There is no surprise in the revelation when I say I enjoy (and sometimes prefer) both internal and external conflict in my romances (both erotic and non-erotic). Usually, the more layers, the better. I like real stories about real people. Flawed characters with flawed pasts and scars all over them to show they’ve LIVED. Very rarely is a character perfect. Sure things get pretty damn hot between the sheets for them, because I like that too. But just as I don’t shy away from things, I don’t shy away from the sex. There are no closed doors.
Sometimes the external conflict plays an important puzzle piece in the romance, sometimes it doesn’t. It varies, just as each book I write is different. The balance of conflict is just as varied as the characters themselves. Sometimes the characters know what is coming right at them that they are powerless to stop. Other times, they don’t have a clue. Sometimes the readers knows the danger and wants to reach through the pages to warn the characters in some fashion. Then, there are times when no one can see what is coming and is blindsided.
I love all these instances. All of them.
When I wrote Rock Your Soul, I knew someone from Beth’s past needed to be on her heels at every step. Breathing down her neck and essentially stalking her. This person was obsessed, through and through. I simply didn’t know WHO that person from her past was even though I found myself writing scenes from that person’s POV. There was an assortment of possibilities available as more and more pieces of her past were reveal–especially after the very emotional breakdown she has at one point in the book. The very moment the reveal is made to readers, is the very same time it was revealed to me. Sure, I could then go back and then layer in a bit more now that I knew without giving anything away, but that was quite the moment.
Then enters Break Me In. Another book I knew where a character’s past would be at the forefront, but in a different way. From the first book of the series, Alex has been broken. I received notes from readers saying they wanted to simply hug him because of everything he’d been through. At the beginning of the book, Alex is an alcoholic. And he doesn’t make any kind of apologies for it. He openly drinks to excess without batting an eyelash. Alex is that shattered by the direction his life has taken. This doesn’t mean he’s weak or somehow less of a man – and I so very much wanted to show this. I wanted to give him his redemption. And so enter the part I talked about above by the reader (and author) being blindsided…
Even with his alcoholism, there are many, many happy times. Woven into the story is a wedding (Patrick and Allison – FINALLY!) and babies (whose?? – you’re gonna have to read to find out)! But, and I will not candycoat this in any way, shape or form: There is a death in Break Me In. Killing something that has been with you for a long time is a very, very hard thing to do – don’t let authors fool you. I don’t think of my books or characters as my kids, but they are my fictional characters and stories. Things I have created from nothing – so, yes, it does hurt when you have to take the story in a direction you never saw it going. I knew before I started writing Break Me In this event was going to happen. I knew it way deep down inside me, yet I cried like a freakin’ baby when it came time to write the chapter.
That said, Break Me In does end with a HEA – because I truly believe in those and Alex deserved one. Really and truly deserved one after everything he’d been through. The landscape of the Geek Kink series, and the town of Gatlin Falls, has been altered by events in Break Me In, but there is one more story to tell!
The conflict in Glad You Came is much more internal between the three people (yes, three!) involved, though the elements I love about external conflict are present as well. Which brings me to…who do you think is the triad in Glad You Came? I’ve been dropping blatant hints from the beginning in Taking Over Me, but now I want to know what you think!