Victoria Roder
News stories, Festivals, and Nightmares
A Writer’s Dream
One of my t-shirts warns…Be Careful or you might wind up a character in my novel. I must admit the statement is partially true. As an author, I might take your pet peeve and blend it with the girl that works at the Pic ‘N Save that has the irritating cackle when she laughs.
Writers receive the advice to write what they know. I say as observant people we can write about anything we experience, see, hear, taste, touch, or read about. Observe people at any event you attend. Watch their body language, listen to how they talk, and interact. There are plenty of festivals throughout the United States where a writer can attend and watch people. The variety runs the gamut from small town children’s carnivals to The Burning Man art event that, with the growing attendance develops a temporary community in the Black Rock Desert of Nevada each year. The Frozen Dead Guy Day in Nederland Colorado boasts a parade of hearses and coffin races, and don’t forget to enter the chicken dance contest at Mike the Headless Chicken Days in Fruita Colorado. There has got to be a story at the headless chicken days.
For writers, the nightly news or written articles are a fascinating source of ideas. Check out this actual news story title below.
*US woman found guilty of killing her husband by squashing him
The woman actually sat on her husband and suffocated him! If I wrote that in my novel readers might think the plot line was too far fetched, but it is an actual news headline, which proves that true crime can be crazier than fiction. Feeding into my fascination of studying why people commit crimes, writing my suspense murder mystery novel, Bolt Action was thrilling. It contains secrets of the past, murder, mystery, revenge, deception, sexual tension, and the “State Quarter Killer”. Bolt Action from Champagne Books could have been ripped out of the headlines.
Don’t forget to use your nightmares and dreams, if you are lucky enough to remember them. I keep a pen, notebook, and flashlight beside the bed. Sometimes I wake my husband as I scribble by flashlight, but it has been worth the sleep deprivation. I began having recurring dreams about a house that my birth family lived in for a brief period of time when I was a child. Even with the passage of time, in the dreams I remained a young girl. Each time I woke up I knew that I had experienced the dream before. The dream began to trouble me, so I discussed it with my sister Tammy. She suggested I write it down, in the hope that it wouldn’t bother me anymore.
I began recording the details of the dream and then instead of it not bothering me, it consumed me. I continued to dream about the house, but now the dreams began to evolve and take on a life of their own. It became a movie in my imagination; the characters developed and demanded screen time. Those dreams became the premise for my paranormal romance novel The Dream House Visions and Nightmares.
Go ahead, use headlines, people you observe, your own dreams and toss them all together in the blender of your mind to create the strangeness often found in the truth that can makes fiction so much fun.
For Action Thriller, Bolt Action: Check out the book video of Bolt Action at YouTube, or buy it!
For Paranormal Romance, The Dream House Visions and Nightmares:
Available at Amazon
Victoria Roder lives in Central Wisconsin with her husband and house full of pets. She enjoys riding motorcycle, camping, hiking, shooting bow, and snow shoeing in the winter. Victoria Roder is the author of action thriller, Bolt Action from Champagne Books, and paranormal romance The Dream House Visions and Nightmares from Asylett Press. Her first picture book, What if a Zebra had Triangles? will be released soon from Vinspire Publishing and her first children’s chapter book, The Curse of King Ramesses II will be released by Wild Child Publishing. She can be contacted through her website www.victoriaroder.com
