Paula Vince: What Is The Function Of Our Fiction?

Everyone's Story warmly welcomes award winning inspirational author Paula Vince. Paula writes faith-inspired fiction set in her native beautiful Australia, stories that one can relate to no matter where one lives. One of many pluses and blessings of hosting guests is learning so many new and helpful insights. For instance, check out Paula's Fiction Writer's Creed. Paula is also offering a Giveaway of her novel BEST FORGOTTEN to two lucky winners. Below is an excerpt for your reading pleasure. Paula is looking forward to your comments.

Book Giveaway:
Paula is offering to two randomly chosen commenters either a print or ebook edition of her novel BEST FORGOTTEN. The winner will be announced here on Friday, August 9th, between 4-6 PM EST. For convenience, please leave your contact information within your comment. Thanks! 

Here's an excerpt of Paula's BEST FORGOTTEN for you to enjoy: 

BEST FORGOTTEN by Paula Vince

Prologue

His eyes blurred with tears, Reverend Barney Wills drove along the steep winding road. The rugged cliff loomed dark ahead and a tatter of cloud obscured the pale moon. His bedside vigil had gone on much longer than expected. It was after midnight.

He was thinking of Maud’s last words and planning how he would break the news of her death to his parishioners when a figure shot out of the scrub and barrelled onto the road in front of him. Barney had a transient image of a wraith-like form in dark clothes with wild black hair flying everywhere. The apparition wheeled around to face the headlights. Its pallid face was petrified. As he slammed his foot on the brake, the thought flashed through Barney’s mind that this might be the Grim Reaper.

When he thought it over later, he was ashamed of his jumble of impressions born of superstition and horror stories. Barney thought he’d left those hang-ups behind in his youth. Perhaps in this case they were wishful thinking. Bowling down a vampire or zombie was preferable to the unthinkable concept of seriously hurting a human being. But his front bumper-bar hurtled the figure off its feet, lifted it high onto his bonnet and pitched it onto the road. Tyres screeching, Barney jerked his steering-wheel as the car careered into the roadside scrub.

His hands shook violently; he took three attempts to open his door. His quivering knees were almost too weak to take him to the prostrate figure. He sank to the ground, staring at the white, unconscious face. A trail of blood gleamed on the pale chin. The teeth had bitten deep into the flesh of the lower lip.

Oh God, what have I done?

With all that wild, flowing hair, the person could have been any gender, but something about the raw-boned form indicated this was a young man. The limbs were too lanky and the shoulders too broad for a female. A silver stud glimmered in the centre of his bottom lip and a shiny row lined his left earlobe. He wore dark jeans and a black T-shirt featuring a skull dripping blood from a sharp set of fangs. The painted blood was almost as bright as that dribbling from his lips and Barney’s stomach twisted.

He realised the man was barely more than twenty years old. God forgive me, I’ve killed him! I’ve killed him!

Barney knew never to move an accident victim but he picked up the youth’s wrist to search for a pulse. At first he felt nothing but the creaking of his own arthritic fingers. Then as he held his breath and forced himself to stay rigid, he detected a strong pulse. Please stay alive. God, please keep him alive. ‘Hold on, young man, hold on.’ He scrambled to his feet, stumbled to his car and fumbled in the glove box for the mobile phone. His unsteady fingers punched in the number of Emergency Rescue.

‘Hello, my name is Barney Wills.’ He cleared his raspy throat. ‘Reverend Barney Wills. There’s been an accident. I’m on Mount Barker Road near Eagle on the Hill. You know, the old Freeway. I collided with a runner. I tried to stop but I couldn’t.’ His lips trembled more than his jelly-legs and he had to muster all his will-power to remain coherent.

Then there was nothing to do but wait. He returned to kneel by the young man. What are you doing here, anyway? Why are you out in the middle of nowhere long after midnight dressed like the devil himself? Barney realised he probably couldn’t have avoided the collision even if his mind had been focused on the road.

A tremor passed through the young man. His eyelashes flickered and he tried to scramble up. Barney shot out a restraining hand. ‘No, no! Stay where you are. You’ve been hurt.’

Barney watched the youth’s bright blue eyes focus on his clerical collar.

The boy flinched and jerked his arm free. He tried to rise again but staggered back with his head in his hands, apparently knocked over by a wave of dizziness. 

‘You mustn’t get up. Please listen to me. You’ll be okay. An ambulance is on its way.’ Barney’s voice sounded crackly and unconvincing, even to himself. ‘I…I hit you with my car. You came from nowhere. I’m terribly sorry. I can’t tell you how sorry I am. What’s your name, son?’

The youth’s eyes screwed up, perplexed, as if he’d been asked a difficult question. Barney wondered if he could understand English.

‘I don’t know.’ The boy’s voice was thick with blood and confusion and he turned to spit a red wad onto the bitumen.

Barney’s blood chilled. The sound of approaching ambulance sirens filled him with heady relief.

Questions for Paula

As an author of “Australian-based Christian fiction” what do you strive to achieve as the common denominator for all readers to experience and enjoy?

I love to highlight the beauty and bounty of my country and its people. We have such a lot going for us. We are blessed to live in a wide, warm land full of contrast and colour, yet sometimes we feel removed from the rest of the world in a sense that is more than geographical. This is partly because of our location, so far south on the globe, and perhaps partly because we were so recently settled as a nation in the mid nineteenth century. We sometimes get the feeling the rest of the world may not be clued-up about what we’re all about down here, yet based on some lovely feedback from international readers of my books I sense an interest and fascination with Australia. My books serve a two-fold purpose. They reveal our culture to the rest of the world in a fun way, and also give local readers something familiar to settle down with when we feel like it. Australian stories have their own distinctive flavour.

Many of us are descended from brave, resilient settlers who left everything they knew to set up new lives in a strange, harsh land at the bottom of the world. I like the sparks of boldness and forbearance still evident in many of us who are their descendents, mixed with our own style of humour. I like that to come out in my writing.

Our unique flora and fauna are wonderful and often handy to weave into my plots. Some international readers have mentioned my ‘Australianisms’ which they think are interesting and quaint. I like them to come out in my stories too, even though they are usually unintentional. And I’m delighted that the increasing availability of eBooks has helped to lessen that gap between Australians and the rest of the world. I hope it continues.

Would you like to highlight your Fiction Writer’s Creed?

One day, I started to ponder the purpose of my occupation. What is the function of the fiction that I and other authors write? We like to believe there is more to our writing than just creating satisfying stories. Of course we want to take readers through the gamut of emotions, but it’s not all for the sake of making them laugh and cry. I sensed that the emotional response is a means rather than an end in itself, but couldn’t quite pinpoint what my work was leading to.

I was reading Matthew 13 in The Message Bible, and suddenly it was all clear to me. The purpose of our fiction is all tied in with the reason Jesus gave His followers when they asked why He liked to tell so many parables. His motivation is the same as ours.

It’s to create readiness, nudge people toward receptive insight, create fertile ground for readers to have ‘a-ha’ moments of their own. I understood that my novel writing is a bit like preparing a garden bed for magnificent flowers to bloom. 

I wondered if other writers had come to the same conclusion. Writing is an engrossing, time-consuming job with many challenges, and we often sacrifice more lucrative occupations to pursue it. I wanted some sort of creed to hang above my desk, to encourage me to keep my chin up and stick to it. I was surprised when I couldn’t find one so I made up my own. It turned out to be a list of eight features, and you are all very welcome to share it if you’d like a creed too.

http://www.justoccurred.blogspot.com.au/2011/05/that-fiction-authors-need-creed.html?pref=fb

Which of your characters are you most like? And which would you never want to be like?

Even though I’m sure I put bits of myself into all of my main characters, I think I have a special spot in my heart for my young men. It’s always been an enjoyable challenge for me to get my head inside a masculine mindset, so I’m always really pleased when I carry it off to my own satisfaction.

I am similar to Blake Quinlan, a main character of “Picking up the Pieces” for his uncertainty and lack of confidence in expressing himself. That attribute is possibly why I started writing in the first place.

I also feel I’m like Courtney Lockwood, the hero of “Best Forgotten” who wakes up with total amnesia. As he searches for his old identity, he initially gets a picture of himself as someone he doesn’t like at all. Eventually he comes to sympathise with his old self, a young man who was vulnerable and reactive to outside feedback and disapproval. He learns that he used to take other people’s perceptions of him on board and let these form his self image. Like Courtney, I was a bit like that and needed to learn about my identity as a child of God, and that I didn’t have to let other people’s perceptions of me shape my own.

The character I’d least like to be like may come as a surprise. I’ve written many misguided and villainous characters but the one who stood out as someone I’d least like to be is an old lady from “The Risky Way Home”, one of my earliest novels. I chose her because I can see how easy it may be for any one of us to follow a similar path.

Henrietta Bowman, a sour, elderly lady, is about to die. Although she never realises it, the reader may sense that her miserable life was rooted in her attitude. She’d had enough blessings to make her happy and content, but chose to look past them and focus on the resentment and self-pity, which she was also arguably within her rights to claim. Focusing on the cruel twists of life that upset her created a self-fulfilling prophecy. It became true that her whole life had been sad and unfulfilled, but equally true that others who had suffered similar setbacks called themselves joyful and blessed. Our lives are as happy as we choose to emphasise.

Paula's Ah-hahs To Tweet:
Everyone has a story: Learn of author Paula Vince’s faith-inspired fiction set in Australia. (Tweet This)

Paula Vince: "… a story has…power to touch readers' hearts in ways other genres do not” (Tweet This)

Award wining author Paula Vince teaches about: Fiction Writer’s Creed. (Tweet This)

Win inspirational author Paula Vince’s novel BEST FORGOTTEN. (Tweet This)

Author Bio:

Award-winning author, Paula Vince loves to evoke tears and laughter through writing fiction. She stirs her stories with mystery, romance, drama and suspense to create something delectably special. A wife and homeschooling mother of three children, she resides in the Adelaide Hills of South Australia, a beautiful spot for inspiration with its breath-taking scenery and four distinct seasons.

For over ten years, Paula's aim has been to provide quality faith-inspired fiction set in Australia. Her quest started way back when, as a Uni student, she discovered the writing of American Christian fiction authors. Her passion is to provide the same enjoyable reads highlighting her own country.

After years of plodding on with minimal return, as Australian-based Christian fiction was regarded as something of an oddity, Paula's efforts are beginning to bear fruit, at last. Her novel, "Picking up the Pieces" won the religious fiction section of the 2011 International Book Awards.

Her novel, "Best Forgotten" was the winner of the 2011 CALEB Award in the fiction category, and also recognized as the best overall entry for the year, chosen over memoirs, devotionals and general fiction.

She is delighted that her books are now available for international readers too.

Connect with Paula at:
Website
Blog
Amazon Page
Goodreads Author Page
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