On Romance

Somehow, and without my prior knowledge, I have ended up writing a character story.

This may seem obvious to most people. After all, there are characters in every story, right? What I mean is that in this story, the main driving source of the tension is going to have to be the relationship between two of the viewpoint characters. This will be new to me.

Tension from mystery or plot twists is not a new technique to me. My characters, on the other hand, have typically been awful. Jacob from Wolfhound is a decent character, but the main tension from the story lies in the adventure he's on, not necessarily his character arc. Kingsley and Patricia aren't bad, in fact they are the best characters I've had, but the mystery provides the tension that drives their story. This time, in Iron Angels, Gabriel and Susan have to make the story work a bit more on their own.

That makes me incredibly nervous. How do I keep getting myself into these situations? At the very least the writing group will let me know how well--or how poorly--I manage it. Maybe I'll even be able to salvage it and it won't turn into New Realm, my least successful experiment to date. Sigh.