Character Flaws

When I start brainstorming a series, that can look different every time. For Crossed Souls, it started with the characters—Willa specifically. I saw her initially as a sort of cupid-like character who was destined to help people find love while also being a person who couldn’t find it herself. She’d never known what being in love felt like, and was a really lonely person.

So many of the reverse harems I read involve a female main character who’s badass almost right from the beginning. That’s not who Willa is, though. She’s just not. She’s been beaten down by life, and instead of rising to the occasion, she’s been defeated and is sort of just trying to get through her days and appreciate the things she does have and the people who are in her life.

Unfortunately, this means that sometimes life just happens to her. She doesn’t know how to handle it when life throws her a massive curveball she didn’t expect. Because she’s naïve and been sheltered her whole life, she doesn’t always make great decisions. In the first book of the Twisted Soul Magic series, this means that sometimes she’s a pushover. She lets her guys make decisions and goes along with them because she’s just trying to learn how this new world works before she jumps in.

She’s cautious and inadvertently reckless at the same time because she doesn’t have all the information. She’s doing her best, but sometimes her best is frustrating because she doesn’t seem to get it.

Trust me when I say this is all part of the plan. Yes, I’ve got a plan for Willa and how she’s going to grow throughout the series. She won’t always be the clueless and frustrating heroine she is in book one. If she were, that would make for a shitty series, right? But… if she doesn’t start somewhere low, how can she have the journey that will make you root for her to have happiness and everything perfect by the end of the series?

You’d get just as bored if she was a badass from the beginning and stayed a badass throughout. So, while I know book one might’ve been frustrating, I promise things will get much, much better as the series goes on.