Cindy Roesel:
Let me begin by telling you about Charley and VDA. It takes place in Miami, so we went to the Clevelander Bar on world famous Ocean Drive where Charley loves to go for drinks. VDA is a story inside the cutthroat, backstabbing television news business. Charley is the hands-on Executive Producer who does whatever it takes to get ratings, win Emmys while walking a tightrope to keep her values at the same time working for a boss determined to crush her. There’s a love interest, too!
We had lots of girl talk to dish about, but Charley was annoyed as well. I wrote VDA two years ago and she’s really mad I haven’t written her a sequel. She kept badgering away at me with “Where’s the follow-up?” “All those great reviews on Amazon. So?” “Kirkus loved the novel. So, where’s the sequel?” After spending time with Charley, it was obvious to me, when creating her character, you write what you know. She can be pretty pushy! I think we’ll stay friends as long as I write that sequel.
In celebration of International Chick Lit Month, Melissa asked me to talk about how I came up with some of the characters from my chick lit novel KEEPING SCORE. Since my son Alex plays baseball, a lot of people assume that my protagonist, Shannon, is based on me. In fact, some friends have said that reading the book was like having a conversation with me. Well, of course she is! I made Shannon divorced and dating because there’s more to play with when you have romantic interests in your novel. And Shannon is thinner and has a quicker wit than I do. I also gave her brown hair. But other than that, she’s in the same situation I was when my son first began playing travel baseball ten years ago, and she reacts the same way I reacted. So Shannon is definitely based on me!
Thematically, KEEPING SCORE is about how competition hurts relationships. So when I created my supporting characters, they all needed to be competing with Shannon in some way. She competes with her best friend, Jennifer, because they both want their sons to be on the best baseball team, and there isn’t room for both of them. She competes with a co-worker because they both want to be seen as the best PR people in their office. And she even competes with her ex-husband David over whose job is more important. (She lost that fight, which is why they ended up getting divorced.) The only person in the book Shannon isn’t competing with is David’s new girlfriend Chloe – because she doesn’t want David anymore! It’s so common for the protagonist to hate the ex’s new girlfriend, so I wanted to do something different with this relationship. Shannon and Chloe even end up becoming friends. I was worried that was far-fetched, but when Alex played high school baseball, he had a teammate whose mother babysat for the twins that his dad had with his second wife! Truth really is stranger than fiction.
This was so much fun to read, great idea!
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