It’s finally February, and with Valentine’s Day coming up next week, love is in the air! So is smoke, fear, and hatred from the recent wildfires, plane crashes, and political upheaval here in the United States… but, since this is a fanfic website, and we’re all here to escape the hellscape that is the real world, let’s focus on the love. For my third Throwback Thursday blog, I’m featuring five of my favorite couples from my fics. While I’ve never considered myself to be a true romance writer, many of my novels do include romantic subplots. The original theme of this blog was going to be “favorite romantic chapters,” but when I realized that my top five might all come from the same story, I changed it to couples instead to ensure more variety. As I blog about each pair of characters, I’ll also include a link to one of my favorite romantic chapters that features them.
5. Nick and Cary
Coming in at number five are the two main characters of Curtain Call. Nick and Cary had a unique relationship that started out professional but became deeply personal, growing from a platonic friendship into a romantic relationship over the course of this ninety-chapter novel. He was a dream maker and mentor to her, while she was a caregiver, confidant, and companion to him. After spending the first half of the story pretending to be a couple, they didn’t become an actual couple until the last third – and, even then, it was difficult for them to define their relationship. Nick only referred to himself as Cary’s boyfriend once, in Chapter 74, and the handful of times they said “I love you” out loud to each other all happened in the last fifteen chapters. Their love story was a slow burn that unfortunately got extinguished before it ever really had a chance to ignite. But, even if it had turned out differently, I’m not sure they would have lasted long-term. This may be a controversial take to some readers, but, to be honest, their relationship always seemed a little one-sided to me. Cary loved Nick more than he loved her. He cared about her, of course, but he also took advantage of her and kept her around out of convenience and loneliness. These two characters may have had more chemistry as friends than lovers, but I enjoyed exploring both sides of their unconventional relationship. And there’s no better chapter to highlight the romantic side than Chapter 75, which takes place on Valentine’s Day. If you pretend it’s the last chapter of the story, you can even enjoy a happy ending! Well, almost. 🙃
4. Kevin and Natalie
My fourth favorite couple is the one I’m currently writing about in The World Will Be Waiting. After widowing Kevin in My Brother’s Keeper, I wanted to write a sequel in which he fell in love again. Of course, his future lover would have big shoes to fill in order to follow in Kristin’s footsteps because, in real life, Kevin and Kristin are pretty much the perfect couple – or as close to the perfect couple as any two people could possibly be. So I had quite the challenge ahead of me in creating the character that would become Natalie. She needed to be both the kind of woman Kevin would fall in love with and the kind of woman who would love him back, but she couldn’t be too perfect because Mary Sues are boring. Like any couple, Kev and Nat needed conflict to keep things interesting. As a long-distance, interabled couple with a ten-year age gap, they had plenty of it! Like Cary with Nick, Natalie had to strike a balance between being a girlfriend and being a caregiver, while Kevin struggled to become comfortable with her stepping into both roles. Then, of course, there were the intimacy issues that accompanied Kevin’s disability and his desire to both satisfy her and be satisfied himself. And, on top of that, they also experienced the typical problems many couples have to contend with, from trust issues to family drama and everything in between. I had a hard time picking my favorite romantic chapter featuring these two, but I went with Chapter 42, which takes place on their six-month anniversary. It contains a lot of cute moments that reflect how far their relationship had come by that point in the story. As of the writing of this blog, Kevin and Natalie always managed to work through their differences and grow together as a couple. Will that continue? You’ll have to keep reading to find out!
3. Howie and Nick
No offense intended to those who are, but I’ve never been a big shipper, especially when it comes to the Backstreet Boys. I don’t have a problem with slash, but since the Boys have always presented as straight in real life, I used to struggle with the suspension of disbelief required to fully enjoy reading a fanfic about two of them being in a romantic or sexual relationship with each other. That was exactly why I decided to try my hand at writing slash. I wanted to challenge myself and see if I could take it seriously. I picked Nowie as my pairing because of an interview they did where Howie got teased for fixating on Nick’s pubic hair. The defensive way Howie reacted to Nick saying, “There’s always one in every group,” made it possible for me to suspend my disbelief and imagine a scenario in which Howie, after hiding in the closet for two decades, finally decided to act on the secret crush he had on Nick. This became the basis for a one-shot, Unsuspecting Sunday, which led to a novel-length sequel, Sick as My Secrets. While I did have Nick and Howie get drunk and hook up in the first story, Nick did not react well the next morning, causing conflict between the two of them that continued into the second story. SAMS had its own premise that took the drama to another level, and when I started writing it, I honestly wasn’t sure whether it would be a romance or not. While Howie’s feelings for Nick were clear, I had a hard time figuring out how Nick felt about Howie. I didn’t want to force them to become a couple; if it happened, it would have to happen naturally. But I secretly hoped it would because, like I said, I was up for a challenge. I may have given Nick a little nudge in the direction I wanted his character to go, but I definitely didn’t make him develop romantic feelings for Howie against his will. I didn’t have to – because, as it turned out, it wasn’t actually that difficult to take the brotherly love that Nick and Howie clearly have for each other in real life to the next level. In a lot of ways, their relationship in SAMS was similar to that of Nick and Cary’s in Curtain Call. It started with hurt, which lead to comfort, and after dancing around their feelings for dozens of chapters, they finally started putting the passion in “compassion.” While admittedly not my favorite romantic chapter of SAMS (I’m saving those for future blogs!), Chapter 58 shows that progression. But, alas, like Nick and Cary before them, Nick and Howie didn’t last nearly long enough. Their slow burn relationship crashed and burned before it ever fully took flight, but I sure had a lot of fun writing it. That’s why Nowie ranks number three on my list.
2. Brian and Gretchen
My second place couple is Brian and Gretchen from Song for the Undead. You probably don’t think of romance when you read that title, and for good reason: Song for the Undead is predominantly a horror/survival story that takes place during a zombie apocalypse. But that doesn’t mean there’s no room for romance! Those survivors had to repopulate the Earth somehow, right? Brian and Gretchen certainly understood the assignment! I had a lot of fun writing these two characters. Since Brian got married the same year I started this site, I moved away from writing Brian romance early on in my fanfic-writing career. I got tired of coming up with creative ways to get rid of Leighanne, so I transitioned to writing more Nick stories instead. But then I discovered the magic of AU! In an alternate universe, I could have Brian marry whomever I wanted, and his real life wife didn’t have to exist at all! Ironically, Leighanne did exist in this AU, but only for a few chapters – and the way I got rid of her was the most creative one yet! After ramming a towel bar through Undead Leighanne’s eye socket, Brian wasn’t looking for love, but he found it – or, rather, Gretchen found him. She wasn’t looking for love either, only her husband, Shaun. But once it became clear that Shaun was never coming back, these two widows found a way to move on together, just like they’d been surviving all along. They started out as strangers and ended up spouses, after helping each other heal and saving one another in so many ways. I will have more to say about each of these characters as individuals in future blogs, but, together, Brian and Gretchen had one of my favorite story arcs to write in Undead. Their budding romance brought beauty, hope, and life to a world full of death, decay, and despair, as evidenced in my favorite romantic chapter from this story, Chapter 88. Despite the trauma these two endured individually and collectively, their actual relationship had the least drama of all the couples on this list and lasted the longest of the four I’ve discussed so far.
The couple with the most drama is, of course, my favorite one!
1. Nick and Claire
Was there any question that my favorite couple would be Nick and Claire from Broken and By My Side? Two decades later, these characters still hold a special place in my heart. When I first came up with the idea for Broken, I didn’t imagine it becoming a romance. But, because Nick romance was so popular, I tried to make it look like a romance in the beginning by having Nick start dating a stripper plot device named Leah. For some reason, I thought this would lure more readers to the story, when it actually probably just turned people off. 🤷♀️ Leah sucked as a character, but the only real point of her was to represent Nick’s life before he got diagnosed with cancer. Once he did, I introduced the character of Claire, a fellow cancer patient, who would become Nick’s friend, confidant, and eventual lover over the course of the story. While not nearly as witty, they were like Hazel and Gus from The Fault in Our Stars before The Fault in Our Stars was a thing. As you’d expect in a 150-chapter novel (and that’s just Broken), Nick and Claire’s relationship was another slow burn. That was by design, and I did it that way for a couple of reasons: First, I wanted the focus of Broken to be on Nick, so I introduced Claire slowly and kept her in a supporting role that started out minor and gradually grew into a more major role until she reached main character status in the sequel, By My Side. Second, I was following what I call the “Doug and Carol” rule. Doug and Carol were the power couple from the early seasons of my favorite TV show, ER, but it took them three seasons to get (back) together. When it finally happened, it was so much more satisfying than if it had happened right away in Season 1. That’s why I wanted to take things slow with Nick and Claire; I was hoping my readers would be rooting for them to fall in love before they actually did. This also allowed me to develop Claire’s character and her friendship with Nick as a solid foundation for their relationship before building on it, which is one of the reasons why it worked so well. Of course, once Nick and Claire finally got together, they couldn’t just sail off into the sunset together and live happily ever after. Well, they tried to at the end of Broken, but then I wrote a sequel! Most of their relationship drama happened in BMS because I needed conflict and wanted to break them up so that I could have the fun of getting them back together. Despite making some questionable decisions and dragging the drama out for way too many chapters, I did have fun writing BMS, and Nick and Claire did end up finding their way back to each other and finished the story together. I had a hard time picking a favorite romantic chapter featuring these two because there are so many little moments throughout Broken and BMS that I love. But, in the end, I went with their wedding chapter, the Epilogue of BMS. Not only is it the culmination of Nick and Claire’s relationship, but it’s a fitting representation of both Broken and By My Side: long, cheesy, and beautiful. To quote a line from the chapter: “In its imperfection, it was perfect.” And, just for funsies, since I don’t think I actually have this linked anymore, click here to see the page I made with pictures from the wedding I planned in great detail for a pop star and a fictional character. Talk about a throwback! 😆
That’s all for this edition of Throwback Thursday! I’ll be back in two weeks for a Brian-themed blog on his fiftieth(!😱) birthday!