Hunter's Moon Character Sketches, Part 3

In my last two posts, I introduced my AI art obsession. :D I've experimented a ton with the Dream app by Wombo on my phone, trying to get awesome images of characters and places from Hunter's Moon. It certainly isn't perfect, but I've improved my technique (which keywords I use, etc.) and gotten a lot of cool pics! This is the third in my series of character-spotlighting blog posts using AI art.

I mentioned I'd be doing a Couples Edition, so here it is! I'll go in order of longest to shortest relationship time.

First up: Jeff and Cara Doyle, Gavin's adoptive parents. (Okay, that's pretty much a spoiler, but at least not of the plot.) Jeff is an anesthesiologist, and Cara is a counselor. As Mel says, they both have jobs that involve taking away pain. :)

Jeff is very protective, and especially after *something happens* (not giving that spoiler!) he ramps up security for his family. He's from Philadelphia and met Cara when they were both working with the homeless there. He still serves the homeless when he can, between his busy job and spending time with his family.

Cara, who was born and raised in Hawaii, is sweet and kind-hearted but not a pushover, and she would do anything for her family. She enjoys cooking and somehow manages to keep the house looking nice between working with troubled youth and helping her son with his own unique "issues."

In book 2, Blood Moon, which is 80k+ words long right now (draft #2, making changes my editor suggested), I reveal more backstory and how they came to adopt Gavin.

Cara and Jeff are middle-aged in the story, but I thought it would be fun to see them when they were younger too! <3 :)

Next we have Brad and Vanessa, nicknamed "the mushy lovebirds" by Mel (and others) because they tend to drive a certain group crazy with their PDA. They're both in their mid-20s and grew up together, sweethearts since high school. They're werewolves and were bitten in the same attack.

Brad and Vanessa are pretty minor characters in Hunter's Moon, and I'm still making up their backstory. He's a mechanic, and she has (non-werewolf-related) health issues that you will learn about in book 2. Thus, Brad is very protective of her, and he's very devoted. I assume that's why readers mention liking him despite the fact he only has a few lines of dialogue!

Last, Dave and Janae. They aren't technically dating in Hunter's Moon (well, they could be, behind the scenes) but they will be officially a couple in future books. :)

Like Brad and Vanessa, they're fairly minor characters in book 1. Dave is a phlebotomist and Janae is an artist. I'd rather not spoil how/where Mel meets them (and B and V) but I will say that these two are also werewolves. Because of that, they both have tragedy in their past, and struggles in their present, which drew them together.

Whether a relationship is romantic or not, people bond over having similar struggles. The werewolves in my books are the cursed kind, not the "fun" kind—it's a painful and dangerous condition that they have to take fairly drastic measures to deal with. Getting bitten "killed" their old lives and took them down a strange, frightening new path, and finding company on that journey really helps. (My hubby, Oscar, and I know about this; we both have, or had, rare and nasty health conditions. There's a special empathy from the very start.)
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​Well, that's it for the Couples Edition! <3 Next time—which may be the last post in this series—will be more miscellaneous since I can't think of one category to put the remaining characters in.

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Sorry I closed comments, but I've gotten some negative ones on Instagram and don't have the time or spoons to deal with those. AI will never be able to replace human artists, or human writers either. I've played around with ChatGPT, having it write some essays for me, and they were quite dry. Oh, and AI can certainly never replace a human proofreader!

I'm the kind of person who has trouble visualizing characters when I read (or write) a book, so this AI tool has added a whole new dimension for me, helping me connect with my characters a little better, and that can only improve/augment my writing! So I'm really grateful to have this tool! :)