Part Two: Interview with Author Karen Wiesner

Welcome back to the interview with Karen Wiesner
Part Two:
QUESTIONS ABOUT THE WOUNDED WARRIORS SERIES

M: I have really enjoyed reading all six books in this series over the past seven months. Can you summarize the Wounded Warrior Series in one (or two) sentence(s)?

Karen: The series blurb says it all:

Women who have faced pain, loss and heartache.

They know the score and never back down.

Women who aren't afraid to love

with all their passion and all their strength,

who risk everything for their own little piece of heaven...

Men who live their lives on the blade's edge.

Knights in black armor.

The only thing more dangerous than crossing these men

is loving them...

M: Yes that does sum up all six books!
Tell us a bit about the series and do you have a favorite of the six books?

Karen: A bit of background on the series: Some of your readers might not be aware that the first edition of Reluctant Hearts, Book 1 of the series, was actually published way back in July 2002. Waiting for an Eclipse came next in November 2003, followed by Mirror Mirror in September 2004, and Wayward Angels in September 2005. Things were going along fine until that point. My publisher and editor at that time were going through several personal crises, and the series lagged for the next three years. I’d written Until It’s Gone, Book 5, in the lag and submitted it, but nothing was happening. I began to believe the final two books would never be published. I finally decided to pull the whole series, although the thought of starting all over again for me is akin to ripping something apart just to put it back together again. I can’t imagine much worse for a writer than starting all over again. In any case, I didn’t feel I had any choice in this case. Uncial Press contracted all six books in the series at the end of  2008 (though I hadn’t yet started Book 6 and I’d been away from it for six long years! I barely remembered what it was I wanted to do with the final story).

Mirror Mirror, Book 3 of the Wounded Warriors Series
After revisions were done on Until It’s Gone, I got to work on White Rainbow and completed it fairly quickly before my new editor and I turned to the arduous job of revising Books 1-4. I have to admit, it was very strange, even a little embarrassed, “going back in time” to read these books that suddenly seemed as though they’d been written by another person. I began writing these books when I was a teenager and they still had that angst-ridden flavor to me. I was actually really glad to have a second opportunity to do some serious revision on them—but it was no easy process for any of them. I’m glad I came out of the editing loving Books 1-4 more than I ever had before. They’re tighter, cleaner, and even more emotional to me.

I also admit that I came to love Waiting for an Eclipse the most out of all of them. Though Steve and Kristina’s is a situation I can never imagining myself being in, I cried myself silly re-reading and editing it again. I love the characters in that book. They’re in such a complex situation where there are no easy answers.

That said, the fact is, Books 1-5 are heavy, heavy on the emotion. It was such a relief to write White Rainbow, which is about half the size of the previous ones, light (though still emotional), and captures joy for all the characters of the series. I really wanted to end this series on an optimistic note, and this book did that just as I’d hoped.

M: I agree that the books are emotionally intense. The characters are very real in all of their pain and angst. I think my favorite was White Rainbow.
Did you do any special research for any of the books in this series?

Karen:  Oh my goodness, did I! Every single story had endless things I needed to research. Just scratching the surface here...

Reluctant Hearts: endometriosis and how it affects pregnancy

Waiting for an Eclipse: tenure (the life of a college professor in general), divorce, drug addictions and counseling...

Mirror Mirror: racecar driving

Wayward Angels: bipolar

Until It’s Gone: the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency, undercover work, the real estate career

White Rainbow: perfume making, corporate takeovers

I do seemingly endless research for pretty much every book I write. It’s just part of the process.

M:  You do that work well.  I thought as I read several of the books that you might have first hand experience in the issues as they were so well presented.
Did you need any help staying motivated or getting any element of your stories to cooperate?

Wayward Angels, Book 4 of the Wounded Warriors Series

Karen:  Motivating is something I have in spades most of the time. It explains how I’m able to accomplish so much. As for getting elements of my stories to cooperate... I would have to say Mirror Mirror was one of the hardest books I’ve ever written. This story continued to elude my best efforts to create something wonderful, suspenseful, and cohesive. My first draft of the book was so bad, I refused to send it to my publisher at that time, even if it meant keeping my fans waiting endlessly for the next in the series. I made a long list of notes on all that I thought was wrong with the book (believe me, it was a huge document!), then I put the book in my story cupboard for three months in order to get the story brewing on a low flame again. At that time, I came up with another unworkable outline.

Feeling increasingly desperate, I put the story aside once more, terrified I’d never finish a book that had already been promoted as coming soon. More months went by, during which I had a series of creative percolations that made me rethink the direction of the book. I reshaped all my characters, consciously trying to flesh them out in ways that related to the plot much more than they had in the past.

However, it wasn’t until I realized something so obvious, I feel silly about it now, that I finally knew why my previous drafts hadn’t worked. The heroine, Gwen, wasn’t directly involved in the resolution of the plot. How could she achieve her full potential if other characters solved her problems for her? How could the story be cohesive if this main character had nothing to do with the wrapping up of the plot?

My second realization was that I had to make the plot fit more naturally with Gwen’s struggle not to accept her gift of clairvoyance by pushing it away and feeling ashamed for it. She needed to use her gift in order to solve her problems. I also acknowledged that my little hint earlier in the book that the villain was terrified of dogs was the key to having Gwen save the day. Also, I decided that the final “glue” in making my story cohesive was to make the hero Dylan’s and Gwen’s pasts merge and intersect in ways neither of them ever dreamed. Everything fell into place then.

I wasn’t sure I’d fully succeeded in this task until the first reviewer (Huntress' Book Reviews) for the book said, “An excellent psychic thriller that will have you holding your breath until your lungs ache. The author uses her writing gift to connect both Gwen and Dylan’s pasts with a dark, menacing force and tangles a web so strong that readers will not want to stop reading.”

M:  Gwen and Dylan were both complex characters and I can see where that story might have given you difficulty. However the final result was worth the wait.

Please return tomorrow for Interview Part Three: A few personal questions!