A story needs some kind of conflict, to give it depth. In romance, we take that across a wide range, from fluffy I’m-still-a-virgin or I-missed-his-birthday to all kinds of deep trauma. LA Witt likes to call it “suffersauce” as she ladles it out for her main characters. Amy Lane has her “angst and pain.”

Romance is about hope, about that happy ending. That requires a beginning or an arc with less hope, less happy, to make the story work. Every author, every book, decides how much less. (Or in the case of a pantser like me, waits for the characters to emerge and let us know how bad things are.)

Some books, I had no idea how much pain was in store for my main characters. Case in point, Home Work, the third in my Life Lessons series which just came out in audio with JF Harding. I was blindsided about 2/3 of the way into writing the book (which, at the time, I thought was going to be the last in the series.) Mac and Tony’s journey to found-family didn’t turn out at all as smoothly as I expected. It took me another book to round out all of those sharp edges.

Other books, I know from the start. Alec came from one of the freebie short stories I wrote for my Facebook group – Kaje’s Conversation Corner. I write a lot of short fic from photo prompts, and this prompt of a man on a lonely pier had whispered to me of Alec, and his recent loss of his small son. Group members wanted to see him find more healing than the freebie story I wrote allowed. But I knew that would mean finding a way to build a life around the hole in his heart.

I got Alec to his HEA in the novel, hopefully respecting his grief along the way. The book brought me 11-year-old Kevin, who was a joy to write and gave the story some of its light moments, plus solid, compassionate Joe. And Zelda the rescue dog, who gave Alec a safe place to begin to open his heart. My goal is always to leave readers with warmth and joy after I’ve wrung their empathy along the way.

I like reading angst too. For me, the joy is stronger, the hope is more real and more powerful, when there’s darkness before it. I’m one of those odd people who reads angsty stories (Amy Lane, I’m looking at you) when life is stressful. Maybe in a sense of “if they can wring joy from that situation, there’s always hope.” I’m not into really dark stories, with people who do unspeakable things, but I do like seeing main characters overcome real hurt.

Of course, sometimes I like fluff. I haven’t written much of it, although my next rockstar book, Hidden Blade which comes out Oct 4th, is pretty light despite one MC’s social anxiety, and the title.  I do try to put humor in all my stories, even in the hard moments, for balance.

Luckily, there’s an audience for every angst level and every story. I’m looking forward to seeing what readers think of both Alec and Hidden Blade but regardless of the response, I had great fun moving between these two stories the last few months.

Now to decide what new character is due a ladle of Witt’s suffersauce… It’s fun to be an author. (Rubbing hands with a menacing cackle as I pull up the next manuscript.)

– Kaje Harper
Sept 2022