now, and I'm just working out which one gets my full focus. I love aspects of all three, but they all have their own challenges. Do I continue the Alumita book I started? Tread the familiar path to ease back into my work flow? Or do I dive headfirst into something completely new that may not pay off and also requires a f*ckton of research? It would definitely be new though, a different challenge than I've ever taken on before.

What a weird (and fortunate!) problem to have. Needless to say, it's one I'm looking forward to solving.

Around here, I am thinking about going to a bi-weekly blog instead of every week. These posts take time and I don't always have a lot to say, and with so many ideas careening around my head it might be better to devote that time and energy into book words instead of a blog post. I'm not sure yet, we'll see how the writing goes.

Whatever I do, I am committed to bringing you the same quality of story you've come to expect from me, with even more wonderful, unique characters that I hope you will come to love and enjoy spending time with as much as you have the others. More weirdos finding love, more badasses standing up for themselves and what's right, more magic, more worlds to explore, more of a world you already know... I have so many strong sapphic women in my head waiting to to have their stories told!

And I will. Just give me a minute to figure out who gets to go first.

2022

Somehow we've come to the end of another year already, with no time having passed since the end of the last one. Or at least that's how it feels to me, anyway. I have no idea where the time went! Cliche, but also true.

After getting The Raven and the Firebird out in January, I spent the majority of the rest of the year working on Pax Victoria, eventually releasing it at the end of September. I started the From the Ashes of Victory series in 2016, and 2022 is the year that I finally finished it.

And when I look back on the year, that is what really dominates it. The first nine months were dedicated entirely to the end of the series, and once it was over, coming to terms with what that meant. Remember, November was my first novel, and finally completing Millie and Victoria's journey this year was both immensely cathartic and also sad. I was glad to be done, but once it was over, there was very much a sense of 'Now what?'. I mean, I know what, I have too many notebooks full of ideas to ever actually mean it, but the Ashes books were like a mission, my purpose in having started writing in the first place, and now that overarching purpose is gone. I don't know, part of me wondered if I would ever finish them at all, but now that I have, I kind of miss having them in the background, a familiar place to return to after every Alumita book.

And I think that's the story of 2022 for me: a ton of hard work and tumultuous emotions followed by an empty horizon. Finding my feet again after Pax was published has been harder than I thought, and that's come to define the end of the year. Uncertainty.

'The new normal' means different things for different people, and I think I will be spending my break trying to figure out mine. I don't think I realized just how big a sea change it would be for me to finish the Ashes series, and I'm still reorganizing things, both physically and figuratively.

That said, I'm immensely satisfied with the work I got done this year, including getting the Ashes books out in paperback! There is nothing like having the actual, physical book in your hands and on the shelf. They're heavy and they take up space! Like, my imagination is sitting on people's bookshelves right now. Whaaat?

So as I say goodbye to Victoria, Millie and the witches of EVE, I say hello to a whole cadre of characters who have been patiently waiting their turn, and I can't wait for you to meet them in the new year and beyond.

But for now, I'm checking out for the year. I hope you've had a good one, and that you get the chance to enjoy the holiday season. I think we've all earned it.

Take care, and I will see you again in the new year!

Naming Conventions

So since the end of October, I've essentially started three books: the book that I was going to do for NaNo that blew up, its replacement, and now the book that I assembled from the broken pieces of the first one into something new.

That requires a lot of names.

So where do I get names from? Well, there are two answers, one for each of my universes.

For the Ashes books, sometimes it really was as simple as Googling the most popular baby names in the country/year the character was born and choosing one that I liked and wasn't in the top ten. That's where Pretoria came from. I would never have thought of that as a character name, but when I saw it on the list for 1900, I loved it and was intrigued. Turns out it was only popular for that one year, and really only the summer, following Britain's victory in the Battle of Pretoria during the Boer War. Crazy, right? Naming your daughter after a battle.

Millie was an easy choice, too. 'Millicent' just sounded right for her character, and there was never another option. 'Brown' came from John Brown, Queen Victoria's Scottish friend and confidant. Speaking of...

Victoria was fully formed at conception with that name. Literally the first thing I wrote in my notebook for Remember, November is the header 'Victoria' at the top. That name was exceedingly popular at the time she was born (near the end of the reign of Queen Victoria), which makes it an exception to my rule of not using popular names, but there was never a second choice there, either.

The biggest exception, however, is Alexandra Smirnova. For her, I deliberately chose the most generic Russian name I could: 'Alexandra Smirnova' is the closest thing I found to naming her Jane Smith. If you've read the series, you know why!

But as for the three books I started this post with, all are set in the Alumita universe, which is entirely my own creation. What do I do there?

Well, that's complicated. It depends. The main character in Midnight Magic goes by Vimika, but her real name is Vimikathritas Malakandronon. In this universe mages (wizards in Atvalia) are their own species, with a common culture spread over a diaspora that covers the world. I wanted mage names to sound like a weird mish-mash of Greek and Thai, and to be long and convoluted (to human ears) on purpose. Make them distinctive, with a particular cadence.

So now, all mages have to have names like that, and it has been great fun filling in those particular blanks.

But where do I start? Literally at the beginning. The first letter. What letter haven't I used much? What letter doesn't get used much? What's the first sound that comes out of your mouth when you think of this person? Hard sound or soft sound? What strings together well? Cadence, mouth shapes, all of it goes into the pot for original names, mages or not. It's one of the fun points of writing fantasy! I can name my characters anything! Within reason, of course. I'm not going to string together a bunch of 'x's and 'q's separated with four apostrophes and expect people to read that over and over willingly.

But it's not all imagination and ephemera. For Without Words, I heavily leaned into names (places, people and tribes) from ancient Gaul, because they are invariably fabulous. I mean, the most widely-known Gaulish king was called Vercingetorix, for f*cks sake! Look at that name. Amazing. So naturally I named my butch elf princess Skathidemerix, and her mother Boudicirix, a combination of Vercingetorix and Boudica, a woman warrior who led several rebellions against the Romans in what is now Britain. (Also note that in Colours of Dawn, Katya's white convertible was made by a fictional company called Boudica that uses Long engines in their automobiles.)

One thing I don't do is worry about what names mean. I've never been a big fan of the convention of naming a character after their most notable trait or their destiny or whatever. That's nice and all, but it feel less important than what you're actually going to see page after page after page. It can be subliminal or a spoiler, but ultimately not terribly rewarding for me. Yes, I named my super-botanist Ivy, but I had no idea what Millicent meant when I chose it--it was a happy coincidence that it meant something relevant to her character when she has that talk with Sveta in Fires of Winter. But ignoring meaning is a personal preference! You do you.

Names are important, and shouldn't be taken lightly. They are the primary identifier of your character and will be written out hundreds of times by the end of your book, so choose wisely, but don't pull your hair out over it. Ultimately, if your characters are strong and memorable, they will come to define the name, not the other way around.

I mean, when I say Harry Potter, you just imagine a builder from Leeds or something, right?

How to Start a Romance

Out of the eight books I've written, two are out-and-out romances, while the other six weave two relationships in throughout the series. So I guess you could say I've written four romances if you count a relationship as a romance, not just a book.

Having recently begun work on a fifth (and sixth), I think it's probably a good time to answer the question: where do I start?

First: characters. Sounds obvious, right? Can't have a romance if there's nobody to fall in love with! But I need more than a collection of attributes and a description. The most important question to ask is: what's missing? Why are they, as many romance authors put it, hole-hearted? What's the empty part of them that is filled in by the person they ultimately fall in love with?

And that last point is one of the first questions I answer when I'm coming up with a romantic partnership: how do they make the other person better? I did it for Millie and Elise before I wrote a single word of Remember, November, and it held true over the entire series. Doing it for Without Words was a fun challenge. Skathi is a physically imposing princess, daughter of a queen and a natural leader, what could possibly be missing in her heart? A variant on that is what do they see in each other? Victoria is cold, rational, aloof and arrogant. Not a lot to work with. Oh, but she's also brilliant, fiercely egalitarian, ambitious and relentless in her drive to improve herself. Katya can acknowledge the former while still slowly falling in love with the latter.

The second thing I do is work out their starting point. And by that I mean more than just the meet cute, where they first encounter one another. What is their mental state? (Victoria is in the depths of depression, Katya is completely closed off and mistrustful of everyone.) Do they even register the other person as being attractive/a potential partner? (Vimika is wildly confused and discombobulated, and Aurelai's undeniable beauty only makes it worse!) It can be fun to have sparks fly immediately, with both falling into insta-lust that only becomes love later, but making them work for it and having their closeness develop organically over several chapters is rewarding, too. Also, what is their relationship to one another? Friends? Enemies? Strangers? Class/station? Power differences? Relationship/sexual experience levels? This all helps work out just what they're going to have to overcome to be together, and gives a starting scope to the story.

Once I've worked out where I'm starting from, personally I try to let their relationship develop organically as I write it. I know all of the major plot beats ahead of time, but I find that taking these two people and sticking them alone in a room together tells me more about their dynamic than reams of outlining ever does. I need to spend time in their heads and speak with their voices to work out what little things hook them and add up into affection and on to love. Maybe a quirk or a nervous tic, or a turn of phrase, lots of things can be points to latch onto and spin fun moments out of. I try not too plan out too much of their relationship ahead of time. I find that 'improvising' it makes it feel more real. (I never planned for Millie to turn red every time Elise gets undressed in front of her, for example. I made up Skathi showing Zifa the stars and pointing out the stories behind the constellations on the day, and it's still one of my favorite bits of relationship-building I've ever written.)

So, overall, it's a combination of planning and improvising. It's not either/or for me, and it doesn't have to be for you, either. Ultimately, it's about character and having fun. It's romance, falling in love should be fun, and exhilarating. Let your characters dance and try on each others' clothes, dare to steal kisses in public or make love under the stars! No one knows them better than you, and it's your story.

And that, like love itself, is worth celebrating, isn't it?