Writing Romance with Night

Romance is a genre that people either love or hate. There is rarely a reader that falls within the middle. Inside the genre, like with all genres, there are subcategories. Celeste Night is an author from Birmingham, Alabama that writes 18+ dark romances. Her particular brand of romance contains elements of bullying and organized crime. 

           “My first book was Queen of Clubs, which I released for free to newsletter subscribers as a prequel to Promise of Embers,” stated Night. “I released Queen of Clubs in April 2022 via Bookfunnel and Promise of Embers in May of 2022 on KU (Kindle Unlimited).”

           Not only is Night an author of dark romance but she’s a reader of it as well. She loves a good story with heavy bully elements. Ultimately, though, the reason she writes what she does is because of a friend. 

           “My best friend was looking for a book that had multiple men as a love interest, but I couldn’t recommend the books that I love because they were very dark or heavy bully. So, I started writing a chapter every night and emailing it to her. In January of 2022, my husband encouraged me to publish the story I was working on. I ended up falling in love with writing darker, gritter plot-heavy romance,” remarked Night. 

           Romance stories with multiple love interests fall under three categories; Reverse Harem, Why Choose, or Love Triangle. Reverse Harem and Why Choose are pretty much identical. Sometimes all love interests are in a polyamorous relationship together and sometimes they aren’t.

           Night stated that her inspiration for writing comes from, “everything from real-life experiences and events I have experienced, news articles, Tiktok stories, songs, pictures, and ideas I have while washing my hair.” 

           “Ideally, I would wake up around six, grab some water and breakfast, and get started for a few hours,” Night added when discussing her preferred writing routine. “Take a break to grab lunch and get started again. Unfortunately, with kids, life rarely works out like that. Character and world-building [are my favorite part of the process]. Slowly building the character relationships over time. I start with a basic plot concept and go from there. What pieces do I need to move the plot forward? Also, because I write romance, I think of qualities that I like in a male main character and create a profile for them before I ever start writing. Is he arrogant but actually broken? Maybe he’s cold and aloof, but has a hidden reason? For female main characters, I want them to be strong or emotionally resilient. I slowly layer them and figure out what would be the thing that motivates them and drives them forward. I want characters that my readers can identify/empathize with.”

           Night continued with, “I am a strong plantser (combination of plotter and pantser). I start with a premise and come up with a handful of initial scenes and an endpoint. As I get further into the book, new ideas pop up and I integrate them over time. Around chapter 15, I am able to set up a basic outline for the rest of the book and what needs to happen with two or three things that are essential to every scene.”

           When it comes to naming her stories, Night remarked that it depends on the book when the title comes to her. “Promise of Embers was mid-story,” she stated. “My upcoming work, Deviant Devotion, came as I was plotting.”

           Like all authors, Night must keep a close eye on the language she uses in her works. Every author has their own personality, which means we all have phrases we use a lot in our daily lives. Your characters won’t always share your personality and your readers might become annoyed with the over usage of specific words. So, it’s always important to look back on your story, through the eyes of a reader, and see what words you are using repeatedly. I, myself, overuse the word “nestle” and “nestled”. I like the description and it slips into my stories more times than it should. For Night, she overuses “walked” and “laughed”. 

           “[My least favorite part of the process] is self-edits. I use Control-F and discover I used the word ‘walked’ 78 times. Or ‘laughed’ 53 times. I’m always like, ‘Did you really do that?’”.

           Knowing computer shortcuts like control-f and control-v is crucial to any self-editing process. They help cut the time in half and let you be a master of your work instead of an apprentice struggling with the technology that’s supposed to bow to you. No matter the knowledge you have of your computer systems, however, you will always hit a wall while writing. Writer’s block is an ailment that affects people of our craft too often. It can’t be helped. It’s when your characters stop talking and your brain just says “Nope. Not going to do this”, and you end up struggling to get words written.

           “I take the approach [to writer’s block] that you don’t wait until inspiration hits to write, you just do it,” advised Night. “It’s the idea that you just put down words on the page even if it’s only 200. Everyone’s rough draft is just that, rough. If I am having a day I just don’t want to write, I put on some music, set a timer for fifteen minutes, and just type. When the alarm goes off, I get up and grab some water and maybe a snack. Then I repeat the process a few times. Usually, for me, if I am having a hard time writing a scene it means that it isn’t from the right POV or that it isn’t the way the story is supposed to go, so I just rework it into something I am enjoying.”

           Flawed Hearts is Night’s favorite book that she’s written because it’s a testament to her hard work and dedication to her trade. She stated, “You can see the amount of growth I’ve made in my writing [in Flawed Hearts]. I also became a lot more comfortable writing dark elements and broken characters. I gave myself permission to write it for myself and not worry about what anyone else would think, which is harder said than done sometimes. Even now, writing two upcoming projects, I throttle myself momentarily when alpha readers come back and tell me that the chapter hurt or upset them.”

         

 As part of this article, I read Flawed Hearts. I knew what I was getting into when I picked up the book and took my time to read the trigger warnings Night listed via a link in the front of the work. If you want to read this book, I highly recommend reading the triggers first. Dark romance is not for everyone, and you need to know what you will be consuming before you crack that spine or swipe the page if you read with Kindle. 

           Personally speaking, I am a fan of the enemies-to-lovers trope. Said trope is closely related to bully romance but isn’t identical, so I knew when I picked up Flawed Hearts that they might be some elements to the story that would make me uncomfortable. And there were. 

           As per my personal review guide, I gave Flawed Hearts 4 stars. Not because of bad writing or a dislike for the plot, but because of one trigger that I have trouble with in books. This trigger wasn’t used often, but it did pop up a few times and when I read it, it took me a little bit to get back into the story. The trigger was dubious consent, which does pop up a lot in dark romance. 

           The overall plot of the story was enjoyable. It takes place at a college where three boys are members of a gang. They fall for Ivy, the main girl, but one of them has trouble looking past the crimes her father committed. It’s important to note that these gang members aren’t entirely willing participants in organized crime. They’re sort of blackmailed into it. 

           I grew up in gang territory and have always been fascinated with gang romances and how ‘legacies’ (decedents of gang members) work. I loved how Night shows the conflict each of the guys feels bringing part of the gang to protect their families and the conflict Ivy feels as the daughter of a convicted felon.

           Flawed Hearts’ main theme is overcoming the sins of the father. Meaning, Ivy must learn that just because people place blame on her for what her father did it doesn’t mean she’s to blame. The story kicks off with an instant love feeling with the boys falling for Ivy pretty much as soon as they see her, but once they learn of her father things slow down into a gray area between instant love and slow burn. 

           There is a cliffhanger ending, which Night warns readers about before the story begins, but it only makes me want to read the next book more. 

           If you enjoy dark romance, you’ll like Flawed Hearts. Just be sure to read the trigger list. Night does an excellent job of communicating to her readers what they can expect to find within the pages, so don’t skip that trigger warning. It’s important. 

           For all you aspiring writers out there, or even you experienced ones, Night says, “Just do it. Don’t worry about reviews because reading is very subjective. There is a market out there for everyone! What one person won’t enjoy, another will. Get your stories into the world and remember it’s a marathon, not a sprint. Also, everyone thinks that their first draft is cringe-worthy. There is a ton of time to polish it into the story you want it to be.”