Have you ever had an issue in RL and worked it through by writing it out in a story? Maybe how you thought you’d feel in a situation? I do have some thriller novels partially completed on my hard drive, but not sure they will ever get done. And I also had on my idea list to write a “injured hands, bros help each other get off” fic at some point. That eventually became “A Second Harvest”. I wanted to write about a younger gay man who cooks for an older, widowed farmer, and they fall in love over these dinners. I’ve had ideas I’ve shelved because I had other commitments or just didn’t quite have the whole thing settled in my head. Have you ever put a story away, thinking it just didn’t work? Then years/months/whatever later inspiration struck and you loved it? Is there a title we would recognize if that happened? I can write that for a character on paper, but that’s far from who I am IRL. I’m a very quiet person myself, but I admire people who can be the life of the party, always joking and witty.

What traits do you find the most interesting in someone? Do you write them into your characters?

In sum: you need to give a character a few faults to feel “real”, but you have to be very careful what those are. I’m not a fan of reading about a millionaire asshole or a cheater myself. On the other hand, to me the thing I love about romance is that it’s a fairy tale that gives me hope and good feels. It’s often bemoaned by other authors I know that you can’t make a character “real” or the audience complains. I think especially these days, a writer has to be so cautious about making a character unsympathetic, whether they say or do something assholeish, check out another guy, say something non PC, or whatever.

Yeah, that’s something I’ve learned writing romance. If you write contemporary romance, is there such a thing as making a main character too “real”? Do you think you can bring too many faults into a character that eventually it becomes too flawed to become a love interest?

A Second Harvest by Eli Easton