<img width="1080" height="1080" data-tf-not-load src="https://sarahhamakerfiction.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/Jodie-Bailey-podcast-meme.png" class="attachment-full size-full wp-post-image" alt="" decoding="async" srcset="https://sarahhamakerfiction.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/Jodie-Bailey-podcast-meme.png 1080w, https://sarahhamakerfiction.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/Jodie-Bailey-podcast-meme-300x300.png 300w, https://sarahhamakerfiction.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/Jodie-Bailey-podcast-meme-1024x1024.png 1024w, https://sarahhamakerfiction.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/Jodie-Bailey-podcast-meme-150x150.png 150w, https://sarahhamakerfiction.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/Jodie-Bailey-podcast-meme-768x768.png 768w" sizes="(max-width: 1080px) 100vw, 1080px" />

“My whole writing journey is this God-given thing,” Jodie said. “I was in contemporary women’s fiction, when my agent asked if I thought about writing military suspense. I walked to the coat closet, and I thought, ‘What if somebody was in my closet and it’s the good guy?’ Before I knew it, I had half a military suspense done in my head.”

The post Jodie Bailey’s Glimpse Into Military Life (Episode 24) first appeared on Author Sarah Hamaker.

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“It is really cool for me that my husband is a police lieutenant,” Sherri said. “It makes it a lot less awkward for me because I don’t have to hunt down someone to get answers to my questions. But sometimes, it can be hard to pull the answers from him because it’s his everyday life and he doesn’t think about the details that I need for my writing.”

The post Stephanie M. Gammon on Her Early Writing Influences (Episode 23) first appeared on Author Sarah Hamaker.

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“The hardest part for me in writing romantic suspense is coming up with good plots,” Robin said. “I really write small town romantic suspense, and I like my characters to all stay in the same town and know each other. But how many different ways can you put danger in a small town?”

The post Robin Patchen on Interviewing Her Characters (Episode 22) first appeared on Author Sarah Hamaker.

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“Mackinaw Island, Michigan, is one of my favorite places on earth,” Michele said. “I live about five hours away, so I’ve been going there about 35 years, so I feel like I really know the island.”

The post Michèle Olson on the Beauty of Mackinac Island (Episode 21) first appeared on Author Sarah Hamaker.

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On this episode of “The Romantic Side of Suspense,” I’m chatting Laurie Wood, a military wife who’s lived across Canada and visited six of its 10 provinces.

The post Laurie Wood on Writing With Purpose (Episode 20) first appeared on Author Sarah Hamaker.

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“In my romantic suspense, I don’t like to kill people,” Susan said. “My books are more adventure-oriented, so I don’t have to have a villain come in and do terrible things to my characters. But I do have people die, so I have to research things like how someone would die if they fell.”

The post Tapping Into Susan May Warren’s Creativity (Episode 19) first appeared on Author Sarah Hamaker.

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“The contemporary romance that I write have a lot of drama in them, but it’s more of an interpersonal variety and those very rarely have any cliffhanger, life-and-death moments. I get to do a pretty deep dive in the psychology of the characters and focus on the relationship side of things,” Irene said. “When I move into romantic suspense, I’m dealing with more usually shorter time frame and a lot more tension and danger and some characters are pretty scary. … Those books tend to be more intense and research heavy.”

The post Irene Hannon’s Writing Journey (Episode 18) first appeared on Author Sarah Hamaker.

<img width="1080" height="1080" data-tf-not-load src="https://sarahhamakerfiction.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/Lynn-Shannon.png" class="attachment-full size-full wp-post-image" alt="" decoding="async" srcset="https://sarahhamakerfiction.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/Lynn-Shannon.png 1080w, https://sarahhamakerfiction.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/Lynn-Shannon-300x300.png 300w, https://sarahhamakerfiction.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/Lynn-Shannon-1024x1024.png 1024w, https://sarahhamakerfiction.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/Lynn-Shannon-150x150.png 150w, https://sarahhamakerfiction.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/Lynn-Shannon-768x768.png 768w" sizes="(max-width: 1080px) 100vw, 1080px" />

“In romantic suspense, there’s always something happening,” Lynn said. “One of the challenges of writing romantic suspense is that you have many threads that you’re pulling at the same time—the romance, the mystery and the faith element—that you have to interweave all together.”

The post Lynn Shannon on Tying the Threads of Romantic Suspense Together (Episode 17) first appeared on Author Sarah Hamaker.

<img width="1080" height="1080" data-tf-not-load src="https://sarahhamakerfiction.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/Jessica-R.-Patch.png" class="attachment-full size-full wp-post-image" alt="" decoding="async" srcset="https://sarahhamakerfiction.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/Jessica-R.-Patch.png 1080w, https://sarahhamakerfiction.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/Jessica-R.-Patch-300x300.png 300w, https://sarahhamakerfiction.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/Jessica-R.-Patch-1024x1024.png 1024w, https://sarahhamakerfiction.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/Jessica-R.-Patch-150x150.png 150w, https://sarahhamakerfiction.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/Jessica-R.-Patch-768x768.png 768w" sizes="(max-width: 1080px) 100vw, 1080px" />

“It’s easy and it’s not easy to write,” Jessica said. “If you’re a seat-of-the-pants writer—if you just make it up as you go, and that’s how I was originally—having a manuscript is fantastic because once it’s done, you write your proposal and send it in. But when you start selling on proposal, they want a full synopsis, which can be about seven to 10 pages.”

The post How Jessica R. Patch Makes Her Stories Realistic (Episode 16) first appeared on Author Sarah Hamaker.

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“One thing I love about writing inspirational romantic suspense is that I love romantic suspense,” Virginia said. “I’ve been a fan of romantic suspense forever.”

The post Virginia Vaughn’s Tailor-Made Background for Writing first appeared on Author Sarah Hamaker.