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Interview with Cynthia J Stone, author of Mason’s Daughter

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Sally Mason’s teenage son Colton is headed for a major meltdown, and she’s desperate to avert another disaster by proving her husband’s recent death was an accident, not the suicide determined by the coroner. Everyone in town, even Colton, seems to know something particular about Jack’s last days, but no one in Mason’s Crossing can help her put all the pieces together.

On the morning she discovers secret notes in Jack’s appointment book, she finds something else to convince her she’s right. But the more she digs for the truth, the more destructive Colton’s behavior becomes, until Sally is left with one choice: ask her father what really happened.

The problem: Sally hasn’t spoken to him in fifteen years.

That’s set up nicely. What genre is it?
Women’s fiction/family saga. 

What kind of readers will it appeal to?
Women age 35 and older, anyone with teenagers. Anyone who carries family baggage.

Tell us about Sally.
Sally Mason is stubborn, wounded, and looking for answers. It’s hard for her to accept that she doesn’t  know everything about her own family. When she discovers secrets her late husband kept in his appointment book, she digs for the truth with grit and determination. But she ignores signs of trouble from her teenaged son, until she must ask her estranged father for help. Ultimately, she has to develop compassion for others, as well as for herself.

Have you written any other books that we should read next?
Next one coming out Spring 2014, a prequel. Sally Mason should read this book to find out about her own father.

Tell us a bit about yourself.
Native Austinite. Wrote my first story at age 5, been writing ever since. Love hearing people’s crazy family stories. Can’t make that stuff up, but can change the names and the details. And the outcomes.

Let’s put that to the test. We’ll give you four words – Man, Woman, Airport, Darkness – and ask you to tell us a story.
She was supposed to find him at luggage carousel #3 after a seven PM arrival. But there was one problem. She didn’t know his name or what he looked like, only that he had answers to her life’s biggest mystery: who is her real mother? Okay, two problems. He didn’t know she would be waiting for him. But she would recognize him by what he carried. When the monitor above the carousel announced a change, the flight numbers and ETAs flashed. Within seconds, the entire screen went dark. She checked the screens above carousels #1 and #2. Darkness everywhere.

That’s a good story. But you say the craft comes easier than creativity?
Creativity seems easier because I love language and writing about relationships. If I pay attention, it’s not hard to come up with story lines and interesting characters with big hurdles. A rough outlines serves me very well.

The difficulty comes later when I want to be sure I have captured the voice, made the dialogue and plot/action realistic according to each character, included just the right amount of setting and description, avoided adverbs and confusing syntax, put everything on the page instead of leaving important points in my head, fine-tuned the psychic distance, used appropriate action/character tags, and followed basic structure, all the while engaging my reader’s emotions and getting them to enter the fictive dream.

Sheesh! What a challenge.

Do you have a website where we can keep up with your work?
www.CynthiaJStone.com

How can we follow you on Twitter and/or Facebook?
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Masons-Daughter/477461952305893

What’s next?
After the prequel, a cougar rom-com. A divorcée who’s pushing 40, a poet laureate, a young British rock star, a kidnapping, a search for true love.

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