When a Story Refuses to Stay Small

Dante was supposed to be a reader magnet.

A contained story.
An introduction.
Something brief that opened the door and stepped aside.

That was the plan.

But some stories don’t cooperate.

Somewhere along the way, Dante stopped behaving like a teaser. The emotional weight deepened. The characters stopped performing and started insisting. The story pressed against its edges, asking for more space than I had originally given it.

Not more words.
More truth.

Dark stories, especially, don’t tolerate shortcuts. They don’t like being trimmed down or made convenient. They demand to be entered fully — or not at all.

At some point, Dante stopped asking permission.

What began as a glimpse became a presence.
What was meant to be small became unavoidable.

Finishing the edits this week didn’t feel like completing a task. It felt like stepping out of a room I’d been living in for months — a room charged with obsession, tension, and quiet intensity. There’s relief in that moment, yes. But there’s also a strange silence that follows. The kind that comes after something has lived close to your body for a long time and finally lets go.

Letting a story like this go isn’t dramatic.
It’s honest.

It’s trusting that the thing you created can now stand on its own, without you holding it in place.

Dante didn’t become Book One because of strategy.
I didn’t elevate it.
It claimed the position.

Some stories are meant to open doors.
Others are meant to build the house.

Dante did the latter.

And with that, the Dark Veil series began — not as a plan, but as a necessity.

Dante will be released soon. Not as a teaser. Not as a test. But as the beginning.

Enter his world.
I share Dante first in my newsletter.