So, I’ve just finished writing a set of Regency stories m/m stories based around a little group of gay/bi gentlemen. As I have mentioned, this came about because I wrote a Regency card-game gay-Heyeresque story, ‘The Ruin of Gabriel Ashleigh’, for the anthology Another Place in Time. (‘Ruin’ is shortly to be available as a standalone story.) That story focuses very much on the two MCs, but the background I sketched in gave me the idea for what’s now being published as the Society of Gentlemen trilogy.

Another thing I wrote this year was ‘A Queer Trade’, a Victorian paranormal story about a warlock and a waste-paper dealer for the anthology Charmed & Dangerous. And, um…yeah…I appear to be writing their full novel now, as Rag and Bone.

Way to recycle, KJ.

I didn’t mean to turn either ‘Ruin’ or ‘Queer Trade’ into novels while writing them. I don’t feel compelled to turn everything I write into an ongoing series, honest. And I don’t think either of those short stories feels unfinished. In my view (not that I’m opinionated or anything) a romance has to end on a point where you can be satisfied that you’ve got a positive ending right now, even if the story is to continue. Patrick O’Brien’s Aubrey/Maturin series ends one book with our heroes falling unnoticed off the side of the boat and flailing helplessly in the ocean as their ship sails away. Do that in romance and you’ll be sorry. I mean, what happens if the author falls under a bus and leaves the characters broken up forever? Calamity, that’s what.

So I am perfectly happy with stories that stop. I wasn’t tempted to add more to Ash and Francis’ story after ‘Ruin’: the Society of Gentlemen trilogy is all about their friends, with them as important minor characters. It’s not an extension of the story, but an extension of the world.

Whereas, I did feel compelled to continue the story of Crispin and Ned from ‘A Queer Trade’. Which seems odd. Ned and Crispin are in a good place at the end of that story, they’re happily starting a new relationship which on the face of it is much less problematic than Ash and Francis’s efforts to overcome years of hostility and family hatred. If I had fallen under a bus after delivering ‘A Queer Trade’, I don’t think anyone would be howling because they’d never find out what happens. It seemed finished.

And yet it obviously wasn’t, because I’m still writing them. So what is it that made one story HEA and the other one TBC?

I know that Ash and Francis are OK at the end of their story; in fact, I couldn’t write them a full book if I tried. No more to say; they’re good right there. Whereas Ned and Crispin, who seemed in an equally good place…well, I wrote the synopsis for their novel at white heat. Something in my head told me Ned and Crispin had unfinished business that needed sorting, while Ash and Francis were fine.

I’ve spent the entire time writing this post wondering what that something was.

And I think it’s this: in ‘Ruin’ both characters face up to long-denied truths. Just as my Charm of Magpies trilogy comes to an end when the MCs have both finally confronted some fairly difficult things about who they are and how they behave. Whereas in ‘Queer Trade’, there is undeniably a demon Crispin hasn’t faced.

I think their story was scratching at me because Crispin had got away with something he shouldn’t have. I think that I don’t quite trust him at the end of ‘A Queer Trade’ to get it right in the future. I think that was nagging at me to be dealt with before I can safely let the characters go their way into their post-book off-page future.

Because that’s an HEA for me: an ending that leaves me sure they’ll get it right from now on. And however long or short or multi-volume the story is, it’s not finished until we can trust the characters to do just that.

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KJ Charles is a writer and editor who blogs; follow her briefer ramblings on Twitter @kj_charles.

A Fashionable Indulgence, book 1 of the Society of Gentlemen trilogy, is out now from Loveswept.

‘The Ruin of Gabriel Ashleigh‘ is available as a short story from 27 October. Rag and Bone comes out next March.