A Winter's Fortune | Behind the Scenes of a New Fantasy Romance by Alicia Anspaugh
- aliciaspaintbrush
- 1 day ago
- 2 min read
A Winter's Fortune: Sometimes the Story Knows Better
Every now and then, a story refuses to stay inside the outline you carefully built for it.
A Winter's Fortune began as a conversation with my mom. We started tossing around ideas for what was supposed to be a simple seasonal romance written for a contest. Together we imagined the first pieces of the story, but somewhere along the way the characters began making their own choices.
Check it out here- A Winter's Tale
New friendships appeared. Entire subplots emerged. A mysterious fortune teller refused to remain a single-scene character. A carnival slowly revealed itself to be far more than it first appeared. Before I knew it, what was meant to be a light romance had become something much deeper.
Without my mom's encouragement, brainstorming, and willingness to throw ideas back and forth, A Winter's Fortune would never have made it onto the page. While the writing itself is my own, this story owes its very first heartbeat to one of our conversations, and I'm incredibly grateful for that.
At its heart, A Winter's Fortune is still a love story—but perhaps not in the way I originally imagined.
It became a story about family, sacrifice, destiny, hope, grief, friendship, and the unexpected ways our lives are changed by the people we meet. Sometimes love is romantic. Sometimes it is the fierce love of a parent. Sometimes it is the quiet loyalty of lifelong friends. Sometimes it is simply choosing to stand beside someone when life becomes difficult.
One of my favorite discoveries while writing has been allowing the characters to breathe instead of forcing them toward predetermined plot points. Mary, Thomas, Gin, Wilhelmina, Henry, Nan, Thames, and so many others surprised me in different ways, and every surprise made the story richer than my original outline ever could have been.
This manuscript is currently making its way through the contest circuit, but the journey doesn't end there. Once the competition is over, I plan to continue expanding the story exactly as it wants to be told. it will be published through Celestial Imprint Publishing and available in full in the Celestial Library.
Sometimes the best thing a writer can do is stop trying to control the story...and simply listen.
To my mom—thank you for helping spark this adventure. I can't wait to see where it carries us next.
And to everyone following along with these stories, thank you for every encouraging word, every message, and every bit of support. It truly means more than you know.