My Creative Process
A Crown of Thorned Fate began with a single question: What if destiny chose the wrong person?
From that one question came Elara, Caelen, the Thorn Court, and an entire world that had been living in my imagination long before I ever put it into words.
I’ve always loved stories that make you feel something. The kind that keep you up long past bedtime, make you fall hopelessly in love with fictional characters, and leave you staring at the wall after the final chapter. That’s the kind of story I wanted to write.
Every character, conversation, plot twist, and heartbreak in A Crown of Thorned Fate came from my imagination. I spent countless hours writing, rewriting, changing my mind, moving scenes around, and occasionally arguing with characters who refused to cooperate. Some chapters came easily. Others needed to be torn apart and rebuilt before they finally felt right.
And yes, I write in Microsoft Word. Nothing particularly fancy over here!
Writing & Editing
Writing a novel is only part of the process. Editing is where I spend an enormous amount of my time.
I go through multiple rounds of revisions, working on everything from character development and dialogue to pacing, continuity, sentence structure, and those pesky words I love using far too often.
Like many authors, I also use technology to assist with editing. That can include identifying repetitive language, catching inconsistencies, and highlighting areas where something might need another look.
These tools don’t create my characters, develop my plots, or write my chapters. They help me evaluate and polish the words I’ve already written. Every creative decision, every revision, and every final sentence is mine.
A Note About My Artwork
All promotional artwork featured on my website is AI-generated.
I’m completely transparent about that.
I have an incredibly vivid picture of my characters and their world in my head, and I love being able to share those visuals with readers. The artwork allows me to bring scenes, characters, and settings to life beyond the pages of my books.
The images are visual interpretations of a world I created through my writing. They aren’t the source of my stories, and they don’t replace the imagination, creativity, or work that goes into writing them.
From My Imagination to Your Bookshelf
Publishing A Crown of Thorned Fate has been one of the most exciting, terrifying, and rewarding things I’ve ever done.
I’ve poured countless hours into this story, and like any author, I’m still learning and growing with every chapter I write. I know my writing won’t be for everyone, and that’s okay. But I hope that for the readers who fall in love with Elara, Caelen, and the world of Solaryn, these characters become as real to them as they’ve become to me.
Every word of A Crown of Thorned Fate was written by me.
And I’m incredibly proud of that.
K.C. Hawthorne
Where Shadow Meets Light
