Connor Hall's Blog: Peek Into My Mind

So, it's been decided. I'm a romance writer, at least for the time being. Unorthodox Fantasy seems to have set off some kind of tangent in my mind, and there are certain characters in said story I feel need some redemption (2D villains infuriate me, and I've gone and created one).

This series has started to echo around in my mind a little now, and though each story should stand alone I'm going to start introducing more and more characters for future stories. For the first time ever, it seems I've got to construct a series and stick to that construction. I've got books 2 and 3 planned (and 1,500 words of book 2 written), so once book 2 is finished I'll spend a few weeks detailing how far I want this series to go.

For now, my goal is to get book 2 finished and published by the end of the month. I know of romance authors who publish 50k-length works monthly, so surely I can manage 20,000 words a month, completely edited and with cover designed? A lofty goal considering my writing style errs towards 'slow', but one I definitely intend to reach.

For the first time ever, I've finished and published a book by myself, of my own volition. Having chosen to give Unorthodox Fantasy away for free for a few days on Kindle (check it out and leave a review!) in order to gain publicity. Unexpectedly I've had some success in my own niche genres including being in the top 20 worldwide in gay romance, and top 5 in the same category in the UK.

This is all amazing, but the story has been out a few days now and I'd love to move on and start writing something new, but I just don't know what yet. I've got ideas swirling around in my head but as soon as I think I've decided to start on one of them in earnest, another takes the forefront and commands my train of thought.

Another part of me fears how two of the ideas might take me completely 'off brand' - why write for a genre different to what I've published? My previous fear, of being a genre-hopping writer now confined to a singular line of thinking and writing, is slowly coming true - ah well, it'll all turn out alright in the end, or I might just end up writing a similar post in a week's time. My goal for the week is simple - to decide which story idea to run with first. I want to get my next novel-length work self-published OR at the stage where I can start querying agents by the end of the year. Let's see how that goes.

This genre-hop has been an eye-opening experience for me. I've realised that romance runs through every single story I've ever written, whether it be fantasy, sci-fi or horror. I write romance into my narratives because I'm a romantic at heart, and also because so many of my characters are gay, and it's easiest to represent that with romantic subplots, so jumping from YA fantasy to adult romance wasn't half as hard to do as I anticipated.

However, I have fallen into a bit of a problem - the romance I'm writing was always planned to be 15-20k words long, just a short thing to get me into writing again. At the moment I'm 16,000 words in and the end is in sight...but it isn't. Not really. I've written two characters whom I love and for whom I want to write the perfect ending, but that ending just isn't forthcoming. I thought I knew exactly how this story would end, but it's all in abstract in my mind, so when it came down to writing their final conversations I just didn't know what to write. And I still don't.

The ending is exactly where I'm struggling most with romance in a way that I wouldn't have to worry in YA fantasy. The emotional payoff in all genres is of course important but especially so in romance - rather than write an ending around a big event, saving the world or fighting off monsters I have to write around two characters and the feelings they have for one another and somehow that's harder for me to do. End of the world - easy. Two characters dancing around their love for one another - now that's a tough one.

I'll get there though. With just another few hundred of the right words, Sam and Rhys will decide whether they want to give their love a go or not, and whether they do is entirely in my hands. I wish them the best of luck.

Since the start of my writing journey, I've always written for my age - when I was 10, I wrote the books I always wanted to read, i.e. fantasies based around ten year olds. As I grew, so did my protagonists. Until recently, that is.

I'm now 20 years old and I find myself at odds - I've been writing YA (young adult fiction) and not much else for the last few years. I write a lot of fantasy despite not reading a lot of new, original fantasy (the exception to this rule being Patrick Ness' books, well worth a read if you haven't). The other day I got a bit of an eye opener in the form of an anomaly.

The anomaly I discovered was a 1000 word short story I'd written and published on Kindle for 99p 4 years ago. It was sloppy and needed work, but a quick search on Goodreads told me people had actually read it. The story was a very domestic romance based around a 20 year old author meeting a 25 year old editor at Cardiff Central train station. If 16 year old me could write slightly more adult fiction that people actually like (it's currently got 3 ratings on Goodreads, averaging 3.67) then why can't 20 year old me do the same?

So I've decided it's time to challenge myself. The story has rarely sold at 99p, so I've decided to make it worth the money. I've unpublished it briefly and decided to expand the story to 15-20k words. There's so much more for these characters to do that I couldn't have written four years ago.

I've already changed their names (I was never happy with those), and increased their ages a little, but the core tenets of the story remain. Who knows, my next story might be a hop back to YA fantasy, but right now, my heart is with these two idiots who don't yet know they love each other.

Stay tuned for Coincidence, Revised Edition, (title TBC) coming in August.

When struggling writer Rhys Jones meets editor Sam Adams on a train station he discovers that both their destinations and destinies might be shockingly similar. If Rhys is to intertwine their stories, he'll have to let go of some deep-held insecurities, even as Sam tries to hide his own.