Susan Mallery is listening. The bestselling author of Chasing Perfect and You Say It First finds inspiration for her own humorous, heartwarming books everywhere—from fictional families to real-life "meet cutes." Here Mallery shares why she loves meeting new couples, how relationships shape the characters in her new romance, When We Found Home, and what she wants to know about you.
Whenever I meet a couple at, say, a cocktail party, I always ask, "How did you meet?"
Then: "What brought you together? What got in your way? And how did you overcome that to ultimately be here, today, talking to a writer who asks too many questions?"
I'm endlessly fascinated by human behavior and, in particular, by the infinitely nuanced interactions between two individuals. No two stories are exactly alike, even if on the surface they're similar. Every person's emotions, perceptions, actions and reactions are influenced by everything that happened in his or her life to that point. The story of a person's life impacts every subsequent moment of that life.
This must also be true in fiction for the characters to feel genuine, particularly in the character-driven stories of popular women's fiction. The relationships aren't beside the point—they are the point. Relationships drive the plots.
Dorothea Benton Frank's By Invitation Only does this well. It is an entertaining study of two very different families—the haves and the have-nots—brought together for the wedding of a beloved son and daughter. The mothers are forced into an odd sort of intimacy, family but not really family, as they play their roles in helping to plan the wedding.
What makes it so compelling is that it's not just about the wedding. A wedding is fleeting, but the mothers are facing the reality that they'll have to put up with each other for the rest of their lives. Their interactions ring true because Frank created characters whose personal histories color every moment. And then the events of the story cause the characters to grow and change, which ultimately reshapes the relationship between them.
Mary Kay Andrews adds an intergenerational twist in The High Tide Club. The action takes place in the early 1940s and in present day, and it's a testament to Andrews' skill with characterization to see how the events of seventy years ago still resonate. What happened to the characters long ago affected the way they lived their lives, which in turn affected how the main characters of the present-day part of the tale were raised.
In my latest book, When We Found Home, I bring together three siblings who never met—who never even knew each other existed for that matter—until the truth was discovered in their late father's paperwork. Because they come from very different circumstances, they're instantly wary of each other, as we humans tend to be.
The stories of their past shape their relationships today, and the growth of those relationships shapes the stories of their future.
So…how did you and your significant other or best friend meet? What brought you together? What got in your way? And how did you overcome that to ultimately be here, today, answering a writer who asks too many questions?
Susan Mallery's When We Found Home hits bookshelves on July 10. Add it to you Want to Read shelf here.
posted by Hayley on July, 10
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