What Was Ada Belle Brownell’s Dream Job?
Ada Belle Brownell is the author of nine books. She loves inspirational historical suspense. When she plots, it’s all about putting challenges and disaster into the lives of fictional characters, and it sometimes hurts her as well. She wept three times over one section of Love’s Delicate Blossom.
What’s the hardest part of writing romantic suspense?
Ada: Creating the complications and then getting the characters out of them.
When do you find time to write?
Ada: Early morning, and late afternoon. Sometimes in the evening.
What is your favorite spot for reading or reflecting on your current work-in-progress?
Ada: During the night when I can’t sleep.
How do you connect with your characters?
Ada: When I throw people into a situation, their personalities and characteristics usually develop on the spot, whether it’s fear, humor, romance or ingenuity.
Why do you like writing romantic suspense?
Ada: I like books where the main character has a worthy purpose against severe conflict.
What’s the weirdest way someone has died or been killed in your novels?
Ada: A sweet 12-year-old boy with Down Syndrome was killed by an asylum patient. My editor almost didn’t forgive me for that one. In the early 1900s, Down Syndrome patients were held in the same wards as insane adults.
What did you want to be as a child and did that dream come true?
Ada: I wanted to be a secretary. I had been a youth leader, then my husband’s job required moving to Thompson, Utah, population 98, with four bars and no church, The fire of the Holy Spirit still burned in me to reach the lost, especially, youth, so I began writing articles for youth magazines and expanded. I sold an article to David C. Cook’s leadership magazine for $35 when that much money was significant. I advertised my accordion, bought an electric typewriter, and enrolled in a writing course. The instructor suggested I write for newspapers to give me experience with words, and I became a correspondent for The Daily Sentinel in Grand Junction, Colo. Then when we moved, I worked for The Herald Democrat in Leadville, Colo, then another move and was hired by The Pueblo Chieftain. I took out 20 years in the middle of my career to raise our five wonderful children.
I sold my first full articles to Christian publications in my teens, and never stopped the freelance writing, even when I had a “real job.”
How do you ensure your books are accurate?
Ada: I don’t claim that my books are true historicals. My characters never existed and many that I patterned them after were dead before I began writing. I do base many events and some characters on real people from my family. Love’s Delicate Blossom is wrapped around my parents’ romance, but I’m the youngest of eight children and I wasn’t there when they were young. I’m old and experienced now and saw much of what is in my historicals. Mama told me many romantic things about how they fell in love, and they had complications galore.
Yet, my characters are involved in many things, and some of those require extensive research. I received a great comment from a reader: “Your book set a tone and world from your grandmother’s time, the historical elements are what readers read the genre for.”
What has been most rewarding about writing romantic suspense?
Ada: A great story, and substance! A straight romance can’t hold my attention. Something else has to be happening. All my books make we want to know what will happen next and I can’t wait to write it and find out.
Current book: Love’s Delicate Blossom
Schoolteacher Ritah Irene O’Casey must decide between two suitors while protecting an orphan girl.
Connect W/Ada
Amazon Ada Brownell author page: http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B001KJ2C06
Book Fun Network: http://www.bookfun.org
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/#!/AdaBrownellWritingMinistries
Twitter: @adabrownell
Google https://plus.google.com/u/0/+AdaBrownell/posts
Goodreads https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/1654534.Ada_Brownell
Blog: http://inkfromanearthenvessel.blogspot.com
