My Greywater Chronicles books are a relatively normal exploration of friendship and love. There are no monsters and no one gets stuck in a dungeon with orcs or evil sorcerers (not that I don’t want to write that book someday). But I definitely used the traditions of Dungeons & Dragons (D&D) while writing my first novel.

1. Get them all in a dungeon: Before the action even starts in Mistakes Were Made, Jules breaks both her ankles. This allowed me to keep her stuck in a recovery center–Misty Forests–for the first section of the book. Similar to how exploring a dungeon keeps role playing characters from wandering off from the intended quest, Misty Forests keeps the action and characters under control.
   My second book, Best Laid Plans, uses a different kind of limitation with the structure of the book (two chapter a season with alternating point of view). This was much more challenging and not nearly as much fun, but did force me to really try to see things through the eyes of both of my protagonists. Misty Forests was more fun, though!
2. Alignment: a quick shorthand for the moral code that governs characters behavior in D&D, this is a fun way to think about how my characters in novels approach life. On the lawful-neutral-chaotic scale, most of my characters are in the lawful to neutral range, but I have two who tend to me closer to chaotic. On the good-neutral-evil scale, I have one brother who behaves pretty poorly, but even he is not firmly in the evil camp. And yes, the D&D Classes (or Jungian archetypes) are also helpful!
3. Fighting when stakes are low: some of the most amusing moments in D&D can happen when the stakes are incredibly low–who drank the last goblet of ale? why are my tights stretched out? why does he always get to ask for directions? I try to remember this when my characters are starting to drift a bit. They can fight about stupid things.
4. Adventure: what is D&D without an adventure? (rhetorical question) And so, what are my stories without some sort of adventure? This is both the larger arc of their exploration and also in little moments in a new place or in a new social interaction. Life (and stories) are more fun if we can see the adventure that we’re having, even if there aren’t any actual dragons or orcs.

I’m sure there are other D&D elements I’m using without even realizing it, and I will add them in as I realize. And someday I promise I’ll write an adventure novel. With a bard.

One of the tensions I find most interesting in writing is between providing real, vivid details and creating space for the reader’s imagination. I have an overactive imagination and as a reader, I love filling in the open areas of books to build connections to my own experiences. This is particularly true for me in romance, fantasy, and science fiction.

Because of this, there are some intentional ambiguities in the Greywater Chronicles universe with Mistakes Were Made and Best Laid Plans. I read a lot of classic science fiction growing up (and enjoyed Star Wars) where I switched the gender of the heroes. While my characters do have a specific gender identity and use gendered pronouns, I chose many names that do not have single gender uses and character traits and professions that do not always line up with traditional western ideas of gender. Besides a nice push back against more rigid roles, this hopefully also allows readers to more easily see their own gender identity in my characters.

I also like to imagine that I live in the cities or farms or tents or spaceships or castles of my favorite books. The Greywater Chronicles are clearly set in Portland, Oregon, but I don’t name the city initially. Furthermore, the

Race and class are perhaps the trickiest for me to give space for the reader to see themselves. I try to use descriptions that show the personality of my characters while not excluding readers’ own physicality. However, my characters are reasonably well employed, and not struggling with being part of a minority or oppressed group. They just want to find love and happiness, which is a luxury we rarely acknowledge.

All this being said, I also love stories that are incredibly specific in the details so that I can attempt to imagine life as someone completely different from myself. I’d be sad if everything was written so that I could project myself onto the characters, but I quite enjoy some character projection from time to time.