By Tristan Kane
When people find out I’m a man writing emotional, first-person, present-tense romance from a woman’s point of view, the first question they usually ask is: Why?
And the answer isn’t about craft — it’s about connection.
When I started writing Two Doors Down, I didn’t set out to write a traditional love story. I set out to understand the heartbreak I had experienced in my own life — the ache of being emotionally invisible in a relationship, the unraveling of something sacred, the quiet devastation of loving someone who stopped choosing you.
But I didn’t want to write about the heartbreak from the outside looking in. I wanted to feel it the way she would. I wanted to inhabit her pain, not just describe it. That’s why I chose to write from first-person point of view — to live inside Christy’s head and heart. And that’s why I chose present tense — to make the reader feel what she feels as it’s happening.
Every sigh. Every doubt. Every stolen glance across the driveway.
Writing from a woman’s perspective wasn’t about trying to be something I’m not. It was about stepping outside of my own story long enough to understand hers. Christy Brown represents every woman I’ve ever hurt unintentionally… and every woman who’s ever made me feel like I wasn’t enough. Writing her was an act of empathy. An act of accountability. And, in many ways, an act of healing.
There were moments when writing her voice felt natural — almost eerily so. And there were moments when it felt like walking barefoot across glass. But the entire process kept me grounded in one simple truth: emotional pain isn’t gendered. Loneliness doesn’t care if you’re a man or a woman. And the longing to be seen and loved for who you truly are? That’s universal.
Through Christy, I found myself. And through James, I rediscovered the kind of man I want to be — the one who doesn’t just love with words, but with presence. With patience. With stillness.
Writing romance as a man isn’t about writing the perfect male lead. It’s about holding up a mirror to the parts of ourselves we often hide — the tender ones, the insecure ones, the ones that still hope even after everything’s fallen apart.
That’s the story I wanted to tell.
And that’s the story I hope you feel when you read it.
— Tristan