My Writing and Writing Journey #1: The Origins of Coalescent

Coalescent began with just a trope: enemies to lovers. It’s a trope I’m rather fond of, and I wanted to tell my own story with it. I love the idea of character relationships changing so drastically over time, and one benefit of enemies to lovers is that the characters can already know the other’s worst side. For me, I love to watch the progression: enemies to reluctant allies to friends to lovers. That is what I wanted to portray in my story, and everything else was built around that concept.

When I first sat down to outline this story, I divided it into three sections: his story, her story, and their story. The first two would show what happened in Bryn and follow them until their reunion in Wen. The third part would be their journey together. This was done because I wanted to show both Alec’s arc of growth and Sable’s arc of falling apart. I enjoy those kinds of arcs, so this seemed like a good time to include them. It’s also not just a love story: it’s their story.

Since I wanted them to become reluctant allies, I needed a reason why they would work together. That drove the overarching conflict, character creation, and world building. I had to explain 1) what stakes would lead them to agree to this, 2) why they believed cooperation was necessary, and 3) why it had to be them specifically. After that, I started filling in details, and after debating a lot of plot points, I finally found a rough outline I was happy with.

Initially, I planned to leave this story on hold for the moment. I’ve been working on another project, so I thought I should focus on that. Unfortunately, that project is a trilogy, and that has made it difficult. When amazon announced a Kindle Vella competition, I wanted to enter, and this story was already outlined and ready to write. I needed only ten chapters, and that wouldn’t have even finished Alec’s side of the story. As much as I wanted to write about his growth, I decided to jump ahead to their reunion in Bryn. I figured that would be a more compelling storyline.

As I wrote, I ended up changing this (as usual). Some sections were lengthened, and scenes were added. I’m not good at estimating, so what was originally anticipated to be about 20 chapters ended up at 30. I also never expected it to reach 50,000 words either. It may not be a perfect story, but I’m happy with it. I wrote a story that I wanted to read, and I hope others enjoy it as well.