Shannon here: Donna Schlachter shares insight into her writing process plus a chance to win a copy of her soon to release Historical Romance, Cactus Lil’s Big City Debut. Comment or answer the question in this post to enter the drawing for a digital giveaway including international. Deadline: Feb 10th, 11:59 pm central time. Here’s Donna:
Romancing the Storyteller in Us
I was very happily writing along today in my upcoming release, Cactus Lil’s Big City Debut, Book 2 in the “Written in Love” series, which will release February 14, 2024. I followed my outline, thinking I had this well in hand, when I came to a scene where my heroine, Lily, on her honeymoon in New York City, goes to her room to pen notes for two upcoming presentations.
If you’re anything like me—and thus, something like Lily—speaking in front of a group of strangers is more scary for her than grabbing a rattler by the tail and not getting bit.
Then I realized I could use this scene as a teaching moment for readers, as Lily thinks through each of the talks. The first one, to a group of women writers. What would they want to hear from her? She’s a newcomer to the New York writing scene, as the title implies, but she has a contract—or rather—three contracts in hand for upcoming books.
So I spend the next page or so as she mulls through the topics of discussion, including navigating in the current (1885) publishing scene, writing about what she doesn’t know (she pens romance, having never fallen in love before until she met her now husband), and giving readers what they are expecting. Good advice for all writers. Lily will include the almost fictional telling of how and she and her now-husband met, and she’ll wrap all this up with a time for questions.
Her second presentation of the day is to a teacher’s organization who want to know about the importance of reading and writing in the school system of that period. She knows even less about this topic, seeing as how she was taught at home by her mother. She’s an only child, living in a remote area and so knew no other children.
She concludes that reading is the key. Even if a person couldn’t pen a single word, they could theoretically learn enough to become a doctor, lawyer, or politician. She’d learned that reading was key to her drive to learn more and more, starting with the Bible.
As she considers the stories in the Holy Book, she sees the relationship between good storytelling and success as a writer. She remembers the various plots in the Bible, including love, hatred, romance, mystery, suspense, thriller, and tragedy. Gifted with an innate ability to tell a successful story, she laments those who never acquired that skill.
Lily learns that romance and love have given her new perspectives into writing that she’d never realized existed before. In fact, she’d been going through the motions, as it were, to write her romance stories. But now—now she knows what that feels like.
As readers, we want to experience all that life has to offer us. We inherently know a good story from a bad one, and in most cases, it isn’t that the tale is poor—rather, it was poorly told.
Romance is the icing on the cake that contains many other ingredients, including tension, love, hatred, mystery, suspense, adventure, and more. But no matter how gritty the story, most readers want romance, not just the facts of life, in their well-told stories.
Question for Readers: Have you ever done any public speaking? Did it make you nervous? Share your experiences.
About Donna: A hybrid author, Donna writes squeaky clean historical and contemporary suspense. She has been published more than 60 times in books; is a member of several writers groups; facilitates a critique group; teaches writing classes; and judges in writing contests. She loves history and research, traveling extensively for both, and is an avid oil painter. She is taking all the information she’s learned along the way about the writing and publishing process, and is coaching committed career writers. Learn more and connect:
Donna’s Website Stay connected so you learn about new releases, preorders, and presales, as well as check out featured authors, book reviews, and a little corner of peace. Plus: Receive 2 free ebooks simply for signing up for our free newsletter!
Donna’s Blog Donna’s Facebook Donna’s Twitter
Donna’s Bookbub Donna’s Goodreads
Donna’s Purposeful Writer Facebook Groups
Donna’s Purposeful Writer Coaching Programs
About the book – Cactus Lil’s Big City Debut:
Lily Duncan Golding—a.k.a. Cactus Lil—heads to New York City for her honeymoon and her publishing debut. Peter Golding—a.k.a. the City Slicker—arrives triumphantly in the Big City. Mission accomplished. He’s married the woman of his dreams—Daisy Duncan—even though she isn’t exactly as he’d imagined. In fact, she’s better.
But when they arrive and learn of Uncle Phillip’s mysterious disappearance, Peter and Lily are pulled into the dark underside of the Big City, then thrust onto the front pages of the newspapers as ‘persons of interest’ in the investigation.
Can they survive the onslaught of attention on themselves, their marriage, and the seedy side of the publishing industry? Can they survive? Period? Or can they discover who is behind this nefarious act, save Uncle Phillip–and themselves?
Can’t wait for the drawing? Worried you won’t win? Interested in Donna’s other titles?
Get your copy/copies now!
Cactus Lils Big City Debut Preorder Donna’s Books
Come back Feb 2nd for Caryl McAdoo!
did it, no
I have a winner! Debbi Reynolds won the drawing. I appreciate Donna for being my guest and everyone else for stopping by.