Hello ,
I have some news I’ve been dying to share since the beginning of the month. My new agent, the fabulous Laurie McLean at Fuse Literary, has sold all four books in The Mixed Six-Pack to DramaWave, a vertical series app!
If you haven’t fallen down the micro-drama rabbit hole yet, let me introduce you.
These are essentially snackable movies you watch on your phone in 60- to 90-second bites—fast, addictive, emotionally charged little episodes that end on a cliffhanger and make you tap “next” before you know what happened. Think soap-opera energy, romance, secrets, and swoon, but designed for the screen in your hand. DramaWave is one of the platforms streaming these vertical, full-screen mini-series.
I'm so excited to have my stories chosen to be made into micro-dramas since the vertical-drama world has been evolving quickly. For a while, a lot of these stories leaned into tired, misogynistic tropes—heroines who were emotionally and physically abused, diminished, or treated as prizes in someone else’s revenge plot. But the industry is changing, and romance authors are increasingly part of that change.
Micro-drama bingers want heroines who are smart, funny, capable, complicated, and still allowed to fall head over heels in love. We want heat, chemistry, banter, and emotional payoff—without making the heroine small so the story can feel dramatic. And who better to tell those stories than romance authors, right?
Last fall, I took part in an incubator where I wrote a vertical series about a matchmaker and one of her clients. It was a ton of fun to learn how to write this way—seriously, you need to write a cliff-hanger every 60 seconds!—and while I did a pretty good job (my story got a nibble from a producer, which was thrilling but needed more revisions than I had time for on their schedule) my heart is still as a romance author.
Having my books optioned is the absolute best way for my stories to be part of this fun new story-telling genre.
Also great news—DramaWave has told me that all four Mixed Six-Pack books will be adapted into scripts by human writers who are members of the Writers Guild of America. And, I’ll have the opportunity to give input along the way. How fun is that?!
If you want the ultimate insider experience, now is a wonderful time to get to know the books. (Not very subtle hint to read or listen to these stories now!)
When the vertical dramas arrive, you’ll be able to spot the story elements that made it from page to screen—and notice the changes the adaptation made along the way. Which scenes survived? Which character moments got expanded, condensed, or reimagined? Did the chemistry translate? It’s going to be so much fun to compare the books and the screen versions together.
I’d love to hear from you:
If you watch vertical series, what's a story that totally grabbed you?
If you've not yet been sucked in, would you like some recommendations?
Thank you, as always, for reading, cheering me on, and being part of this wild, wonderful author journey.
xo,
Danika
P.S. If you haven’t read The Mixed Six-Pack yet, now is the perfect time to meet the books before they become bite-sized screen drama! Ooohh... maybe we could have a watch party when they release! Yes?
Danika Bloom
USA Today bestselling romance author
With respect and gratitude, I operate on the traditional, ancestral, and unceded territory of the SkwxwĂş7mesh (Squamish) Nation.
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