A love letter to Hannah

You know those side characters from stories who shine so bright that you yearn for more of them? 

I keep thinking about Hannah from Maladaptive and whether or not I did her dirty by withholding her until Act II. As Cara’s best friend, she has become as dear to me as any of the book’s main characters.

I always knew I was going to give Cara a witchy, new age, silver haired, nurturing, bohemian soul in tune with The Universe for a best friend. Cara needed her. But it’s almost as if I didn’t know how much I needed her. 

Her scenes were some of the most emotional for me to write, because the compassion she gives to Cara was in some ways an exercise in giving myself that same compassion. I shed a lot of my own healing tears as her kind words flowed from my fingers to the keyboard. It's almost as if writing her words of encouragement and support acted as a form of therapeutic self-love and self-compassion by proxy. Hannah's words might be meant for Cara, but I needed them, too. 

And yet, we only start to get to know her about halfway through the book, and we don't even see her in person until Act III! 

That was basically why I wrote the holiday-themed short story (A Maladaptive Christmas Interlude). I wanted to give Hannah a co-starring role in a companion piece to Maladaptive.

I never really talked about it in the blog. It was Christmastime, and I was also still actively writing/revising Maladaptive and posting it to Inkitt at the time, and I just never got around to discussing it in any amount of detail. 

But what Hannah brought to that companion story became canon for me. To the point where, even though I’m in the process of preparing Maladaptive for self-publishing, I started looking for a way to weave the interlude into the novel.

But I couldn't make it work. And it is as it should be. In trying to look for a way to incorporate it, it became clear to me that Hannah is enough in the main story. She fulfills her role in exactly the way she needs to. I realized that trying to shoehorn the interlude into the novel wouldn’t be good for the novel or for Hannah. So, I’ve decided to leave Hannah’s interlude as its own thing, which I will probably publish after Maladaptive is released (stay tuned for an announcement on that).

In the meantime, I just wanted to say…

Dear Hannah,

You became so much more than I originally envisioned and I’m so grateful you burst your way out of the muse’s consciousness into the Maladaptive world in such a beautiful way. You bring so much to the story, and to Cara, and in a way, the fact that you get to be the lovable side character that people will want more of is exactly what you deserve.

And you know what? I have ideas for you that haven’t even been put to paper yet. It’s not over for you. So, hang in there! For all the I got you moments you share with Cara in your supporting role, I’m throwing that energy back to you. I got you, girl. I can’t guarantee you’ll get your own spin off, and honestly that might even be a disservice to your gifts, but I can tell you I’m not done with you yet, and you deserve a little support for a change!

Love, Zinnia