INTERVIEW: Shawna K. Williams, Author of Grace-Inspired Fiction

I met Shawna K. Williams through the American Christian Fiction Writers association, where she is an active participant in the online ACFW Book Club. She lives in Arkansas and says this about herself:

I'm a lot of things, so I'll list them according to importance; I'm a Christian, a wife, mother, friend. I'm also a teacher, writer, artist, rancher, and animal lover. These last few kind of jostle for my attention, and what's more important one day, isn't the next. I think that's true with everyone.

She is also involved in a non-profit ministry to help women get out of the sex trafficking industry. It is faith based, and their hope is to bring those they take in to Christ, but they also work to transition these women into a life far away from the industry, where they can get and hold a job, find and keep a home, and repair damaged relationships. She is helping to obtain donations of books and other items to help these women through this transition.

In All Things

What impressed me about Shawna is her writing. Shawna is the author of three books published by Desert Breeze, No Other, In All Things, and Orphaned Hearts, with a fourth book due out this year. I've read the first two and loved them both. Today, I'll be talking to her about In All Things.

Q: From talking to you about your book, No Other, I know you research the time period of your stories in great detail. In preparing for the sequel, In All Things, how did you learn so much about Hollywood stars during that time period? Do you have some inside knowledge of that time and place?

A: The setting and era were probably what seemed most daunting when I started this book. I've always had a fascination with Old Hollywood, and had already read a number of biographies about starlets of the day. I learned quite a bit about the internal struggles going on within the industry from these actresses own run-ins with the powers that be.

Mostly, I just researched the snot out of this thing. The last thing I wanted was to sound like a girl, born in 1970 and living in Arkansas, writing about 1950s Hollywood. It makes me really happy that you wondered if I had an inside source. I was able to find someone who worked as a makeup artist in the industry, and someone who worked as a costumer. Those ladies were helpful for clarifying several finer points. Other than that though, I just read everything I could get my hands on about the industry. I've got quite a collection of books about Hollywood history, agents and managers, on set etiquette, the technical side of movie making, you name it. One of the most fascinating books is called The Star Machine. It's about the factory like process Old Hollywood used to create its stars. Everything was manufactured! I used this as a basis for Meri's journey into stardom.

Any hints for a busy writer?

Q: I see you marketing your other books through various ways and helping other writers so much, it makes me wonder how you find time to write. Any hints for a busy writer?

                                

A: Don't sleep. I'm at home during the day, so that is a benefit for me. I try to use my spare time in the daylight hours to take care of the business angle. It's getting harder, though. I'm kind of struggling with a case of burn out at the moment, but still trying to hang in there.

I write at night after everyone has gone to bed.

Q: I try not to read book reviews for a book I plan to review myself so I haven't read the ones for In All Things. However, I heard you voice concern about your first negative review. Tell us how that made you feel at the time and how you feel now that you've had time to think about it.

A: I knew that sooner or later I'd get one because that's just part of the biz. I had wondered how I would react. In all honesty, I'm okay. Sure, I wish the person would have loved the book. There's a lot packed into it, and my hope has always been that readers will understand my intent and find something of value to take away. It's not an easy read though, and therefore it's not going to appeal to everyone. The reviewer who gave it a negative rating is also an author. From the books she's written, it's clear that she and I have very different preferences and are also writing to different audiences, so it makes sense that this story wouldn't appeal to her.

Q: There's not a nice way to say this, but I noticed your first book, No Other, was cluttered with problems that should have been caught by a good editor while In All Things had none that I noticed. What happened between the first and second book?

A: Ah...yes. When No Other came out Desert Breeze had just turned a year old. They were growing rapidly but the editing staff was still very tiny. Problems were creeping up in a number of books, but it has been addressed. There are now six editors on staff and they're able to take more time with each book. Also, an author approval round has been added. I love the company, and when they realized the quality was suffering they were quick to fix the problem. I do hope to go back and correct some of the typos in No Other at some point.

Oops!

Q: I read where you've signed a contract for a sequel to In All Things. Can you tell us about it? Have you written it already? Will it follow In All Things in time? When will it be available?

A: I signed a contract for The Good Fight, which will release in November 2011. I like to think of it as a spin-off from No Other and In All Things. Both of those books were mainly about Jakob and Meri. The Good Fight will focus on Roger, a character from No Other, who also had a small role in In All Things. The story takes place a few months after In All Things, right after Ralph is sent to prison. Roger is the DA, and he's faced with bringing Meri's dad to justice when he realizes that he's helping Galveston's mob family, the Maceo brothers (real mob family), relocate their gambling establishments to Port Delamar. There's a romance, of course, with Pennye, the sister of the kid Roger just prosecuted for murder. Oops!

So, we a have a new book to look forward to, and it sounds great. Thank you, Shawna, for sharing with us today. For more information about Shawna K Williams and her books, check her blog: http://shawnawilliams-oldsmobile.blogspot.com/.

Where Can You Buy a Book?

Click the Amazon ad for the Kindle edition. Shawna's books are available in all eBook formats. Click Desert Breeze for the others.

Find the Perfect Name for a Fictional Character Part 3

Those of you who write historical novels know it is important to pick a name that fits the time period of your novel. In fact, you must make sure everything you mention fits the time period. In Shawna K. Williams' No Other, a novel set in the United States at the end of World War II, she mentions cloth diapers. Since we only had cloth diapers at that time, adding the word "cloth" was unnecessary and caused me, as the reader, to wonder why it was there.

Speaking of names, though, there are some names that are used in every generation while others tend to be faddish. The best source for the names being used is the Social Security Administration's Popular Baby Names website: http://www.ssa.gov/OACT/babynames/. You'll find the most popular male and female names by year going all the way back to 1880. You can specify the top 20, 50, 100, 500, or 1000. You can also look up the statistics for a particular name and see how it's popularity has changed over the years.

My name, Sidney, for example has changed in popularity over the years. When I was born it was fairly popular, but today it is way down on the list. However, it is not a good name for a fictional character because it is used for both males and females. Don't make it hard on your readers by making them have to remember if the character is a man or woman. 

My fictional character's name Brian, on the other hand, has a popularity in the top 100 every year since the mid-1940s. Karen, the female protagonist, was born in the mid-1950s and according to the Social Security Administration, the name Karen was in the top ten every year between 1951 and 1968.

Another way to analyze your character names is to look at the meaning of the name. Whether we like it or not readers have preconceived feelings about certain names. Some of those feelings could be personal and there's nothing we can do about that. But, there are names that more often than not have a special meaning to most people. In the next posting we'll identify sources of information you can use to learn the meaning and history of a name.

Have you used the Social Security Administration's Popular Baby Names website? If so, let me hear about your experiences.

Where Love Once Lived on My Father’s Oldsmobile

I’m pleased to say Where Love Once Lived is featured today on Shawna K. Williams’ blog My Father’s Oldsmobile. See: http://shawnawilliams-oldsmobile.blogspot.com/2010/11/author-interview-sidneyw-frost.html.

Shawna is the author of No Other, In All Things, and a soon to be published Christmas story, Orphaned Hearts. I read No Other and loved it. I’ll be reading the other two books soon.

Please go to her blog and read the interview. She asked some questions no one has asked me before and I believe the results offer insights into the book that have never been published before. Also, I hope you will all comment on her blog.

Inspirational Ebooks features Where Love Once Lived

Where Love Once Lived is featured on Inspirational Ebooks today, a blog created and written by Shawna K. Williams, author of No Other and the soon to be released sequel, In All Things.

I met Shawna on the American Christian Fiction Writers (ACFW) book club
when we discussed her No Other. See my review here: http://christianbookmobile.blogspot.com/2010/10/book-review-no-other-by-shawna-k.html

Please read what Shawna has to say about Where Love Once Lived, and leave a comment to show you were there.
Here is the link: http://inspirationalebooks.blogspot.com/2010/11/where-love-once-lived-sid-frost.html

Thank you, Shawna, and thank you dear reader for going to Inspirational Ebooks to read the post.

BOOK REVIEW: No Other by Shawna K. Williams

No Other, set in post World War II time, is the story of Jakob, the son of Americans of German ancestry who were detained in Port Delamar, a fictional town based on Baytown, just east of Houston, and Meri, the daughter of the mayor.
Meri had been brought up by a mother and father who were more interested in outer appearances than true beliefs. They joined the church only because it would look good and get the mayor more votes, not because they believed in God.
Jakob, on the other hand, had reason to be bitter since his parents had lost their home and been imprisoned during the war because of their German heritage. Still, Jakob's strong spirituality gave him strength. Even so, it took time for him to forgive.
I love this book, but to be honest, I'm not sure why. Is it because it is about real people who, even though they strive to live wholesome lives, still fall short like so many of us do?
Probably. But then there's the setting. At first I couldn't see why the author decided to put the characters in post World War II time. But it was fascinating. What got my attention was that the internment of German Americans took place so close to where I live. This wasn't taught in my history classes.
By the time I finished reading the book, I knew No Other wouldn't have worked in a different time period. Still, I wondered why the author, Shawna K. Williams, decided to write it this way. Here is her response:
Sidney, it was because of a dream. I know that sounds weird, but the whole premise of the story started with a dream. I hadn't even wanted to be a writer, but the parts that I knew from the dream were likes parts to a puzzle and I had to figure out how it all fit together. In the dream, I knew the general era, but the year got pinpointed to 1947 as my research pegged other details. I knew Jakob was a little younger, and that Meri was somehow his teacher, but they were both adults. The details of that were settled through research too. I also knew his family had faced discrimination, but it was a documentary on Japanese internment that prompted me to research whether this had happened to other ethnic groups.
This book is unlike any Christian fiction I've read, and I'm sure you'll agree, it is worth the read.