Welcome to my stop on the tour for Hit And Run. I have a wonderful guest post from the author and a fun excerpt to share with you.
And don’t forget to enter the giveaway!
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Author Lori Power is here with a fascinating Guest Post about character creation.
When writing, for me, characters quickly take on a life of their own. In building the bones of the story, I may start with one idea of what I would like to see them do, but as I set their personality down on paper, this quickly changes to the point where the characters ‘lead’ me where they would actually go. The moment I try to force a scene—that is the time I block. The passage won’t work no matter how much I push for it to happen. As soon as I cut the problem, search the depths and examine the situation, often the characters will take me in the direction they need to go and flow resumes.
For instance, early in writing Mitch, his skanky behaviour was questioned by my beta readers. Did I really want him to be that blatant? Shouldn’t I tone it down a bit? One told me she just didn’t like him and wouldn’t read further.
Okay.
But as soon as I tried to ‘tone it down’ as it were, I lost of the essence of who he was. He was already a strong, tenacious, good-looking guy with a job he thrived in. His character flaw was his questionable relationships. As an established personality, he was who he was and made no excuses and in writing Mitch, I couldn’t do him justice without showing this side of him. As I moved through the story, he then carried himself potently into each scene, a well-rounded personality worthy of his devotion to the woman he loves. In allowing him to develop as he would, not forced by me, I feel the readers sees the vital changes in him, from his own point of view.
Lorna’s character developed from mesh of a lot of women I interviewed—every day, successful women—who had ‘encounters’ in their lives, which couldn’t help but shape them. But they never wore it on their sleeve. These incidents didn’t define them. It allowed them to face the struggle and tap into the resources of strength from within. These women all gave off the impression of seeming to glide through life effortlessly. Little would someone know from looking from the outside what they face on the inside to achieve this. The women are the proof of the saying everyone has a story to tell—and a good story at that!
Opposite to Mitch’s ‘love it or live with it’ attitude, Lorna presented a complicated mixture of privacy and perception. She’s layered and exposure will only happen over time. She’s a woman who finds herself often in situations despite her best efforts to steer clear. In writing Lorna, I had to always be aware of her private side and only reveal what she is comfortable revealing to this point.
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Hit ‘N Run
Under Suspicion Book One
by Lori Power
Synopsis
Determined to build a better life, and forget their past, a freak accident crashes Lorna Tymchuk and Mitch Morgan back into each other’s lives.
It’s more than a “Hit ’n Run” that needs to be taken care of at the police station. False identification, miscommunication and a past better left buried surface to plunge these recently reunited lovers into a deadly game of cat and mouse trying to figure out who the bad guys really are.
All threads pulled threaten the very fabric of their fragile relationship. Caught between desire suspicions, each must decide who to trust and how far to go to follow their instincts.
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Check out this glimpse inside the book!
“And the driver of the hearse just drove off?”
The question of why bother to complete a report if the officer was just going to recap every point, by point, blinked like a neon sign behind her lids. “No, as I wrote, right here.” She pointed to another neatly printed line on the statement. “The man got out to see if I was okay. . .”
The policeman rested an elbow on the counter and smirked. “Nice of him.”
“I guess,” she agreed, forcing a lift to her lips, putting on her best salesman face. “Listen, the man left me his driver’s license. Said an emergency called him away.”
“Emergencies can happen in the funeral business, I imagine.” He lifted his gaze to meet hers, brow furrowed. ‘so, a polite runner then?”
Inhaling deeply, Lorna forged on. “I want to talk to you about that, actually.”
The constable stared, barely blinking, so she blurted. “It’s a fake.”
“What’s a fake?”
“The driver’s license,” she confirmed through tight lips.
“How would you know?”
“I didn’t recognize him at first with the beard and everything.” Oh, God, she was rambling. Get a grip. Lorna took a shaky breath. “I know–once knew–the driver I hit. His name is Mitchell Morgan, not Michael Ward as is written here. The picture on this license,” she said moving her own hand to cover the license on the counter, “is him, but that’s not his name. This,” she paused to tap the document with her fingernail, “is a fake.”
“How can you be sure?” His murky brown eyes met hers, clearly skeptical.
She glanced at the picture again, the tips of her fingers still touching the edge of the laminated surface. How could she explain the fact she would never be able to forget Mitchell Morgan’s midnight-blue eyes? Those same expression-filled eyes with just a hint of mischief couldn’t be disguised. “I’m sure.”
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Author Lori Power
Turning passion into words in print is a dream come true for Lori Power.
From Radio host (best job ever!), DJ, news reporter to newspaper journalist, like many author’s, Lori has been writing most of her life.
In writing, Lori has discovered a truism: everyone has a great story to tell. All you need to do is listen. Over the years, with all the people Lori has meet previously and daily, both professionally and personally, with an ear to the ground, readers can often find these ‘character’s’ fictionalized in Lori’s stories.
Lori’s first novel “Storms of Passion” was published by Wild Rose Press under their Champagne line, in 2014 and received a 5-star Author’s Favourite seal of approval in 2015.
Collaboration is important to improving one’s craft and as such, Lori is an active member of the Romance Writers of America, TransCanada Romance Writers, The Alberta Romance Writers Association and belongs to both a Critiquing group and a Beta Reading weekly group.
Lori looks forward to continuing to find the good story; hashing out a scene, having fun with a character and writing the story she would love to read.
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