kathryn asked Dahlia Adler:

i was wondering what it's been like to switch from sexy m/f stories to a sexy f/f one. i'm just wondering how writing an lgbtq+ story might differ to writing a het one? and are you excited to share it, or is there any sort of apprehension?

Dahlia Adler Ooh, good question! Well, I definitely love writing both, so it's been fun ;)

(I'm just gonna blanket state from here that I'm talking about cisgender guys and girls in this answer, i.e. people of the same gender they were assigned at birth; there's so much interesting discussion in writing trans characters and how the dynamic can vary so much more then, but I have yet to write any.)

I think the most interesting and different thing about writing same-sex versus hetero is that you don't have the same gender dynamics at play. For instance, when I write m/f, it's with the conscious knowledge that men are usually coming from the position of societal and physical power, and that factors in to the way I write things like interaction, consent, sexual history, contraception - not that I necessarily stick to the expected norm, but I think you can't not put it on the page when there's a deviation from that. Whereas when you write same-sex, you're working with two people who've experienced the world through a similar lens (and of course, this will range through race, ability, etc.) and that's a big thing to consider.

Then you specifically look at f/f, and you have not writing guys in at all, which is extra interesting because particularly in sexy m/f, these dominant "alpha" males are so central, but when you take them out of the romance equation and just work with two women, it's a totally different experience. Especially if they're new to understanding their sexuality, how do they know if they're more than friends? Who might have added responsibility to confirm all sex acts are consensual when there's no obvious physical strength differential? And with all same-sex pairings, there are the added questions of "Are they out? To who? What's that like? Have they both been out for the same amount of time? Do they have queer friends?" Setting becomes much more important, too, because a queer relationship isn't gonna be the same in, say, the deep south as it will be in New York City. So there are all these additional factors you can kinda take for granted in m/f that you can't in LGBTQ+.

Regarding being excited to share f/f, the answer is unhesitatingly yes. I might've been a little nervous about it before Under the Lights released, mostly about how well I handled the content, but thankfully, the response has been really great. It's something we're seriously lacking, and it makes me really happy to contribute to filling that gap. I love knowing that there might be one more answer to people asking for f/f recs when they're feeling completely down at how few there are, and feeling like the lack invalidates them. I love having added a YA with a queer girl of color and a happy ending, as well as positive bisexual representation. I love knowing that there'll be NA to point to when someone asks for a rec for a book where a main character IDs as Pansexual on the page. And I love my f/f books themselves!

What I do know is that not everyone who read Behind the Scenes followed to Under the Lights, and not everyone who'll read my first two NAs will follow to the third. Writing is not how I earn my living, so in the sense of "What does that mean for my career??" that doesn't matter to me. Of course I'm sad when people won't try f/f, and I wish more people would - I'm certainly honored at how many *did* for the first time with Under the Lights. But that's sadness, not fear; anyone who has a problem with me writing/publishing f/f is...not for me, shall we say! It's something I very much plan to keep doing (though I do have more m/f plans and one m/m plan as well), and even if old readers don't stick with me/those books, hopefully the new readers who need them will!

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