Hi, I’m Micki Janae, author of OF BLOOD AND LIGHTNING–a contemporary YA fantasy about a young Black girl who inherits the incredible power of Zeus as well as a lifelong struggle with grief and loss.

The characters you create are the bridge your readers cross to connect to the stories you tell. Literature is essentially communication from one human being to another. Whether you’re writing a cozy, seaside romance or a high fantasy in a fictionalized world, the humanity within your characters is what connects readers to the humanity within your story. It’s not just enough to see them succeed, or get what they want, or even save the day.

Failure is an important and often, persistent, aspect of the human condition, as are grief, pain, suffering, and loss. It’s important to include characters that endure the full spectrum of these experiences—the highs and lows in kind. James Baldwin is famous for saying that our suffering is our “bridge.” This is why we write: to extend a hand from one human to another and communicate that these experiences—both good and bad—are not isolated but shared throughout the collective.

Whether you’re developing your protagonist or supporting cast, it’s important that they’re as human as possible. Don’t shy away from giving them flaws, personal struggles, and adverse circumstances. Seeing these characters as flawed and human allows readers to find themselves within your story and really connect with the message you want to communicate. Happy Writing!

Megan Clark

Megan Clark is a contemporary romance writer and voracious romance reader who gets far too big a thrill from taking characters from their lowest points to an HEA. She’s a hiker, knitter, and above all, believer in writing as a hopeful act.

Amy McCord

If you gave Amy McCord a horse, a guitar, and a trunk full of flowers, you’d probably never hear from her again. An introvert at heart with a spitfire Enneagram 8 spine, Amy turned a flower side hustle into an online DIY empire. Flower Moxie has appeared in Forbes, Martha Stewart Weddings, and the New York Times––helping thousands of couples create their own wedding flowers at a fraction of the cost. 

I’LL BE WAITING by Kelley Armstrong

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Nicola Laughton never expected to see adulthood, being diagnosed with Cystic Fibrosis as a child. Then medical advances let her live into her thirties and she met Anton, who taught her to dream of a future… together. Months after they married, Anton died in a horrible car crash, but lived long enough to utter five words to her, “I’ll be waiting for you.”

That final private moment became public when someone from the crash scene took it to the press—the terminally ill woman holding her dying husband as he promised to wait for her on the other side. Worse, that person claimed it wasn’t Anton who said the words but his ghost, hovering over his body.

THE SOULMATE PROJECT by Reese Ryan

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In this delightful small‑town romance, can the search for a soulmate make two best friends realize the perfect person was right there all along? 

Emerie Roberts is tired of waiting for her best friend, Nicholas Washington, to realize that the two of them would make a perfect couple. And she’s fed up with seeing everyone else get their happy ending while hers is nowhere in sight. When she finally works up the nerve to tell Nick how she feels, she’s devastated to discover that he doesn’t share the same feelings. With her heart broken, Emerie makes a promise to herself that by the same time next year, she will have found the love of her life using a  seven-step Soulmate Project.

OF BLOOD AND LIGHTNING by Micki Janae

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In a small, idyllic town in North Dakota, 17-year-old Ophelia Johnson and five other teens inherit the powers of the ancient gods—Zeus, Poseidon, Hades, Artemis, Apollo, and Ares—and embark on a mission from the Vessel of Destiny to find the missing Fates, restore the Codex, and save the ancient world.

Still grieving the recent and mysterious death of her father, Ophelia begins to unravel the secrets woven into her family’s history as she and her friends plunge into the quest of a lifetime. Armed only with powers they don’t totally understand, Ophelia, Roman, Cassius, Olivia, Alessia, and Baxter are soon immersed in a mythical chess match upon which rests the fate of the universe. As they journey into a world of blood pacts and war, the diverse teens find more than they bargained for, and Ophelia discovers a family tie that might mean the ensuing chaos and destruction is her fault. Of Blood and Lightning is a contemporary YA fantasy (age 14-18) with a gripping and fresh twist on Greek mythology as the ancient pantheon of gods inhabit an ensemble of diverse teenaged characters.