The Darkest Flame started off - like most of my stories - as an image in my head. I saw a dark dragon that was nothing more than an experiment for me. I wanted to try drawing a dragon with zero prompts - just an image from my own imagination. So I drew this dragon’s head, and that is where it all began. I then followed it up with the drawing of a girl below, mirroring his colours through her clothes and hair. It was then that Cynthia and Caliban were born without me realising it.

The first chapter was going to be used for my English creative story, but my teacher informed me that the SQA tends to vote fantasy stories down … so screw you, SQA, you missed out on the first teaser to my book. I’m only joking, it’s just a funny little anecdote. 

I started writing this story in 2019 when I was seventeen. I had just completed ‘Hidden Words’, another experiment to practice my writing capabilities, before I continued with my series. So where Hidden Words was fully written in first person - to diverge away from my series - I also wanted to try writing an intellectual story with beautiful descriptions for this new one. However, it was in this act that I lost interest. I saw a vision of Cynthia and Caliban flying towards a battle, but I really struggled to get myself to write to this point and I wasn’t sure why. I abandoned the story during my exams and barely looked at it again. I focused on polishing off Hidden Words to send that away instead.

In 2021, I aimed to continue with this story, along with another to complete at least one of them by the end of this year, to decide which one I would publish next. I then accidentally wrote the entirety of book two for my series (which I wasn’t supposed to do), and caught up to a halfway mark for this other story. But I realised that this same block was still there for The Curse of The Darkest Flame. But then it hit me.

As I’ve grown as a writer, I now follow these rules when writing a story. I don’t think there should ever be any level of boredom when writing because if you’re bored while writing it, then you’ll be bored reading it. When reading, a reader shouldn’t skip descriptions to get to scenes or dialogue that capture their interest more, it should ALL be able to capture their interest. So then it hit me, what is the point in pretty descriptions if no one cares about the context? With that in mind, I went back to the beginning and I aimed to make the story matter. I accidentally wrote an entire book for my series because it’s something I love. Every moment when writing it fills me with creative joy. So why was I writing The Darkest Flame? Why did it matter to me? I knew what I wanted it to be, I could see images of scenes in my head, so all I needed to do was get there.

I wrote this story to understand the depth of power and control. The two things that can both ruin a world and make it. Cynthia was running off her anger and a desire to know what had happened to her father. But as soon as Caliban is by her side, she begins to cross that line to where she is no longer the one in control, but her anger and grief is. Her power is great but how does she stop herself from becoming a murderer just like the one who had “killed” her father?

Once I managed to cling onto that narrative, the story truly began to take shape. I loved writing it, and I loved the new characters that presented themselves. A story should never be forced, so I let it do whatever it wanted to do. All I did was write the words that fell before my eyes. Somehow, it made me laugh, it surprised me, I was plot twisted and thrown around this whole narrative in suspense of what was to come, AND I WAS THE ONE WRITING THE THING! I love it when my own stories can leave me in suspense.

So this is Cynthia’s story to fight for something different. There’s a huge problem underfoot and she knows it, but is she willing to lose herself to solve it, or is she more powerful than she thought?