Arrolynn

“I Am Machine” by Three Days Grace. I was really taken by the emotion in it, and thought it would make a compelling story.

Immediately. While many of my books took a long time to develop, the kernel of this story just popped into my head.

Arrolynn and her AI best friend Takerie put their lives on the line in a high-action race for riches.

I didn’t purposely set out to take on anything serious. Exploring the interactions between an AI personality and a human was my first interest; how deep and motivating and quirky a relationship like that could be. I guess that’s something that’s always interested me, and why I’m a sucker for romance: relationships. I wouldn’t say that original plan took a back seat to the rest of the story, but it’s not as prominent as it was in early drafts. Many other themes developed along with it during the process. In my opinion, this didn’t diminish my original intention, but enriched it.

Takerie. I don’t think he even changed from my original vision. I struggled with changing his name, though. I had all these fantastic names: Arrolynn, Sumitara, Jaispar…and then the AI was named Brian. Everyone who read the early versions pointed out how silly this was, but I had the hardest time switching gears. To me, that was his name. I’d never so forcibly changed a character’s name before. But with research and brainstorming and a lot of thought, I developed a name that I think suits him, and that I’m fallen in love with (sorry not sorry, Brian).

Making Arrolynn likable. I have a hard time with that. When I first got serious about writing, I was terribly cliché. All the women in my stories needed to be saved by a big, strong man. Then I realized it wasn’t working for me, and made drastic changes to my way of thinking. After that, all my female characters were strong and independent—and so cold. My male leads were always fun but each female was, as one friend put it, “a tough nut to crack.” It was not believable for them to develop warm, strong relationships in such a short amount of time. They were so “strong” that there wasn’t room for the characters to lean on each other and grow together. So, I struggled with that balance, and only in the latest drafts of Arrolynn did I finally find it.

The talk, talk, talk. The character interactions and relationships—probably because that’s one of my favorite aspects. After that came action, and much, much later did I weave in descriptive language.

Three new books, all wildly different from each other. Let’s just say: superheroes, virtual reality, and royalty in disguise.