Ask a dozen different authors this question and you could get a hundred different answers. It’s fascinating to look back on the process of how a story comes together, so the story has enough weight and oomph that it can sustain many thousands of words that readers want to read.
I was thinking about this process for my recent release, Fire and Ice. When I first started writing this novel last year I knew a few things:
1. It needed to be set in Calgary, or a northwestern North American city where hockey is played, in order to introduce my new series Northwest Ice.
2. If it was set in Calgary, I could use a character mentioned briefly in the first book in my first hockey series (The Breakup Project, book 1 of the Original Six). Franklin James is a former teammate of Mike Vaughan from Boston days, who was now playing in Calgary.
3. If using Franklin, then I had some parameters:
a) he was already friends with Mike, which would play nicely into introducing him into the Northwest Ice Bible study that is the central thread tying the books in the series together (& based on a real online bible study by pro hockey players);
b) I’d mentioned that Franklin came from a ranch outside Calgary, so hello – we have a hockey playing cowboy!
c) Franklin had three sisters, which lent itself nicely into a possible friendship with my heroine, and would definitely lend itself to the sibling tease and banter that make these books so fun.
(Little did I realise at the time that three sisters naturally lends itself to a new series, set on the ranch I researched just outside Calgary – that just so happens to have its own Western movie set. How can you not write about that? The first book in this new series, A Cameo for a Cowgirl releases next year)
In thinking through all of this I was considering new ways for my couples to meet. I personally am a fan of the second chance romance trope, so that was nice to include. Make it work with the hero’s sister being the friend of the heroine? Why not? But make it in a context that proves tricky to just dive headline into a relationship? Okay, then how about a forbidden workplace situation, with an employee who is not supposed to be in a relationship with our hockey hero…
I thought about different scenarios, then came across an article about female sports reporters. Diving into the world of sports reporting was eye-opening, with women reporting on sports facing everything from having hot dogs thrown at them to dealing with death threats. It’s amazing(ly awful) to think this is what happens even today, especially in this day and age of women’s professional sports and #MeToo. So I knew I had to have a tough heroine who could deal with this, which led to the creation of Hannah Wade, only daughter of a feminist mother, and a former world-class athlete who pivoted to sports reporting after injury, and who is on the way to finding her way back to God again.
But of course, a romance between a sports reporter and a hometown hockey hero is fraught with challenges, not least of which is the potential for a conflict of interest…
I love how a story comes together, and I’m so pleased that early readers and some author heroes have enjoyed this, with Susan May Warren even describing Fire and Ice as “A delightful, laugh out loud romance.”
So that’s part of how this story came together. Here’s a bit more about Fire and Ice:
Hannah Wade’s heart might’ve once been touched by a rancher’s son, but her real passion has always been sports. Years later, when her sports career is cut short by injury, she jumps at the chance to be one of Calgary’s first female sports reporters. Trouble is, some of the old dinosaurs she works with think she’s only there to look good, add ratings, and stir controversy among the fiercely loyal hockey fans. She longs to prove herself, so when an opportunity comes along to interview newly traded defenseman Franklin James, she meets him. Or, more accurately, re-meets him. With disastrous effect.
Growing up with three sisters means Franklin thought he knew something about women, but nothing had ever prepared him for the sparkling firecracker that is Hannah. And yet her vibrant personality holds a sweetness and soft side, something that draws his interest and protectiveness when an interview goes south. And there’s something about her that’s vaguely familiar…
Can these two overcome prejudice and find a way forward? And what has faith – or the lack of – got to do with anything?
Fire and Ice is a second-chance, forbidden romance and the first book in the new Northwest Ice hockey romance series, a sweet and swoony, slightly sporty, Christian contemporary romance series, perfect for fans of Becky Wade, Courtney Walsh, and Susan May Warren.
Buy now at Amazon Other retailers.
(And if you haven’t read the Original Six series yet, now is the time to buy with each ebook only 99c. Visit here to find out more)
Now let’s chat: If you’re an author, what are some interesting ways your book has evolved ? If you’re a reader, what are some fun things you’d like to see incorporated into a story? Got a favorite trope or setting? Let’s talk!
Carolyn Miller lives in the beautiful Southern Highlands of New South Wales, Australia, with her husband and four children. A longtime lover of romance, Carolyn loves drawing readers into fictional worlds that show the truth of God’s grace in our lives. Her Regency and contemporary novels are available from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Book Depository, Koorong, etc
Hi Carolyn! Thanks for including us readers in your writing process. As a reader, I enjoy when authors included previous characters in their stories. As a retiree who often does arm chair travel, I wish authors would do incorporate more about the setting – parks, landmarks, museums, famous homes, restaurants and businesses. Living in Michigan, I have been to Canada – Windor is across the river from Detroit. My aunt lived in Toronto, plus I have been to Stratford on the Avon. I also cruised Lake Winnipeg and visited Winnipeg, but I have never been to Calgary. Enjoy the day.
I love hearing how writers bring everything together to make a story, it’s fascinating. This sounds like the beginning of a great series.
I love reading books set in worlds I know nothing about, like hockey or ranching as I find I learn so much. Second chance romance is a great trope, I think my favourite is marriage of convenience.
The funniest was how my novel “The second shuttle boat” came to be.
“The Crew” is a young adult novel I published in 2018. But its first version was written on a notebook covered in blue paper, during the holidays between my ninth and tenth grade (well, it means 1983… ) It is about a crew of teen and tween cousins and their adventures and friends, in a few cases the first loves too, happening in a city at the river-maritime Danube, Braila. It was revised a couple of times afterwards until it got to be, many years later, transcribed on pc.
Then it was also thoroughly revised again and it got an epilogue 20 years later. (Or well, it had got two epilogues then… but only one remained after the final edits, because the other was too melodramatic and cliche. A pair of adopted twins can live very well knowing that they were adopted, but not knowing their biological parents, if it was not possible to find the ones who had abandoned them).
It got more revisions when it was possible to publish it, of course. And just the day after I gave the GOOD TO PRINT approval to “The Crew”, I was still thinking about the epilogue. That the one forgotten among bottles, the stray one of a love triangle, deserved his second chance at love too, be it 20 years later…
In the epilogue, his godson and the other twin (actually christened by the godfather’s sister) made him promise to stop drinking. It was a story worth continuing… therefore, “The second shuttle boat” (the second chance at love and happiness). And due to the utter shock of the idea that my novel will have a sequel, I was in the bus then, I got down a station earlier than I should :P
At that moment, I was still thinking that I will find a new love for him when he returns to his hometown, fighting himself to remain sober, as promised.
I told to my book redactor, the day after, at a literary event where I met her, that “The Crew” will have a sequel, because the unlucky one deserves a second chance too. “You combine and re-combine them like in The Young and the Restless”, she said, misunderstanding me that I wanted him to remain with his first love. (Somebody else thought the same when she heard it, but it was not my intention, she was happily married with the other and having 2 children of their own, plus the adopted twins).
But right then, with her words, she opened a new possibility to me – that he could remain with a friend of his sister’s, who might have become a widow for a couple of years… They were suitable one for the other, and that woman would know more about him, it would be easier for her to understand him.
So the book started… I had to research life on a river boat (I think these are called tugs in English), as he was the chief engineer, a few other fun details… but it worked nicely.
I like any and all tropes, but my all-time favorite is marriage of convenience, as long as it’s done well, and “right” in that we know the exact moment that it changes from a marriage of convenience to a true marriage.
Wow, this is so very interesting, thank you for sharing this . I have heard very good things about your book Fire and Ice, I will definitely be looking for it. I love, the book cover also. Have a great weekend.
Thanks so much for commenting, Renate! Ah, now Winnipeg is the setting for my next novel in this series, so that’s be fun to know what stuck out to you as highlights from your visit there. Because you’re right- it’s always fun to gain some extra insight into the setting of a book.
Hi Ruthie – in that case, I hope you’ll check these books out! :) Now marriage of convenience is something I’ve done in historicals, but have found a tricky concept for contemporary. I’ve done fake relationship (in Love on Ice) but that’s a challenge I obviously need to explore…
It’s so awesome how books that can sit on a shelf for so long can finally get their moment to shine- when the time is right. Love this story, Marina.
The first book I ever wrote (Love on Ice) sat buried in my computer for 10 years before I finally gave it to an editor who told me how this 155k beast was actually 2 novels, which meant splicing and dicing and reworking it, then adding a whole new book before it called The Breakup Project. I was thrilled to finally see it released as part of The Original Six series last year. Sometimes we just have to wait a little (or a long) while until the time is right!
Obviously marriage of convenience is a trope I need to dip my toe into! I haven’t yet dared venture into it yet, not in the contemporary romance world, anyway. It seems tricky to make it seem like a genuine reason for that kind of commitment. Have you got any recommendations for a contemporary you think does this well?
Thanks so much Alicia. I hope you enjoy Fire and Ice – I think it’s got some important things to say as well as being an entertaining read. Happy reading to you!
Hannah Jo Abbott’s newest, Love for the Cowboy, and Alexa Verde’s Show Me a Marriage of Convenience and No Marriage of Convenience for a Cowboy are all really good!!
Thank you so much for sharing. I enjoy romantic suspense. God bless you.
Thanks for the recommendations!
Thanks for commenting Debra. May I ask what it is about romantic suspense you most enjoy?