# 4 (from my Substack archives): Non-Traditional Book Outlines
How toxic relationships and their patterns have influenced the way I plot.
If you’ve been following me on any of my social media accounts, you know that abuse—particularly domestic abuse—and all the ways others cover up for the abuser/deny the abused’s truth (you’d know a lot more if you knew me from my Twitter/X days, but don’t fret), is a huge theme is most (arguably all) of my work. It wasn’t always so blatantly obvious to me that this was the case until I read the wonderful S.T. Gibson’s A Dowry of Blood (their newsletter found here). That piece of heartbreaking gothic fiction (it’s also very queer, polyamorous, and has vampires in it, so give it a go) gave me a name and a realization that my work, especially the Lost Gods series, is very much a reflection on toxic dynamics I’d seen/lived through growing up and I couldn’t help but weave it more and more into my own projects, far more blatantly than before. So much so that the first sequence of Lost Gods (personally nicknamed in my head as Nightmare Hours in honor of the original tome of a story’s 2011-2017 title) has become a letter ripped where my pen pressed too hard to abusers everywhere.
This being said, in this post, I’ll be doing a deep dive into the abusive dynamics at play in the first sequence of the series and how the villain-love interest’s manipulation of the main point-of-view character carries that part of the series along. There will be spoilers but nothing I haven’t already shared across my social media accounts. Please, keep this in mind as you read (or don’t, depending on your personal triggers).
In Book I, Awakened Darkness, Colin’s careful seduction of Malory can be easily interpreted as a “kinda creepy older man who’s down bad for her”1 which is somewhat the point (especially for the first book). After all, not all abusers are obvious to their targets nor to everyone who isn’t looking for red flags (or those specific types of red flags).
In order to keep myself grounded (and potentially the reader as well depending on their personal background), I’ve placed a couple of characters in Book I that sees through his bullshit, but, due to their own personal interests and stakes in the story, they aren’t able to “save her.” Not that these two characters—one a human, one a monster, and both close to the main character—are bad people. They are a couple of LGBTQ+ and BlPOC(-coded) young adults who want to help their friend, but ultimately and especially at that point in time in Awakened Darkness, it is not their responsibility to save their white peer who’s consciously and unconsciously ignoring all of the warning signs. And it’s not like they don’t try. One repeatedly warns/asks Malory to be careful of her suspicious older love interest multiple times, and the other tries to light him on fire. It’s not their fault that Malory is so stubborn in her determination to get into one of the most toxic relationships of her life, and it is so not anyone’s responsibility but her own to ultimately free herself. If anyone comes for Emilia and Ali for these reasons, I swear to The Great and Holy, I will attack (silently and in my head, because that is the readers prerogative to analyze authors’ works as they see fit) and/or cry.
Needless to say, writing several outsiders to the relationship who don’t romanticize it and/or aren’t conflicted because they themself have been with the villain in the past (more on that specific character in Book II. I’ll likely do a post on the whole “dead cis-woman love interest trope” in the future.) tends to keep me from spiraling too deep into the “Oh my god, everyone is going to think that I think this is a healthy relationship.” Maybe people will. Maybe some won’t. The point is, I do not intend to glorify intimate partner violence when writing the Lost Gods series. Merely explore the cyclical nature of abusive relationships, the toxic codependency therein and just how much others on the outside will sweep everything under the rug in order to protect themself and/or the abuser and/or they think their silence might protect the abused (which is a conversation for another time).
Basically, what I’ve been trying to say for this entire newsletter is that the basis of the Lost Gods series first act’s plot is the four stages of the cycle of abuse, particularly domestic abuse of people who identify as women.2 The sequence of books after that is about how you deal with that, the conflicting emotions someone who’s abused might still have for the abusive loved one, the peer pressure of society to forgive, and discovering yourself once free from that person’s clutches. The following (and potentially final sequence) is an exploration of what redemption looks like for everyone involved and if it’s possible after everything the abuser’s done and what that may look like. Because this is also an incredibly self-indulgent project (and unlike in real-life where I am incredibly weary of assholes who claim to have reformed, I eat that up in fiction because catharsis), I’ve added the whole “villain redemption arc (maybe. We’ll see what that looks like when we get there.) where the villain has to grovel and put in a ton of work.”
I like making those bastards genuinely beg.
A vaguely remembered quote from an old friend who likes footnotes.
An article about recognizing and breaking the cycle of abuse.
