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.
