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Rolling with the Changes

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Sometimes, you can plan all you want. But a book changes on you.

I’ve had my French guy in my head for at least thirteen years. I’ve got about twenty-five thousand words I’ve managed in between contracted books and deadlines. After all these years, I have time to devote to it now, but I’ve struggled. I wrote some pages and lost them late last year and I’ve had a hard time getting back into the story. In the last month, I’ve managed five thousand new words with a new twist to the story that will require me to tweak the original old words.

When I have a deadline, I can write five thousand words in a day or two. But this story has gotten the best of me. Usually when I struggle with a book, it’s because something’s wrong with the direction I’m going. Originally my French artist was the product of a married American foreign correspondent and a French journalist brought together in the aftermath of the 1983 Beirut barracks attack. A large part of the story involves my hero coming to the U.S. to search for his father.

At the time, around 2011, my timeline fit. My hero could be about twenty-seven years old. But I never got the story written and if I stick with that, my hero would have be around thirty-five now. Which is okay, but my heroes and heroines have been in their mid to late twenties in all my books, so I’m not sure I need to mess with that formula reader’s apparently like from me.

When I started on this story again late last year, I changed it to where they met during Desert Storm in 1990. That way, my hero can be twenty-seven again. But it makes the book time-sensitive. If it doesn’t get published in the next few years, I’m out of war situations or terrorist attacks that would have brought an American and French journalist together until the Afghanistan war which started in 2001. That would make me wait until at least 2026 for the book to be publishable. At the rate, I’m going, it might work.

But then the whole thing with France not supporting the US in 2003 to invade Iraq and the backlash that changed french fries to freedom fries for some people. A few friends I’ve mentioned it to have asked why he has to be French. Though France supported us in Afghanistan and regained American sympathies after the terrorist attacks in their home country, I just started wondering if my guy really needed to be French.

Grand Canal, Italy

The guy who inspired the character at a long ago mall who asked my sister-in-law and I if he could, “straight our hair” was Italian. I think the only reason he became French for my book is because I took two years of the language in high school to complete my foreign language credit. I figure I can write dialogue for a French guy, using a few words of his native language sprinkled in his thoughts and dialogue, to show that he speaks stilted English.

In the meantime, the angle I added involves a mystery in the book involving an Italian family. Why not make my guy Italian? I started out researching war, embassy situations, and terrorist attacks involving Americans and Italians in recent history. But then it hit me. What if my hero’s mother came to the U.S. to follow her family tree? What if she’s a descendant of the Italian family involved in the mystery? What if she met my hero’s father on his home turf?

Whoa.

Now my story is timeless.

And I think that’s been the missing ingredient.

Even though I don’t know Italian, I found a handy tool online that converts English words and phrases into Italian. I serioulsy LOVE Italian food and the way Italians are so family oriented and friendly. The first step was to change his name. That was hard. He started out as Phillipe Beaumont, but his nickname was Beau. Which fit really well because beau means handsome in French and he’s really cute. His new Italian name is Giovanni Costa. His nickname is Gio. It’s growing on me. I’ve changed my new five thousand words to reflect his new ethnicity. Now on to tackle the twenty-five thousand old words.

So let’s talk Italian food. What’s your favorite Italian dish? All comments will go in the drawing for book two of my Texas Cowboy series, Winning over the Cowboy.

Shannon Taylor Vannatter (60 Posts)

Award winning author, Shannon Taylor Vannatter writes contemporary Christian cowboy romance and has over a dozen published titles. A romance reader since her teens, she hopes to entertain Christian women and plant seeds in the non-believer’s heart as she demonstrates that love doesn’t conquer all—Jesus does. She gleans fodder for her fiction in rural Arkansas where she spent her teenage summers working the concession stand with her rodeo announcing dad and married a Texan who morphed into a pastor. In her spare time, she loves hanging out with her husband and son, flea marketing, and doing craft projects.


Comments

  1. Hi Shannon, your post makes me smile- how interesting to read about your thought process and the evolution of a story. There certainly are a lot factors to consider!!
    I love Italian food- pizza and pasta of course. We grow a lot of basil over summer which I make into pesto to freeze and use over winter- works beautifully with homemade fettuccine. A good bruschetta- yum!
    Blessings:)

  2. Hi Shannon! Ice Day in Michigan. Students rejoicing for Snow Day #8. A new record, I believe for our school district. Thanks for your insightful blog about story development with an international twist. As a retired high school German teacher, I chuckled at your reasoning for your French character and smiled that a French teacher had an impact in your life. As a world language teacher, I am not fond of translation programs, which have improved over the years but still have their limitations. As Wemble stated, I enjoy pizza, caesar salad, pasta, fettuccine, and bruschetta. Dine at our local Italian restaurant monthly, which offers a Three Course Feast of salad, entree, and dessert. It is my 5 year granddaughters favorite place to dine. She loves dipping the bread in olive oil. We share our favorite dessert – Lemon Tango, lemon soaked cream cake with fresh raspberries. Just the correct blend of tart and sweet. Raspberries are a family favorite. Stay safe and warm. Happy Writing and Best Wishes.

  4. I’m not a huge fan of Italian food but I really like pizza. I enjoyed reading about your book about the French guy who’s no longer French. It’s amazing to me to hear the thought processes behind a novel.

  5. We unfortunately don’t do much Italian in our home due to one child having dairy allergy. We do enjoy pasta :).

  7. Yes my thought processes during the writing phase are quite profound :) We’ve got flooding here and school is out due to impassible roads. I love Olive Garden. We have a local Italian restaurant that isn’t chain that’s really good too.

  10. That’s a bummer. Food allergies and digestive issues are difficult. My husband can’t eat nuts, seeds, popcorn, or corn. We’ve found substitutes for the last two. We buy Toms Puffed Popcorn which doesn’t have a kernel. I make lots of soups and if the recipe calls for corn, I use hominy instead. Nuts are a challenge. There’s always some yummy dessert at church potluck he can’t eat.

  13. I love a great veal scalloping! I haven’t had that in years. I, too, loved getting a peak into your writing process. Sometimes it’s the simplest thing that evades is and then, boom! Everything falls into place. Can’t wait to read this passion project because it puts the reality of modern day war into context. We tend to think we haven’t been “at war” since Vietnam but any military family knows that’s not true.

  14. I think you pulled us all into your story today, Shannon! What a fascinating peek, and I’m so glad the story CLICKED when you found your French Italian guy’s back story. Now, write on! We want to read about him!

  15. Shannon—as a writer your words are ringing true in a story I’ve been working on for a long time that’s not pulling together with my original vision. Thanks for sharing your story. I love ALL Italian food. I love Chicken Picatta—Pizza-Lasagna-Spaghetti—I could list every Italian dish, but I won’t. Thanks for an inspiring post.

  16. When I am enjoying reading a book I never really think about what the author had to go through to get that perfect story down. Thanks for the insight. Now to my favorite Italian dish, either lasagna or spaghetti, I’m pretty simple.

  17. My favorite Italian dish is lasagna, but my daughter made some homemade tortellini (she even made the ricotta, which was SO MUCH BETTER than the store-bought kind!) the other night that was A-MAZ-ING! I told her she could make that any time! Love the insight into your thought-process. I’m having trouble with my new series people. I think I just need to get to know them better. After all, I’ve known my Southern Breeze peeps since about 2008! LOL!

  25. In my original author bio, I said my goal was to hire Alice from the Brady Bunch. Last year, I got a Roomba robot vacuum cleaner for my anniversary/birthday. I love her and named her Alice. Now I want an Italian cook. If I had one though, I would get so large I wouldn’t be able to walk.

  27. Oh Regina, it’s always hard to start a new series for me. But you’re right, it just takes time to get to know the people. I love tortellini. Oh to have someone who likes to cook and make new and/or complicate things. That is so not me.

  32. Shannon, praying you’ll tackle another twenty-five thousand words ;)
    I love sweets – so I pick Tiramisu – yummy!

  39. Scrapping your original idea and starting over? Imagine that! LOL
    I have loved Italian food since I was a little girl. We had a wonderful Italian neighbor who was an excellent cook. My favorite was ravioli, but recently a new friend introduced me to pasta carbonara. It is lighter, and has bacon and eggs in the pasta, along with parmesan cheese. Delicious! Now that I am watching calories, I love a dish called shrimp fra-diavolo. It is super spicy, and if I cut back on the amount of pasta they serve with it, it is legal for my diet. Have fun with your research!

  43. I have liked the Italian food I have eaten, but don’t know how authentic it is. A couple of years ago I bought my sister a pasta maker for Christmas. She wanted to try her hand at making homemade pasta. It turned out well. She watched videos on YouTube of people making it by hand (no machine). They made it look so easy. She couldn’t get the ingredients to combine that way. Back to the machine. Janice Thompson, Hillary Manton Lodge, and Brandy Bruce all have interesting books with lots of Italians and Italian food. I love book like that. Yours will be a welcome addition. We cannot get enough of them!

  45. I wish I loved to cook, but I don’t, Sylvia. I do easy dishes. I can’t imagine taking the time to make my own pasta. But I bet it was good.

    Today was a wonderful day. I found my missing pages. I had renamed the book and saved it under the new name. Then I obviously couldn’t remember what I named it. I have stuff I’ll cut, but most of it, I’ll blend and I’m that much farther into the story. And I have scenes that I wrote back in Oct. that I loved. Which makes me newly excited about this book, so it should flow out of me easier now.

  49. I make a really good lasagna that my family loves. I like most Italian dishes except ones with sausage. I am going to Italy in October. I am looking forward to trying new food.

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