JL: May I just say that I think it’s so terrific you have this site. Wonderful! When I first started publishing gay mysteries and M/M Romance, there were NO sites like this. (Thinks it over, then shakes her head). Well, to be fair, blogging and the internet didn’t exist when I was first published. But it’s amazing to see how the world of LGBTQ genre fiction has evolved in some twenty-plus years.
Anyway, thinking back to Adrien and Jake… I’m going to disappoint you, but I don’t remember exactly how I came up with those two particular characters. Before A&J I started many stories with gay male protagonists—a number of those stories were later finished and published as M/M Mysteries—you know, I Spy Something Bloody, Cards on the Table, The Ghost Wore Yellow Socks… But at the time those were simply for my own amusement. I had no idea there was any kind of market for them (in fact, there wasn’t).
I can tell you that when I create characters, I tend to create them in pairs. I believe I instinctively come up with two people who are compatible and incompatible in key ways. That creates a natural, organic conflict—no insurmountable obstacles, but realistic, legitimate challenges that would have to be overcome. My personal experience is that most relationship difficulties—and I include all human interactions in that—stem from the inability or unwillingness to communicate.
(Laughs). Now I’m forgetting the question!