Creating Fate, Coincidence, and Jonathan

After writing the Awakened series, I took quite a bit of time off before returning to writing at all, and it wasn't until I saw a comic about Fate and Chance meeting for coffee that the idea popped into my head. How would they act if they were real, living beings in our world? What would they do to each other or those around them? Traditionally, the Fates (usually three sisters or three women) do not interfere with the lives of mortals. Still, they are responsible for measuring the length of their life, shaping the course of their life, and cutting their string of fate to determine how long that life will be. In my story, Fate is based on Lachesis, the middle Fate, who measured the life of mortals and was considered to be the one who determined a mortal's destiny.

Coincidence is based on the Greek god of possibility, Caerus. I realize this is not the same as Coincidence, but it felt like the antithesis of Fate. If Fate is determined, the god of possibility exists outside that determined path. I wanted my two characters to constantly be at odds with each other: one who followed strict rules and predetermined paths and one who did what they wanted and never worried about the consequences or outcomes of their actions.

For me, it wasn't enough that these characters would interact with each other, they needed a third person to manipulate, since gods can't use their powers on each other, they needed an outsider to be the one through whom they could prove themselves. Unfortunately, not everything goes according to plan, but they figure out how to make things work, and the real battle for supremacy begins. Jonathan, the mortal who is lucky or unlucky enough to befriend the two gods, is never the wiser when it comes to their tricks, influences, and outright manipulations. His focus is purely and entirely on finding a date for prom and maybe feeling a little less lonely since he's the only "out" gay guy in their small town.

The three characters have a lot of fun, and their friendship was really fun to write. In Awakened and Challenged, Caleb has a best friend who is the comic relief, and Fate and Coincidence trade-off in that role, but Jonathan does as well. And, to me, it felt like there was a much stronger balance between the three than between Caleb and Megan. She was there for a laugh and then disappeared during Caleb's hardest moments in the books, but even when Jonathan struggles, he's not alone. That was something important that I wanted to bring to this book. I think, especially for LGBTQIA+ youth these days, our friends and found family are so important in our lives, even for those enough with supportive families. Our friends are often the first people we come out to, the first to know about crushes, drama, or whatever is happening in our lives, and I wanted to show that those relationships can exist and can be wonderful, even in totally platonic ways.

But it wouldn't be a RomCom without some romance, and I love that the three POVs are from a gay, aro/ace, and pansexual perspective. We get inside the heads of the three main characters as Jonathan struggles to find love and see what else (or who else) gets picked up along the way. I'm used to writing from a gay male perspective, so getting into the headspace for a pansexual and aro/ace character was a fun challenge, especially because the main point of the story is to find Jonathan a little bit of love. And not to lean too heavily on Shakespeare, but when he said, "the course of true love never did run smooth," he was definitely talking about teen relationships and first love! They may not last forever, but they feel so intense in the moment that it feels like they do. For Jonathan, Fate, and Coincidence, love, sex, and romance are very different things, and each have very different opinions and feelings about each. I hope that this story is a good balance of the three perspectives and a fun exploration of first love and the often very painful things that it brings.