They were supposed to be side characters.

That was the plan.

Elias needed a team. Raven Division existed to give him one.

Simple.

Except apparently no one informed Raven Division.

When I started writing The One Who Listened, I knew Elias Vane couldn’t operate completely alone. A man like Elias needed people he trusted. People capable of doing the things that needed to be done without stopping every five minutes to ask whether any of it was technically legal.

Enter Raven Division.

Callum. Corwin. Merrick. Alfie. Tavish.

They had a purpose.

They were supposed to support the story, help Elias when everything inevitably went sideways, and then politely return to the background.

That last part did not happen.

When a Name Becomes a Person

I think there’s a point when writing side characters where something shifts.

At first, you need someone to perform a function in the story.

Then you give him a name.

Then maybe a line of dialogue.

Then you decide how he would respond to something.

And suddenly you realize—

Oh.

You have a personality.

That’s more or less what happened with Raven Division.

They stopped feeling like five operatives who worked with Elias and started feeling like five individual men who happened to work together.

Callum became more than Elias’s second-in-command.

Corwin opened his mouth one too many times and apparently decided sarcasm was going to be a personality trait.

The others started finding their own places within the group.

Their relationships with Elias became different.

Their relationships with each other became different.

And somewhere along the way, scenes involving Raven Division stopped being scenes where I thought, Okay, Elias needs his team here.

Instead, I started thinking about exactly which member of the team would be there.

Because it mattered.

That should have been my first warning.

It was not.

Then I Gave the Book to Beta Readers

There is something deeply humbling about creating an entire book, handing it to someone else, and realizing you have absolutely no control over which characters they’re going to become attached to.

I knew people would have opinions about Elias.

I expected opinions about Celeste.

I was prepared for reactions to their relationship, the darker parts of the story, and all the questionable decisions that come with writing a morally gray man who has never once asked me whether something was a good idea before doing it.

What I wasn’t quite prepared for?

Raven Division developing a fan club.

My beta readers started choosing favorites.

Side characters.

My side characters.

Characters who were supposed to show up, do their jobs, contribute to the story, and go home.

Suddenly, I was getting reactions to them.

Questions about them.

Requests for more of them.

And one name in particular started appearing more often than I expected.

Corwin.

Of course it was Corwin.

Apparently, if you give a man enough sarcasm, readers will immediately decide they need to know everything about him.

Noted.

The “Oh No” Moment

At some point during all of this, I had a realization.

Not a nice, peaceful realization.

More like the author equivalent of staring at the ceiling and thinking:

Oh no.

Because these men had stopped feeling like supporting characters to me, too.

I wanted to know more about them.

Who are they when there isn’t a mission?

What does someone capable of doing Raven Division’s work look like when he falls in love?

What kind of woman looks at one of these men, sees every warning sign flashing at once, and somehow decides, Yeah. That one.

What happens when the man who is usually part of someone else’s backup becomes the one with something to lose?

Those are dangerous questions for an author to start asking.

Because questions become ideas.

Ideas become scenes.

Scenes become notes.

Notes become suspiciously detailed outlines.

And eventually you have to admit what’s happening.

You need your own book, don’t you?

This Was Supposed to Be One Story

There’s something funny about creating a fictional world.

You think you’re in charge.

You make the outline. You create the characters. You decide where everyone lives, what they do, who they love, and occasionally who survives.

It gives you a wildly undeserved sense of authority.

Then one sarcastic side character develops a fan base and suddenly your plans mean nothing.

I started The One Who Listened because I wanted to tell Elias and Celeste’s story.

And it is their story.

That hasn’t changed.

But somewhere during the process of writing it, Hollow Grove became a little bigger than I expected.

Raven Division became more than the team standing behind Elias.

And now that other people have met them?

Apparently, I’m not the only one who wants to know what happens to them next.

I’m not announcing anything.

Yet.

But I will say this:

Some questions have been asked.

Some ideas have appeared.

And there may or may not be notes sitting somewhere they definitely weren’t supposed to exist.

As for which Raven gets himself into trouble first?

I’m keeping that one to myself.

For now.

Raven Division, We Need to Talk

So, yes.

They were supposed to be side characters.

They were supposed to support Elias, help when things went sideways, and then politely return to the background.

Instead, they developed personalities, acquired fans, and started demanding books of their own.

Which leaves me with only one thing to say:

Raven Division, this was not the plan.

— Auren Rose