Okay, so I know it’s been a few days since I posted the ending of TBTC, but bear with me. I hope you enjoyed the series, I had a good time writing it, and it was great for me to able to focus on a longer project in preparation for NaNoWriMo.
I was pleasantly surprised at the number of people who stuck with it, or went back and read the whole thing! Thank you so much!
Honestly, how did you feel about the ending?
I hated it! I was so disappointed with myself! I kept on telling myself I had plenty of time to fix it and I never quite managed to get it to feel right.
Obviously, the relationship between Seta and Sonya is so complicated. Seta’s transition from guardian to romantic partner is tricky. I felt like I managed to make them equals from Sonya’s point of view, but I could never really figure out when Seta realizes Sonya isn’t a child anymore. When does it become acceptable for him to have romantic feelings for her?
I originally wrote Seta as younger than I really wanted him to be. For that reason, there’s an edge of jealousy when he thinks Sonya is sneaking out to see a boy. I never changed that when I rewrote Seta to be older, and that’s a mistake on my part. That was originally when I wanted to hint that Seta was beginning to develop those kind of feelings. With the later age differences, we’re on dodgy ground right up until Sonya sees him on the day of her coronation.
I guess I just felt a huge amount of pressure to get it absolutely perfect, because Sonya and Seta are my favorite couple in the TBAM series by miles, even though they hardly feature/will feature in the main books.
Another possibility I considered was having Seta help Sonya with the final battle, as it would allow him to see her in a leadership role rather than as a child. However, I felt this would veer far too closely him “saving the day” and that is absolutely something I wanted to avoid. This was Sonya’s coming of age story; she did need to do this by herself.
If you would like to read the series, click here. That link will take you to the first post.