Emotions motivate people. As a romance writer, I’m tapping into emotions, seeking empathy and engagement from my readers for my characters. Increasingly, in writing about love and equal partnerships, I feel like I’m in a zero sum game where themes of revenge, anger, punishment, hate and anger get more traction than cooperation and encouraging mutual growth.
We’re being bombarded by information from all directions, and if we use social media, at an unprecedented speed. We use information to make some of the biggest decisions in our lives. Who to trust is one of the biggest.
There’s evidence that people are increasingly turning to bots or agents for advice on actions, on finances, and increasingly on who to love or who to hate.
The proliferation of horror stories about trusted entities on the other end of a post urging young people to self-harm and to commit violent acts against vulnerable others in their orbit is horrifying. It seems to happen in the blink of an eye. The algorithms seem to lap up and magnify the angry, the vicious, the vengeful, the misogynistic and hateful.
How to find balance?
I was reminded the other day of a game known pretty universally as telephone whispers. One person whispers a message to another. By the time the message has passed through multiple people, it’s not the same as the first message. This can be entertaining, but also teaches players how easy it is to get a message wrong.
While this is a game, it’s also an area for research used to identify the type of information that is more easily passed from one person to another. Reasons for changes include anxiousness or impatience, erroneous corrections, or the difficult-to-understand mechanism of whispering.
At the end of a game of telephone whispers, the correct message is given to everyone to compare against what they heard. In our digital world there’s the inference that every message is one hundred percent correct.
Anxiousness or impatience as a reason for mixing up a message tapped into something else I read recently. Hannah Ewens, a freelance editor and writer wrote an item for The Guardian on 27 September 2026 entitled My Instagram reels addiction has ruined my ability to have a conversation. But can I get it back?
After spending a lot of time on reels, she noticed a new impatience in her conversations with others. That the time spent, particularly on reels, catered to her as an individual
“started competing with real-life interactions. Subconsciously, I had begun to expect conversations to provide speed, relevance and the ability for me to skip through at will.”
Some of her friends and colleagues were having the same feelings. She asked experts for advice. In conversations you have to retain information and wait to reply, whereas the impatience you feel from too much digital short-form content encourages you to switch topics, interrupt, drift off or pick up the pace. Hannah’s conclusion is that
“the best conversations are nothing like content. They aren’t all sparky like electricity but take on the form of water. They allow me and another person to meander, to seep into places we have no business being, to become emotional. We push and pull and create a unique tide between us. There is no “hook”. No frenetic pace. Any clear takeaway is often submerged by more questions. Sometimes it’s boring but often it can be quite beautiful – if you have the patience for it.”
Stories are the same. You need to take time to read, reflect and submerge yourself for periods of time. We lose a whole lot of magic by going for the digital short form interaction, especially when the short-form is often curated by people who aren’t interested in letting us grow in new and diverse ways, but shift us towards dark and lonely spaces.
My takeaways—talk to people, including strangers, read more, relax in nature, go fishing.
What’s on the horizon for me:
My next release, Tainted, a standalone contemporary romance with suspense elements releases in January 2027.
Poppy Madsen’s not exactly in hiding. Yet. This trip’s a quick in and out of her home town to see where her grandpa’s buried and say her final goodbyes.
Grandpa banished her. Told her never to return, then pointed forensic accountant Poppy in the direction of her parents’ company, pushing her to bring them down. Family honour demands it. Now whispers are swirling about her role in their company, and government agencies are squabbling over jurisdiction for the impending court case.
Mitch Watkins, a small town lawyer and Ivar Madsen’s executor is now living in Ivar’s house. He bore witness to Ivar’s grief at Poppy’s abandonment. He doesn’t trust Poppy. She’s the enemy—right?
Mitch and Poppy circle each other. Both have learned to ration trust, but can’t deny their growing attraction. Daily, they cross boundaries they vowed not to cross, but can’t resist.
Is Poppy tainted by her family’s crimes, or has everyone mistaken her for something she isn’t?
I’ve actually got two works in progress (WIP). I’ve told you about Sophie’s Apology (tentative title) but the other piece is set in Nepal and is called Conquering Nick. It’s a book that’s been in my head a long time. I’d started work on it before the recent devastating glacier collapse and flood in Nepal. I’m continuing because Nepal is an incredibly beautiful country with wonderful people.
I’m appearing at the Australian Romance Readers Association (ARRA)’s annual A Romantic Rendezvous events in March 2027 in Sydney and Canberra. The special guests have been announced. Amy Andrews, multi-published spicy romance author and Ilona Andrews, the husband and wife team writing urban fantasy and paranormal romance. Keep up to date on developments by joining ARRA’s Facebook page.
Find me on:
- Instagram https://www.instagram.com/romanceauthorjen/
- Facebook – https://www.facebook.com/jenniferrainesauthor
- Goodreads—https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/22577889.Jennifer_Raines
- Bookbub – https://www.bookbub.com/authors/jennifer-raines
Betrayal—Choosing Family Book 3 (episode 212)
Diana Kathryn Penn’s Indie Reads Aloud podcast has recordings of me reading the opening 20 mins of my books:
