She loves me, she loves me not…who gets a book?

A few of you have asked me how I choose which characters get a book/what order the stories go in. The truth is, I give this A LOT of thought and most of it is planned out very far in advance. When I decided to write the Remington series back in 2016 (I KNOW!) I knew a few things:

1. I wanted a lot of books, so I’d have to break things into “sub series” (Station Seventeen, Remington Medical, Intelligence Unit, and Rescue Squad). I did this so there would be more than one place for a reader to start without being lost or overwhelmed.
2. That I’d have to plan the couples in advance otherwise I wouldn’t be able to leave y’all “Easter eggs” — those fun little hints in each book that allude to future couples.

So I planned every single one of the Remington couples in 2016 when I mapped the series. For those of you with REALLY good eyes, you’ll see/remember that waaaaayyyyy back in Deep Check, there’s a snippet where Addison goes off to flirt with the hockey players on Finn’s team…and Ryan gets grumpy about it  I knew WAY back then that they’d be a couple. All the couples in S17, Remington Medical, AND the Intelligence Unit were matched up in 2016.

I do sometimes add characters/couples who weren’t in the original “plan”. Jo and Sawyer are a perfect example. Neither of them were ever in the series outline, but once I started writing The Grifter and Jo became a bigger character than I thought she might, I realized she could use a good HEA. I’d been asked to participate in a SUPER fun newsletter builder project, which required a new story, so I wrote Sawyer into the epilogue for The Grifter, and that was that! The Renegade was born!

There’s a longer story along this line that has to do with Xander, but I’m saving it for another post. Suffice it to say he lived in my head rent-free for a LONG TIME before he got his story, though.

So tell me, lovelies… which couple is your favorite match? Can you think of any (spoiler-free) “Easter eggs” you’ve seen that hint at future couples? (PSSST– there is going to be a BIG Easter egg in the exclusive epilogue to The Rogue. HUGE) And do you have any other questions for our behind-the-scenes posts this month?