Dee Henderson

Q: Let me start by asking you to tell us a little about yourself. 

A. I’m a storyteller. I love a good romance and a good mystery. I tend to like stories that have a twist to them. You turn the page and find a new direction. I don’t telegraph it is coming. I’d like to surprise the reader if I can

I’m an engineer by training. I’ve published sixteen novels now, the best known being the O’Malley series and the Uncommon Heroes series. I’ve been honored to have the books win a RITA Award and a Christy Award. I’ll add to that I’m a pastor’s daughter, single, forty-something (I stopped remembering when I passed 30thirty), and I like dogs.

Q: When did you first realize you wanted to be a writer?

A. I started writing stories as a child because I wanted to create a world and an adventure of my own.

I have the privilege of still attending the church where I also happened to go to school from the fourth through eighth grade. There is a story repeated by those who know me that, when my teachers wanted to punish me, they would take my books away before I went to recess. I knew where I was heading as an adult very early on. Stories have had a profound effect on my life, but it has to a large part been self-motivated and self-directed. My parents kept me supplied in books and trips to the library, but I read because I wanted to read, not because someone else needed to encourage it. I read Nancy Drew and Cherry Ames. I loved the horse stories. My first story was “A Horse Named Willy,” and it’s still in my dad’s files.

I started writing seriously when I was in my teens, and first had a manuscript good enough to show an editor when I was in my thirties. Most authors don’t take that much practice, but it’s not uncommon to write five or six books before you figure out everything you need to learn to make stories work.

Q: Could you give us the highlights of your professional writing career, including how you got your first break?  

A. There’s a book called Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell that talks about the time and practice it takes to excel in a field. Being an engineer for a decade before I sold my first book enabled me to become a published writer, because it gave me a decade of serious practice to learn the craft. I had the freedom of a good job paying the bills, and it let me spend the time needed to learn how to tell a story. The first stories sold were a good way along the learning curve compared to the first stories I wrote—which my mother charitably called “pretty awful.”

I sold my first three books by simply having a query letter about a finished manuscript cross the desk of an editor, who had an opening in the publishing calendar and who was willing to give my stories a read. I was at the point I’d learned the craft well enough to write an interesting story. I’ve learned a great deal more about the craft by working with some very good editors over the years and by simply writing more stories.

Q: Would you tell us about your current book release, Full Disclosure? 

A. Let me start by mentioning there’s a really cool video trailer for the novel and the first chapters are available to read online. I invite everyone to visit www.FullDisclosureNovel.com or www.DeeHenderson.com for all the details.

With Full Disclosure I wanted to write an intricate mystery and a solid love story. It’s a story about a cop, Ann Silver, who is the Midwest Homicide Investigator, and an FBI agent, Paul Falcon, who is the bureau’s top murder cop.

If a murder case is causing a local cop problems, odds are good they’ve placed a call to Ann. And if the victim carries a federal badge or had a security clearance, odds are good Paul has seen the case file or his guys have worked the murder.

I wanted to portray the job that a cop’s life really is—the cases keep coming to be solved and if you’re going to have a private life outside of work, you’d best learn to create time for it and nurture it. I gave them a tough case to deal with, and secrets that would have stunning impacts when revealed. I stretched who they were as cops to deal with the disclosures unfolding around them.

I also wanted to write a romance that was a bit against type. He wants to get married and is looking for the right lady. She’s content being single and hasn’t been thinking about marriage. It made for a fascinating pair of characters in Ann Silver and Paul Falcon that I think readers are going to enjoy.

Q: Where did you get your inspiration for Full Disclosure?

A: I had developed the ideas within this book as part of a mystery series. When I sat down to write the title, that mystery series became the backstory for a single title. I think it added a layer of depth to the plot that’s more detailed than some of my other titles. I enjoyed having that scope to work with for the story, and I loved the characters.

Q: What’s the main thing you hope readers take away from this story?

A:  That it was a fast-paced romantic suspense and entertaining to read.

Q: What’s your favorite scene or chapter from the novel?

A: I’ll borrow my answer from a reader/reviewer:

     “You’re interesting, Ann. You tell nice stories, write good books, and have a reputation I admire among your friends. According to Dave you’re not seeing anyone in particular. And I’m looking.”

“You came all this way to ask me on a date.”

“Nothing as common as a date. We’re going to start a romance.”

Her eyes barely flickered from his. “Not shy, are you? Breathtaking directness aside, I don’t move at your speed.”

Q: What inspires you to write? 

A. I’m more inspired by what I don’t like. I do most of this work of being an author because I want to change what the culture considers popular.

Personally it bothers me to see Fifty Shades of Grey being read more than the O’Malley series, not because I’m looking for the publicity and being well known but because people desperately need to see a better view of what life and relationships could be like.

Romance matters. I’d like to see true romance valued more than the junk our culture currently calls “romance.” Romance is love in action. Romance—the kind I like to write about—is the strong bond that runs between two people who make a decision to spend their lives together. Fiction lets me explore that bond, how it develops, how it glues couple together. It’s going to touch the emotions, and the heart. It’s going to be what real life could be like.

Q: How has being a published novelist differed from your expectations of the profession? 

A: I expected being a published author to be hard work. I didn’t expect it to be quite so hard as it actually is.

Publishing a book should be called rewriting a book.

I spent 5 months writing Full Disclosure and created 3 major drafts during that process. Then I spent another 5 months rewriting it based on my publisher’s feedback and produced 2 more major drafts. I spent 3 months going line by line with an editor through every page—with liberal amounts of red on every page—then worked with a copy editor and proofreader until final galleys were signed off on. The manuscript could still be improved on; it just reached the limits of my skills. And that is published book number 16. If the pay wasn’t so nice, and that initial 5 months of storytelling so fun, no one would ever willingly go through the process. It is painful. And hopefully every reader who picks up a copy of the book is going to be glad that’s what happened to my story.

Q: What advice or tips do you have for writers who are just getting started?

A: Writing is about choices for what is on the page and what is not, what is presented to the reader, when, and how, and what is left for later in the story. I taught myself to write in large part by finding books I really loved and taking the story apart to figure out how the author did it. Good authors are good for a reason. They have figured out the logic of what to put on the page and what not to put on the page so readers are entertained, enlightened, captivated—but never bored.

What surprised me most about studying stories—about learning to be a good writer—is that it is free. The skill is available to anyone who wants to learn it. The cost is a pad of paper, a pen, novels you love, and time. There’s no complicated education and degree you need to go get, no need to have the right professors or read the right textbooks—it’s all right there for those who want it: How to handle dialog tags, how to have enough description but not too much, how to manage several characters within one scene, how to handle transitions in the story timeline. The books you love when you read them are also the teachers and the answers for how to be good at this job of being a writer.

Q: Would you share with us what you are working on now? 

A.  I’ve got a story on my desk I’m enjoying very much, but I make it a policy never to talk about a story until I have a manuscript I’m comfortable showing to my first readers.

Q: When you’re not writing, what do you like to do? 

A. I relax by walking, reading, and painting.

Walking: Most of my books are born in long wandering walks around the subdivision where I live. So while I relax by walking, it’s also my most productive time of day.

Reading: I read for the joy of it. Christmas gifts, birthday gifts—same request. Bookstore gift cards. I read a few hundred books over the course of a year. Trading books because I’m a math major and enjoy the markets, a lot of fiction because it’s the way I keep my sense of pacing and it’s just fun to get lost in what someone else spent months writing, nonfiction because I learn best by having a subject-matter expert take me through the material.

Painting: I have absolutely no talent as a painter, but I enjoy it immensely probably because I know I’m no good at it and don’t have to show what I create to anyone else. It got started when an art store went out of business and I bought hundreds of large canvases for a couple of bucks apiece. Those canvases, eBay for old oil paints, and over time a collection of fifty good books on how to paint have made it an enjoyable hobby.

Q: Where can readers find you on the Internet? 

A. I invite everyone to visit FullDisclosureNovel.com to see the video trailer and learn more about the October release, and for all my books, DeeHenderson.com.

I appreciate the mail and the feedback—good or bad—it’s how I learn what works and what doesn’t work with my stories. If you stop by DeeHenderson.com and send me a note, it will come directly to my desk.

Q: Is there anything else you’d like to share with us? 

A.  One of the best gifts you can give an author is to share the stories so they continue to be passed around and enjoyed. If you have copies of the O’Malley series books on your bookshelves, it would mean a lot to me if you would share them with a friend or co-worker. I’m making it a point to see how many of these copies can get loaned this year.