Writing Anti-Hero Romance by Alexandra Christo

We are excited to share a brilliant guest blog from romantasy author, Alexandra Christo. Check out her thoughts on creating her stories and characters!

When sitting down to write a new fantasy book I always ask myself two questions: 1) what are the main flaws of my heroes? And 2) Who would be a worthy opponent for them to fall in love with?

‘Good guys’ are usually the ones who fight the villains and save the day, but in my mind if you start out as a good guy then your story is already complete. I always want to write about how someone becomes the good guy; what their journey is to learning to make the right decisions and how they overcome their flaws. That’s where the heart of a story is for me.

In my most recent romantasy THE NIGHT HUNT, my main character Atia feeds off fear and nightmares, hiding in the shadows of the world and torturing mortals. At the start, you’d think this would make her unredeemable, but as we get to know Atia we see that for someone who feeds off of fear she’s also riddled with it herself. She worries the Gods who killed her family will one day hunt her down, she struggles with living up to the legacy of her people, and so she cuts herself off from the world for fear of never being able to trust anyone with her true self.

The appeal of an anti-hero like Atia is that she knows her flaws and doesn’t shy away from them. If anything she embraces them. She doesn’t try to be perfect. Just like us, anti-heroes make mistakes, they can be selfish and they don’t always get things right the first time. Anti-heroes have a unique way of showing us the best and worst parts of ourselves. But the joy of the story is watching them overcome that for the greater good, while simultaneously never losing track of who they are. When writing my anti-heroes there’s always a guilt they carry inside, a burden that drives them to isolate themselves from the world, but through the course of the story they learn that their mistakes don’t define them. It is their future choices and not their past actions that make the difference. Anti-heroes grow and adapt, learning to embrace their humanity, but they never sacrifice their power.

For female anti-heroes this is intrinsic. Gone are the days where damsels in distress are being saved, but instead we have women taking control of their own fates and finding partners who want to encourage them save themselves.

Enemies to lovers romantasy is perfect for this, because the two characters are constantly challenging each other, trying to one-up-each other, trying to do whatever they can to win. It’s not about being helpless, but about understanding their power and pushing each other to relish in it.

When writing THE NIGHT HUNT and thinking of a love interest for Atia, I had to think of who would be a worthy advisory, to help her not to feel ashamed of who she is but instead embolden her. And it had to be someone who wouldn’t fear death, since Atia feeds off fear. And who wouldn’t fear death? Death himself. Which is what Silas is.

When writing anti-hero romances, it’s important the characters offer balance to each other. Silas is an illusive figure who ferries the souls of the dead and craves the one thing they once had: life. Humanity. It’s in total opposition to Atia, who feels humans are weak. So we have a monster who has abandoned her humanity VS a monster who wants to find his.

Anti-hero romantasy is best when we see two people from opposite sides of the world, who live different lives and have such vastly different experiences, able to discover familiarities within each other. People who think they’re supposed to hate each other, but realise actually they’re not so different after all and the differences they do have actually bring out the best in each other.

With all that back-and-forth arguing, the slow breaking down of each other’s walls to find their hidden vulnerabilities, alongside the highstakes life-or-death tension, it always makes for a truly sizzling first kiss!

Alexandra Christo’s latest YA romantasy adventure THE NIGHT HUNT is out now and available wherever books are sold.