The Red Flag Files
On writing villains who earn it
The problem with most “dark” romance is that the danger arrives pre-packaged. The mafia boss. The biker. The billionaire with a red room. You know exactly what you’re getting within the first chapter, and the protagonist spends the rest of the book discovering what you already knew.
I’m interested in something harder to write: the slow revelation that you’ve already chosen wrong.
The Red Flag Files is where I’m working through that question in real time. My debut novel, Red Flag Season, follows a woman who joins a rising political movement because she genuinely believes in it. She’s not undercover. She’s not there to expose anyone. She converts.
The man she falls for? He’s part of what she’s building. The attraction isn’t despite the ideology—it’s woven into it. Authority and devotion. Conviction and submission. The way belief and desire can feed each other until you can’t separate them anymore.
Then doubt creeps in. Not because he reveals himself to be something he wasn’t, but because she starts seeing clearly what was there all along.
What I’m doing here:
I’ll be documenting the process of writing contemporary dark romance that takes politics seriously. Character development that doesn’t rely on the heroine’s naiveté. BDSM scenes that matter to the plot rather than existing as set pieces. The research, the revisions, the choices about what to show and what to imply.
You’ll also get:
∙ Analysis of power dynamics in romance (fictional and real)
∙ Recommendations for dark romance that earns its classification
∙ The craft challenges of writing morally complex characters readers will actually follow
Who I’m writing for:
Readers who notice when the “dangerous” love interest is just doing standard romance novel behavior with moodier lighting. People who want the politics in political romance to actually function like politics. Anyone tired of infiltration plots where the protagonist learns nothing and changes nothing because she was always morally superior to everyone around her.
If you’re here, you probably think hard about why certain dynamics appeal to you. You’re not looking for judgment or permission. You’re looking for better questions.
Next time: Why I threw out the journalist protagonist and what I replaced her with.
Red Flag Season releases in 2026. Subscribe for updates and craft discussions that don’t condescend to the genre!
—K. Catherine