What’s Your Passion?
By Linda Yezak
In a recent discussion on ACFW’s Women’s Fiction loop, author Sharon A. Lavy said, “I really care about the relationships between people of all kinds. Parents and children, siblings, friends. I really have a passion that women need other women. So every story I write includes the close friendship of women. No matter what else is going on in the story.”
Whatever an author is passionate about shows up in their work and often fills the characters with life and the strength of their convictions. Sometimes the passion is just there, quiet and subtle, like Sharon including close friendships in all of her works; sometimes it whacks you across the face with a wet towel, as in stories written by authors on a soap box (not recommended, by the way). But the author’s passion can make the difference between ho-hum characters and memorable people who live in the pages of our books.
Specificity is important when writing about our passions. Although Sharon “really cares about relationships” in general, she’s passionate about the idea that “women need other women.” What’s implied in her statement is that along with her husband, her children, her family, a woman needs female friends. As a reader and a woman, I can relate to that. I need my friends. I need the opportunity to be just a woman–not a wife, daughter, mother, or any other tag that goes along with being female, but just a woman associating with other women who understand me.
My first novel, Give the Lady a Ride, is a romance, and I can say that I’m passionate about love–who isn’t? But even with this, it helps to be specific. Love between a man and a woman is the point of romance, so specifics could include first love, renewed love, growing love, 50th-anniversary love. Women’s fiction often deals with other kinds of love–between sisters, mother and daughter, friends, any other relationship. If you’re passionate about love, tell me: What relationship is important to you? What aspect appeals to you? What is it about love that pumps your blood? Be specific.
Patricia Talbert, my main character in Give the Lady a Ride, reflects my one-time conviction that I’d never get married again. Tried it. Hated it. Never wanted to do it again. I held on to that for the entire ten years between my first husband and my second. God gave me a second chance at love, and now I’m passionate about the idea of second chances–which is also reflected in Ride.
My current novel, an unpublished women’s fiction story, The Cat Lady’s Secret, reflects my passion too, but from a different angle. Instead of God granting a second chance, it’s granted by one person to another. Inherent in this are the concept of forgiveness and the idea that fights aren’t fatal to a relationship, that misunderstandings can be overcome. Because of my life experiences, it took me a long time to learn this. Now I consider it the most valuable lesson God ever taught me, and I want others to understand it too.
I could go on through my current WIPs and show how my passion–second chances at love–is illustrated time after time, but suffice it to say, it’s there, “no matter what else is going on in the story.”
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Linda W. Yezak holds a BA in English, a graduate certificate in Paralegal Studies, and a bucket list as long as her arm. Among the things on the list is owning a stable full of horses, and since that’s not likely to happen any time soon, she includes horses in each of her novels, from her contemporary western romance Give the Lady a Ride (click on the title to purchase) and her current work, The Cat Lady’s Secret, to her work-in-progress, a contemporary western romance series tentatively called “Family First.” Until the day she can retire with her husband to their land in Central Texas and ride to her heart’s content, she’ll continue with her writing and freelance editing careers.
What’s at your core? What are you passionate about? What ideals do you cling to? How are they reflected in your work?
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11 Comments until now.
I want to show overcomers, particularly women, but men as well who have had unbeatable odds to face and still they have managed to overcome.
Love this, Linda! What drives my women’s fiction is the idea that God can step into completely destroyed lives and relationships and fix them–if we follow His Word. My WF tends to have strong romance threads, but people are never satisfied in their personal lives until they’re first satisfied in God.
Oh, I like that, Linda—and you have tons of examples to develop stories from.
I’ve run into some resistance because I write in more than one genre. My first novel is fantasy, and another is women’s fiction. But the common thread is smart, professional women pursuing their purpose and helping others do the same. I’m really eager for people to understand that we are all put on Earth with gifts and skills that are meant to be used in serving others.
Sally, that’s a great theme. So many women seek men thinking they’ll be happier if they just had a man in their lives. If only they knew that until they have God in their lives, they’ll never be fulfilled.
Thanks for the comment!
Kristen, love your theme, and I love the description of the women you choose to write about. Seems like all TV and the movies want to show are powerful, successful women who got that way by jabbing their spike heels into someone else’s back. But we are here for the purpose of serving others. Success for its own sake is empty.
Linda, I agree so wholeheartedly that we need other women in our lives. All the other roles of our lives tend to demand responsibilities from us bigger than the responsibility of just being “friends or sisters.”
Sally, “People are never satisfied in their personal lives until they are first satisfied in their relationship with God.”
That is perfect! So true! That very fact often interferes in our ability to have fulfilling other relationshps in life.
I’m passionate about the often mysterious way God calls us to be a part of people’s lives. How we interact over a lifetime: others with me and me with them. I write to describe a life style, or about situations where people struggle to overcome, move forward, find purpose and meaning and find life with God. I write often about small people who stand up to big people and discover they can achieve more than they think they ever will. And I am drawn to writing truth, sometimes hidden truth. I like to write about how women are often a catalyst for change in their families, too.
@Linda Berg: I bet you would enjoy Sharon Lavy’s novel, *Dreaming of a Father’s Love*.
@Dee: Oh, I like your chosen themes! Can’t wait to read your book!!!
Well said, Linda. I’m passionate about quite a number of things, so isn’t it fortunate that we get to write these out in our fiction? Just as the Bible reveals different aspects of our struggle and God’s answers, we write from the places we’ve been, the heart God has given us, and struggles that speak to us–whether from our life or from our observations of others–always, of course, filtered through our experiences.
Both of my upcoming releases share various aspects of these passions: second chances (and third and fourth) show up in Sailing out of Darkness. The idea of consequences, of choices, of the prejudices that blind us–so much fodder for stories!
Can’t wait for your books to come out, Normandie. Excited for you!