Welcome to this week's edition of Author Fridays! Sit back, get comfortable and read about our featured author, romance writer, Victoria King!
Victoria King is the author of two books: "Her Strong Tower" and "Cast the First Stone", both published by publish America.
"I think it's a close tie as to whether I like to read as much as I write," says King. When I'm not watching romantic movies, I'm writing my own. And when I'm not writing my own, I'm reading romance stories/novels."
With favorite authors, like Danielle Steel, Nicholas Sparks, Jillian Hart, Linda Goodnight and Margaret Dailey, along with her enjoyment of many of the Harlequin Inspirational series, it is no wonder that King writes romance. "I aspire to get to the point where my readers are looking to reading my next book, just like Danielle Steel's fans are waiting to read her next book," she says. "Writing romance novels is truly a strong passion of mine and I hope to one day do it as my primary avenue for earning a living. Until then, I will keep plugging away until I make that dream a reality."
Victoria king has been reading romance stories ever since she was a pre-teen. She used to read Harlequin Romance, but due to the high content of bad language and inappropriate scenes, she mostly sticks with the harlequin Inspirational. As for hobbies, well, you could guess that all of them center around love stories, and you would be correct. She loves to read, watch, and write romance. She reads romantic novels to pick up on styles from other writers, she watches romantic movies to memorize nuances of the actors and actresses in order to try and copy their movements in her writing. When she gets stuck in one of her own scenes, she will watch one of her many romance tapes/videos and see if one of the actors/actresses makes a particular face. She then tries to describe in words what she just witnessed. "A bad habit of mine," King tells me, "is to critique romance stories/movies and books. I look and grade on things like did I 'feel' the love that was supposed to be so 'evident' in the movie. I critique on whether I felt the plot was credible. Did what the story try to portray make sense?"
"I don't believe I started thinking about writing my own stories until I was in my 20s…about thirty years ago," King says.. "I kept reading so many of them and thought to myself that I could do that. I don't believe there was a particular thing, other than reading the stories and watching the love stories on television that made me want to write one. Although, I probably read or saw a badly told story and felt I could do better than that!
As is common with authors, Victoria gets her ideas from a variety of sources. "Sometimes," says she, "they come from something that has actually happened to me and then I start to think "I wander what would have happened if …" reminiscent of "HER STRONG TOWER". Sometimes my ideas come from instances in my friends' lives, like in "CAST THE FIRST STONE". Sometimes the ideas come from a song I heard on the radio, like the story soon to be published "A FRIENDLY BET"."
So what will readers get out of reading books by an author who doesn't necessarily enjoy those spicy love stories? Well, to quote this author, "Well…I don't like to toot my own horn, but from what my readers have said…they like my stories because the characters seem like real people. My stories have a lot of details that seemingly make the story come alive. Some readers have even said that the first scene in CAST THE FIRST STONE was so vivid that they could literally envision my one character actually walking down the aisle of the church in the beginning of her wedding. I think another facet of my stories that make them so special is that there isn't any profanity in them, not any sex scenes, etc. They're just clean, well told stories that make you keep wanting to turn the page to find out what happens next. If the readers read closely, they may even get a glimpse into me personally, because all my stories have a teensy bit of me scattered throughout." I don't know about the rest of you readers out there, but this alone makes me want to pick up one of Victoria's books, just to see what she is talking about.
As is purely evident in this article, Victoria King is one who works hard at being an author of romance. When I asked her if she had any advice for aspiring writers, here is what she said.
"My best advice would be to spend a lot of time reading the type of stories they like to write. Spend some time honing your craft. Harlequin Romance site has a lot of good writing tips that are good to follow. Then do some research on the various publishing/agent sites to learn what specific publishers/agents are looking for. Never give up on your dream of becoming a published author, if it's truly what you wish for!" (SO TRUE)
"Shannon, I would like to thank you for affording me the opportunity to put my thoughts out here in this interview. You're the first person to officially interview me…so I feel really special!"
You are so welcome, Victoria, and thank you for your time and your advice. I know of so many writers who do not like to read the type of books that they write, and they could well-afford to study their craft as thoroughly as it seems you do.
For more information about Victoria and her books, visit her website
From what I can tell at a glance, it is filled with lots of interesting stuff.
Thank you everyone once again for joining me today for this edition of Author Fridays! It has truly been a pleasure. Come back next week, same time, same place to read about the next featured author, Tim Maddox.
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