Today, I am pleased to have Sharon Srock visiting. She started with science fiction and now concentrated on Christian fiction, with three books in her Women of Valley View series. Here’s how her life has changed since she started the series.
Sharon: Mine is the story of an ever-evolving community. When I first started to write the Valley View series, I had no idea that the characters would become so real. I guess that happens to all writers. How can you eat, sleep, and work with people, twenty-four hours a day, for years, and have it any other way? They’ve each whispered their own story line to me and demanded equal time on paper. I was good with that, they weren’t. These greedy women, once granted the small freedom of the written page, demanded not only stories of their own, but a town to live in, families to raise, jobs to go to, and a church to attend. I live in small town Oklahoma, so I gave them the mythical Garfield, OK to live in and a beautiful little church, Valley View, as a place of worship.
I started with a single character who looked a lot like me. Callie is in her mid fifties, married with kids and grandkids, she teaches a Sunday school class at the church she’s attended nearly forever, and works at an OB/GYN clinic. I could identify with this person, I knew who she was (me), I could hear her voice in my head, and I was comfortable in her skin. It was easy to write from her point of view. Callie and I were one in the same, and we coexisted quite nicely together. Then a strange thing happened. Callie developed her own personality. She outgrew me. Callie is bold where I’m shy, she’s wise where I struggle. It wasn’t long before Callie wasn’t just a character on a piece of paper, she was the person I wanted to be when I grew up.
From that one person, a community was born. Callie needed a husband. Enter Benton who resembles my own hubby in appearance if not in deed. Callie needed a best friend so Karla received breath along with her husband Mitch. I wanted to appeal to more than the over fifty crowd, so forty something Pam and almost thirty Terri stepped onto my page. Who knew things could get so out of hand? Pam needed a husband and kids. The church needed pastors. No one wants to read about a group of church women sitting around, talking and eating cheese cake. Where’s the conflict? Enter Samantha, Iris, and their estranged father, Steve. Who knew Steve and Terri would fall in love and generate a second story? Who knew that Pam’s vicious ex-husband would get saved, move back to Garfield, and spawn a story worth telling in a third book? Who knew that Samantha…Well, you get the picture. Pushy, pushy women!
Sigh…With Callie and Terri both a reality, Pam releasing in April , Samantha’s story under consideration, and Kate’s tale in progress, I have no idea how far these very determined ladies will take me, but I’m looking forward to the journey.
JIM: Thanks, Sharon for a very interesting look at how our characters become real. Here’s a short blurb on Sharon’s new novel, Pam.
Pam’s divorce broke her heart. The cruelty of her ex-husband broke her spirit. A bottle of sleeping pills almost took her life. Four years later the scars of Alan Archer’s emotional abuse are beginning to fade under the love of her new husband. When Alan returns to Garfield, Pam must learn that buried secrets and carefully cultivated indifference do not equal forgiveness.
Alan Archer has returned to Garfield with a new wife and a terminal heart condition. His mission? To leave a Christian legacy for his children and to gain Pam’s forgiveness for the sins of his past.
Please visit her AMAZON page to find current info on her books: http://www.amazon.com/Sharon-Srock/e/B009OB2HSO/ref=ntt_athr_dp_pel_1
Connect with her at www.sharonsrock.com..
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/SharonSrock#!/SharonSrock
Sharon – one of the great things about your books is how real your characters are. I feel like they are my friends.
I have a writer buddy who once called her children by her character’s names she was so caught up in her novel.
Terri, I’m so glad you enjoy my women. That’s funny about your friend. I haven’t gone that far, but I have found myelf praying for them and their situations.
Hi Sharon,
It’s always fascinating to learn how other authors work.thanks for this look inside your process. Nothing is more fun to me than when characters become real, and inThe Women Of Valley view you’ve created just such a group of women for all of us to enjoy.
Linda goodnight
Linda, thanks for dropping by. I’m so glad you’ve enjoyed your time with the Women!
Hi Sharon! It was great to read about your experiences when writing. I can become an all-consuming thing, can’t it? One of the characters in my first novel pretty much took over. I was thinking he’d have a relatively minor role, but he insisted on being the next important after the two leads! Sometimes they are all too real.
Lynne, We call our books our “babies” and sometimes our characters can be problem children even when they aren’t on the page. Thanks for stopping by!
Sharon. I so identify with your “problem” with characters as mine behave in similar ways. I discovered that with my very first manuscript and thought it was just partly because I revised and revised and revised it so knew them all too well. A minor character who was a professing Christian lied and caused havoc for the hero and herone. Well, she did need her own book to sort out a Christian being a liar, didn’t she? And of all things, the minister from the first book just had to be the hero joining such a heroine in Book Two
Mary, Good to see you here. I guess we have to have a few scoundrels and varmints in our heads as well as the heroes and heroines. Makes life interesting.
Sharon, I know some readers who will enjoy your books and will be certain they see this interview~
Marni, thanks so much!!
I love that the characters are so real and totally come to life. It makes each book seem like you’re visiting friends, doesn’t it?
Good post, Sharon and James!
Linda, thats what I want my readers to take away. Friendship.
Wonderful post! It’s truly amazing how our characters so often take over and develop lives of their own. Thank you so much for sharing your story.
Marja, thats the truth. I’m working on book 5 of 6. I don’t know what I’ll do without them when I’m done.
James, thanks so much for hosting me, i look forward to getting to know your readers.
Definitely my pleasure. And a great gift to my readers as well. Thanks for sharing.
This is a great series!
Thanks Linda, I’m glad you enjoy it.