Sometimes people ask me why I wrote this or that book and I usually answer, “Well, I had this idea of…”

If I know you very well, I might admit the truth and say something like, “Because the character showed up and started talking…”

But I wrote They Watch Us Like the Lions because I had to. Literally, I had to. I was assigned to present a brand-new idea while working through a publishing course. It couldn’t be a book that we had already scribbled out. It had to be an idea that could be molded into a fictional formula with a certain cast of characters fulfilling specific roles. I mentally paged through my extensive collection of future-book-summaries until I found a few that looked skeletal enough to sacrifice to the gods of formulaic-plots.

1. A mashup of fairy tale characters in a reimagined story of Cinderella.

2. That random scene I had seen and jotted an opening for years ago about a girl following a couple into a house and their teenage son shaking his head at her before the doors shut and lock from the outside.

3. The dystopian tale of a woman from a post-blackout area of Texas whose fiancé takes a job in the city and doesn't return when he should. She follows to find him, accepts a job to support herself while she searches, and reunites with him...in the depths of modern-day slavery.

My instructor told me to use the plot of #2 but place it in the dystopian world of #3. Also, to keep it at 30,000 words. So I wrote the book. I crossed off the plot points and contrived the suggested ending. I dutifully glared at the characters when they tried to go off script.

And then I went off script and left the program.

I have worked for the last few years to get all the manuscripts I have on in my queue off into the world. The last thing I wanted was a lonely little novella hanging out on my hard drive. So I decided to share it as a serial with my readers, revising a chapter each week.

I promised my readers once that even though every book wouldn’t have a perfectly happy ending, every novella would end with hope. The original end for “They Watch Us Like the Lions” contained only the barest thread of hope. Even though the mechanics of it worked and it was a realistic ending, it was depressing. The main character got what she wanted while the lives of everyone around her fell apart and reorganized themselves into a semblance of resigned acceptance of their shattered dreams.

The problem was, I didn’t care if Katie got what Katie wanted: Katie was a self-centered and cardboard character. I cared more about the fate of her sister, Mallory, who only showed up in the beginning and end of the book.

I thought of shelving the manuscript completely. But I couldn’t shut away Neil. Neil had come alive. Neil, in classic Neil fashion, had found a way to stay within the confines of the required plot, while adding complexity and heart to the book. Neil had a story I had to save.

So, I dove back in, determined to let the characters tell the story. I discovered that Katie does think about others, even while she is trying to figure out who she wants to become and how much people really matter to her when stacked against her goals. I discovered Clark’s secret efforts to help his town and the things he couldn’t say. Katherine moved from a blip role to a best friend. I allowed the other characters to play the roles that felt natural to them. Though I kept much of the original content, I allowed the characters to take the reins and the ending unfold in a new way. I also added about 20,000 words of additional story.

I’ve known people like Katie who have such big dreams and so few assets to make those dreams into realities. I’ve met a lot of people like Neil in the world, who struggled to perform their expected roles and hide who they really are. I wrote this book for readers who don’t like fluff, who won’t shy away from a heart-pounding scene but still want to see the characters who have gone through so much actually come out on top. I wrote it for people who want to believe that, no matter how dark life may grow, you can come again to a place of peace and hope.

I needed to believe that myself.

I wanted to redeem the book for myself, and I did. I transformed the dark realities the characters were living through into a well-told, sometimes intense tale, with an ending that includes a future of hope.

I can’t wait for you to read “They Watch Us Like the Lions.”