Warning: Major spoilers ahead for Witch Hollow (Celia Roman) and other stories in the Sunshine Walkingstick Series.

When I’m working on a story, it’s not unusual for random ideas about future stories within that story world to come to me in odd moments. I keep dedicated pages in my OneNote story folders precisely for recording those moments, usually labeled “Ideas.” Sometimes the ideas are simply titles, sometimes they’re characters, and sometimes entire plot threads pop into my head.

Today, I’d like to take a moment to discuss one of the latter, a plot thread for the Sunshine Walkingstick Series that came to me when I was working on Greenwood Cove (Book 1). This particular thread was tied specifically to Sunny’s relationship with Riley Treadwell, her first real childhood friend, and was a crucial point in the development of the romantic side of their relationship.

Background

Before I share what the thread is, here’s a refresher of Sunny’s backstory as far as relationships go: When she was in high school, Terry Whitehead asked her out and they eventually had sex. I’m not sure of the exact timeline of their relationship (Sunny hasn’t shared that with me), only that the first time they had sex, she became pregnant with Henry, her son who passed away prior to the start of Book 1. When Terry found out, he abandoned her, and Sunny dropped out of school.

Sunny already had some serious abandonment issues. In the first scene of Book 1, she shares what she considered a formative event in her life, the murder of her father by her mother. Her mother was arrested (in front of Sunny, by the way) and jailed, and Sunny went to live with her mother’s older brother Fame and his family.

At some point after that, when she and Riley entered their middle and high school years, they began to grow apart, which is, of course, quite natural, especially considering Belinda Heaton Arrowood’s hand in that. (Or as Sunny calls her, “that hussy Belinda Arrowood.”) Belinda had her hat set on Riley and she did anything and everything she could to drive a wedge between Riley and Sunny. Riley was pretty oblivious to this; his heart was set on Sunny, so from his perspective, the distance between them was caused by his growing attraction to her, not by any outside source. He was devastated when he learned about Sunny’s pregnancy, which is dealt with in later books, including Witch Hollow (Book 4).

So there’s the background: Sunny had been abandoned so many times that she’d become gunshy where commitment of any kind was concerned. That’s why she chose to enter into fleeting sexual relationships (see Death Omen) instead of dating, and why she was so wary when Riley walked back into her life at the start of Book 1.

The Original Plot Thread

I knew that Sunny would react poorly to any sign of abandonment or mistreatment on Riley’s part, so I wasn’t surprised when a future plot thread popped into my head in which she overreacted to something fairly mild.

That thread came to me nearly fully formed and took over 900 words to describe (in short, simple terms) in the OneNote “Ideas” page for the series. I’ll summarize here rather than publishing the entire thing as much of it was kept.

In short, there were three parts to this future plot thread:

1. The morning after Riley and Sunny have sex, Riley wants to take Sunny on ski trip to Boone and, knowing she doesn’t have appropriate clothing, offers to buy her a ski jacket for the trip. Sunny becomes offended and accuses him of trying to buy her. “I’m not a whore.” Riley pulls his wallet out, throws $300-400 onto the bed, and says something like, “That ought to cover it.” Then he puts on his clothes and leaves. Sunny asks him not to go. Later, she takes the money and puts it into an envelope, intending to return it to him.
2. A few days later, Mrs. Treadwell, Riley’s mother, comes by Sunny’s trailer and tells Sunny that Riley has always adored her. “You cut him right to the bone, honey. You really do….[more conversation]…now I’m asking you, Sunny, one mother to another. Please stop hurting him.”
3. Some time after that, Sunny works up the nerve to go see Riley. She drops by his apartment, recognizes Belinda’s car. Belinda steps out of Riley’s apartment, followed by him, and Sunny goes numb. She drives away and ignores Riley’s texts and phone calls. The relationship subplot picks up again in the next book.

Those of you who’ve read Witch Hollow will recognize these scenes. While writing that story, I decided to keep them because Sunny has to overcome this part of her past. And, of course, because Riley’s a good guy, he really loves Sunny, and I was rooting for them to get together.

From Bare Bones to Story

But those scenes didn’t make it into Witch Hollow as I originally envisioned them. I tweaked it considerably, particularly the initial confrontation between Riley and Sunny. It’s still there (again, this confrontation needed to happen so that Sunny could grow), but Riley managed to hold onto his temper. He didn’t take out his wallet, he didn’t leave.

Instead, they worked through this speed bump and came out the better for it. It turns out that Sunny was able to grow without a huge break between her and Riley, and trust me, she was mightily relieved by that.

I kept the scene between Mrs. Treadwell and Sunny nearly intact, as I felt like that would also spur Sunny to grow. And it needed to be said. Riley wasn’t ready to say it himself, but if Sunny hadn’t known how much he cared for her, she might not have made it through the final part of the plot thread, which I also felt needed to happen. At some point, Sunny has to deal more permanently with Belinda, and this was a stepping stone. So Sunny still caught Belinda at Riley’s and it still hurt her a little, but she dealt with it and put Belinda firmly in her place.

Why I Tweaked the Original Plot

Now, when that plot thread popped into my head, I pegged it for happening in Book 3 or 4, depending on how Sunny’s relationship with Riley was developing. I started out writing ficiton in Romance subgenres, and one of my pet peeves is InstaLove, those characters that fall in love entirely too quickly. Hate it. So nearly all my romances and romantic subplots are slow builds. Not all, but nearly all.

I figured on doing the same for Sunny and Riley. In my mind, their relationship would need many, many books to develop properly, much like the romance between Mercy Thompson and Adam Hauptman (The Mercy Thompson Series by Patricia Briggs).

Readers had different ideas. The slow development of Sunny and Riley’s relationship has been a real sticking point in reviews. Normally, I wouldn’t let readers influence the way a story develops, but when multiple people mention a particular something, I know it could be a real problem.

So in this one, tiny instance, I decided to give readers what they wanted: Sunny trusting Riley enough to move the relationship to the next step.

No Regrets

Of course, Riley is way ahead of Sunny on the relationship front. He’s already making noises about moving in together. To be fair, he’s had a lot more time (decades, really) to consider this than Sunny has. To her, the relationship is still new, and she’s not going to overcome her trust and abandonment issues any time soon.

I think writing those scenes the way I did was a good compromise between my original ideas and what readers wanted, one I certainly don’t regret making. There’s no telling what Sunny and Riley will get up to in Book 5 (working title: Devil’s Branch). To be honest, I haven’t even plotted much in the way of relationship development for that story; there’s just so much going on.

But one step at a time. We’ll see where they’re headed soon enough.