I want there to be a love interest

While in the hospital, Rawiya also meets Halvis. and I want Halvis, Hal, to be important to the other side of the story. Halvis gets caught up in this secret society that works to hide the reality of the sidhe's existence. He was out hiking when the eclipse started, and found himself in the center of some fairly serious stuff. The society, low on members anyway, uses this change to recruit him rather than to erase him or his memories. In so doing, they reveal to him much more than he ever expected to learn.

This was a difficult thing for me, I did want to use this as a way to help inform Rawiya, and thereby the readers, of what's actually going on. But like I've said, I feel I revealed too much too fast. Of course, there's also the issue of Hal doing exactly what he's not supposed to be doing, revealing the secrets that he learns. I ran a difficult risk with that, and Rawiya expressed some legitimate concerns. There should have been more blow back from what they'd done, but really I should have been more careful in how I handled it.

As far as their relationship goes, I did want them to be good together. I wanted moments of cuteness, and closeness. I want Rawiya to develop a healthy attachment to Hal. But I have to admit, the difficulty for me in doing this is that I don't have a lot of experience with it myself. I also haven't read a lot of girls journals to get any idea of what they might actually express or how.

One of the reasons I was hoping for reader interaction was hoping female readers might speak up and help me with that side of expressing things. Through questions, or helpful suggestions, or whatever. I could use those things to help prepare future journal entries to answer the kinds of questions they asked, to take into account the suggestions offered.

In any case, as things unfolded and Rawiya learned about what was going on and what Hal was now doing, I want for this to cause issues. See, I didn't want Rawiya to learn about Candace right off. In fact, what I wanted was for Rawiya to meet another Fairy who is openly (to her) fae. This was another event that I wanted to happen soon, I just hadn't quite figured out how.

Through this other fairy, I wanted Rawiya to learn about Hal's organization from the fairies perspective. I wanted Rawiya to know that the fairy feared the organization, feared that they would find him and take him away never to be seen again. Because of this, Rawiya found herself keeping a secret from Hal. Not just about this new friend of hers, but by this point she should be able to recognize that she can see things that others cant. Things that are actually there, she's not hallucinating. And knowing that, she'd be worried that Hal's organization might take an interest in her. So she starts keeping from Hal the things she sees. Well, she'd have already been, considering at first she thinks she's hallucinating, she was keeping that a secret from everyone. But with everything happening, it becomes harder and harder for her to hide that, because what she does find she has difficulty with, is recognizing when others can see what she normally does. When a fairy shows itself openly Rawiya finds herself acting like its not there, only to then realize everyone else can see it and is responding to it.

But the biggest thing is when Rawiya finally learns that Candace is si. I wanted there to be a definite point at which she discovers that Hal's organization, and thereby Hal, is working against the fairies. Preferably by Hal taking her fairy friend into custody or otherwise telling Rawiya to cut contacts with him. Or maybe Hal learns about the fairy and reacts badly to him, even without knowing that he's a friend of Rawiya's. This puts her on alert and strains their relationship, and even more so because Rawiya stops being comfortable with Hal at her and Candace's place.