[Link] Diversity in Your Characters: A Conversation About Economic Inclusion with Stacey Cochran

by Fiona Quinn

Stacey - 
So I'm not entirely sure why love stories generally feature middle class, working class, or upper middle class characters. I think it has something to do with escapism. But, yeah, there's a whole population of people in America and around the world who don't fit those socioeconomic categories, and they want the same things the rest of us want. A roof over their heads, a committed, meaningful relationship, a sense of peace and hope, and a safe place to raise their kids. Eddie & Sunny is a novel that represents that population, a population that is too often under-represented or simply ignored. The irony is their love story is all the more poignant for its unconventional nature. At least I hope readers see it that way.

Fiona - 
I thought about the books from the depression era but in those books all of the population faced the same daunting situation. In this book you juxtaposed those with means and often wealth with those who had gone days without food. Was that hard to write?

Stacey - 
Yeah, I've not thought about that aspect of it before, but America in 2012-2014 is not the depression era. It was some neo-recession era, where a small portion of the population is just very wealthy, and the rest of us are struggling to pay the bills each month, keep food on the table, etc. It's like there's two polar opposites in America today. I think that was definitely one of the things I wanted to put on the table for readers to consider and discuss. I mean how many of us are rich? Seriously? And how many of us worry and struggle each and every month to make ends meet? I suspect the vast majority of us. Eddie & Sunny, in that respect is our story.

Read the full article: http://thrillwriting.blogspot.com/2015/06/diversity-in-your-characters.html

[Link] The Body Language of Attraction: Information for Writers

by Fionna Quinn

He loves me? He loves me not?

Surely your intrepid heroine knows better than to rely on the petals of the daisy to tell her the truth -  the answer to her question is standing right in front of her.

Bodies rarely lie.

Your heroine looks beyond the words and judges whether this is a future love interest or this is a waste of her time.

The first rule of thumb is never assume. Making a determination is based on an accumulation of body language information. Some of the body language gestures that your heroine is looking for may be personality quirks that do NOT inform the communication. As an example, I have often been called out for playing with my hair - many a man has read that a woman touching her hair is a sign of sexual desire. And I'm not saying that this is incorrect in every instance of my playing with my hair - I'm just saying that in general my hair gets in my way, and I am constantly touching my hair. So this would not be a good "tell" for me. What you want your heroine to see is what changes, where does the character act differently.

A tell is a body language signal that is produced without thought. It signals information to a recipient. Some people are more dexterous in reading body language than others.

Read the full article: http://thrillwriting.blogspot.com/2014/02/is-body-language-of-attraction.html

[Link] Diversity in Your Characters: Writing Physical Challenges

by Fiona Quinn with Katie Mettner

Continuing in our series on diversity in literature, today we are talking with Katie Mettner and her use of physical challenges as a character quality.

Fiona - 
Katie, I introduced myself to you from social media after I learned about your book Liberty Belle. First, could you give us your book blurb; and second, can you talk about why you decided to write about a character with physical challenges?

Katie - 
Main Street is bustling in Snowberry, Minnesota, and nobody knows that better than the owner of the iconic bakery, the Liberty Belle. Handed the key to her namesake at barely twenty-one, Liberty has worked day and night to keep her parents’ legacy alive.

Now, three years later, she’s a hotter mess than the batch of pies baking in her industrial-sized oven. Photographer Bram Alexander has had his viewfinder focused on the heart of one woman since returning to Snowberry. For the last three years she’s kept him at arm's length, but all bets are off when he finds her injured and alone on the bakery floor. Liberty knew falling in love with Bram would be easy, but convincing her tattered heart to trust him may be impossible. Armed with small town determination and a heart of gold, Bram shows Liberty frame-by-frame how falling for him is as easy as pie.

In the opening scene you meet Bram Alexander, who is at the bakery to pick up the baptism cake for his niece. His sister-in-law Snow and his brother Jay are both in wheelchairs. Snow is very prevalent in Liberty Belle because she is a researcher for MS where Liberty is being treated for MS. Snow is married to Dully Alexander, Bram's older brother, and Dully is a special education teacher. They foster a boy with Down Syndrome.

All of my characters have some form of disability or special challenge. When I write a new character I internally know, by whatever power is telling me, what their name is and the condition they will have. The rest is up to me to figure out and carry out.

MS is a disease that is so varying and runs a different course for each patient that it was very easy to focus on just one or two parts of the disease for this character physically, but really explore the emotional and social aspect of the disease and how that affects the whole being.

Read the full article: http://thrillwriting.blogspot.com/2015/07/diversity-in-your-characters-writing.html