Pammer's Notepad: May 2007

by Shelley Bates

Laurie Hale has the perfect life--and the perfect family to go with it. she imagines fun, love, and academic success for her daughter, Anna. But when one of Anna's classmates is found murdered and the police start asking questions, fear and suspicion threaten everything Laurie values.

Anna isn't the only suspect--a whole group of teenagers seems to be involved, but none of them is talking, and the community is in an uproar.

Laurie is asked to leave her prayer group just when she needs it the most, andher marriage bears the strain of the crisis. Laurie's only ally is Janice, the mayor's wife, whose own son could implicate Anna--or exonerate her.

Ultimately, Laurie must face her fears: What if Anna really was involved in Randi Peizer's murder? And what kind of person is Laurie if she can doubt her own child's innocence? Only God can provide the answers when Laurie finds herself in OVER HER HEAD.

Pammer: This book is wonderful. I suggest you go read it.

Today we get to ask Shelley a few questions about her book and her writing life.

Hi Shelley. I'ts great to have you visit today!

Thanks so much for being part of my blog tour, Pam! Be sure to check outall the stops at http://www.shelleybates.com/news.html .

We are going to be talking about your newest book, Over Her Head, which came out last week. I'm a reader, but also a writer so most of my questions will have a author's slant to them.

You have the ability to take a story and put a fresh and exciting twist to it. Is this particular story an idea you have had for a while or did it just drop into your lap?

Over Her Head has been cooking for ten years, and it wasn't until I began working with FaithWords that it came to a rolling boil and found a home.

In the 90s there was a murder at my junior high, when a swarm of teenagersattacked an unpopular girl for wanting to join their clique, and drowned her under the bridge I used to cross twice a day to get to school.That image horrified me as I thought of that poor child and read in the papers about the aftermath. It was also the trigger for the story as I thought, what if a Christian mom found out her daughter was in a swarm like that? What would it do to their relationship? To their standing in the church and community? To the marriage? And as you know, asking what-if is a sure way to find yourself a plot!

I'm a stickler for beginnings. I find it hard to get past a bad beginning, either in writing or reading. Did you struggle with this beginning? It's wonderful. It grabbed me by the throat and didn't let go.

Heh. Glad to hear it :) That beginning was always the opening image for the book. That's how they start, for me ... with a flash of an image ...and then I have to figure out why the body was there, why this mom I'd been thinking about was the one who found it, and what the repercussions were going to be. When I worked for the Mounties in Canada, I used to transcribe phone conversations, so the transcript of the heroine's call to 9-1-1 looks just like one of the documents I used to produce. Funny how you don't forget stuff like that--and it appears in your story just whenyou need it :)>

I am so impressed with the growth that your main character went through. How do you plan the arc of her growth and yet remain so realistic?

I have big white sheets of paper on my office wall :) Seriously. I'm a visual person, so I need to be able to see a starting point ("heroine is community leader with a finger in every pie and friends and admirers on every street corner") to the end point ("heroine is isolated with only herself and God to face"). Getting her from the beginning, over the arc, and to the end is the fun part for me.

What do you consider to be the spiritual theme in this story? How does that relate to the take-away value you want your readers to get?

The central theme is that it's possible to be religious without actually having God in your life. This is a thread that runs through all my books,because of my background in the toxic church. I've just pushed it a little further, bringing it out of the cult environment of my Elect trilogy and putting it in the mainstream, where it's still just as uncomfortable. The secondary theme is the whole motif of drowning, of being overwhelmed and having no one but God to turn to. Hence the title and the absolutely faboo cover art, where Laurie looks as though she's swimming toward the light.She spends the whole book doing that.

As readers we enjoy your great books. As writers we want to learn to craft like that. Do you have any tips or insights that might help struggling writers?

Oh, bless you ::blush:: Insights, hmm. One thing I've discovered is that each of us has a message or theme that we write over and over in our books, usually without knowing it. If you can mine your work and find out what that central theme or message is, then sharpen it and use it to focus your writing, that can be the beginning of your brand, and it will be what readers come to your books for.

Again thank you so much for being on my blog.

Thank YOU, Pam! It's been fun talking with you!

I just have to add that I met Shelley at the ACFW National Conference in Nashville. She was one of the sweetest people I've met and also fun to talk to.