Patti O’Shea

New Face/Rising Star

by DeborahAnne MacGillivray

© August 2004

Pattie O’Shea burst onto the Futuristic Romance scene with a powerful book – Ravyn’s Flight. The quality of the novel was simply amazing for a first time writer. Her second book will be part of the 2176 series for Dorchester Publishing, The Power of Two. She works for Northwest Airlines in 757 Engineering as clerical support, when she is not boldly going where few woman have gone before, and likes to think her job is “to keep the guys in line” since, until January 2004, she was the only woman in the department. Maybe that close quarters working with a lot of males, gives her a strong insight into creating her heroes! So, let chat a bit
with the marvelous new voice in Romance…

Ravyn’s Flight (Dorchester November 2002) was your first book. It scored big in the Futuristic Romance subgenre. The novel is simple amazing. I found it so hard to believe this was your first novel. It’s a claustrophobic drama (even though it’s mostly set outdoors), that kept up the relentless pace, reminding me of the blind terror you would find in the Predator films. Though edging two years old, it’s still racking up solid sales. Were you surprised by the success of your first book?

Thank you! It's always a thrill when someone enjoys my story.

I never could have imagined such a great reception to my first book, so yes, I was surprised. The best part, though, has been hearing from readers. Nothing is more exciting than when someone tells me they loved the story and the characters, or when they ask if I'm going to write another book set in this world. That's been what I view as the real success, the enthusiastic reader reaction that I've received.

The story centers on Ravyn Verdier. She is the communication expert on a team of 20 CAT specialists - they go in and investigate if a planet is inhabitable. They were sent to Jarved Nine, which is strangely like Earth in terrain, air etc. The team discovers a small town there, but no people, and the reason soon becomes apparent as a mysterious force attacks the CAT team killing all but Ravyn. Damon Brody and his team of six Special Ops force are on the other side of the Jarved Nine when the distress call comes from the CAT team. They arrive, discovers the slaughter and fear all are dead. Damon finds a terrified Ravyn covered in blood and hiding in under her bed. He is barely getting the story out of Ravyn, when his team is slaughtered leaving Ravyn and Damon to flee for their lives.

Where did you the inspiration for this amazing tale come from?

The inspiration was something really simple. I was driving home from work one day and saw, in my mind's eye, a clock blinking "12:00." It made me curious, so I asked what was going on. My view expanded and I saw my heroine huddled on the floor, her arms wrapped around her legs. I knew then that something bad had happened, but I didn't know what. I had to start writing to get answers, but as I saw more of the first scene, I wondered how this was going to be a romance if Ravyn was completely alone on the planet. I kept going, though, and found the Army Special Operations team. Then I knew who the hero was and the story grew from there.

Your second book is a showcase in the 2176 Series for Dorchester. Your book follows Susan Grant’s The Legend of Bonsai Macguire, Day of Fire by Kathleen Nance, and The Shadow Runners by Liz Maverick. This is a big honor for a new writer with only one book to their credit. How did you feel being selected for work on this series?

Elated, excited, terrified, panicked. I pretty much ran the gamut of emotions.

My deadline to write The Power of Two was only four months and my previous fastest time for finishing a book was a year, so fear was a huge part of the equation. I set a schedule of how many pages I needed to write a day and tried not to think beyond making that day's goal, but I know I was wound pretty tightly until I finished.

Excitement was another big emotion. This series sounded so cool, and since I'd already written a couple of chapters for the proposal, I'd gotten to know Jake and Cai, my hero and heroine. I really loved the two of them and I'd hoped I'd be able to tell their story.

Now, of course, there's fear over what readers will think of the book.

How hard was it to work on a set “bible” for the tale instead of working from your own inspiration?

One of the best things about the 2176 series was how much freedom we were given to create our own stories. The basic world building was done and we each had a goal we needed to achieve in the book to move the series forward, but there was still a lot of latitude.

For instance, most of The Power of Two takes place on the Raft Cities. No one else had created that place yet, so it was mine to form. I also had room to weave in other plot threads beyond what I needed to have for the series, which was very cool. There's a lot happening in my book.

Tell us a little bit about the Plot for The Power of Two.

Cai Randolph is an "anchor," the techie half of a Quandem: a pair of elite operatives used by the United Colonies of Earth for covert action. Neural implants allow her to sit back in a control chair and feed information to her partner, Army Special Forces Captain Jacob Tucker.

Jake and Cai are sent to arrest Banzai Maguire and bring her in to face trial for treason. This time, though, it can't be business as usual. This time, Cai is going in the field with him and she's got more on her mind than arresting a traitor to the UCE. Whether Jake likes it or not, she can't sit back while he fights the bad guys. Wherever this mission takes her, Cai is going to be the one kicking a little tail.

So far, your books have been Futuristic Romances. Do you plan to keep writing in this subgenre or would you like to explore other subgenres?

Before writing Ravyn's Flight, all the books I'd finished were Contemporary Romances and most of my ideas are for contemporaries. That said, I write whichever characters come in and insist I tell their story, so it's hard to say what direction I'll be heading in the future.

Do you write full time?

No, and I'd love to do that! My day job is with Northwest Airlines; I work in Technical Operations.

How long does it take you to write a book?

I'm new enough that I don't have a good answer for this yet. Ravyn's Flight took me eighteen months to write. The Power of Two took four months. Of course, I was running on coffee, Vitamin B and only getting about four to five hours of sleep on weeknights, so that's a little too short. I think eight months would be comfortable and give me a chance to take a day off now and then.

Which drives your works for you personally? The plot or the characters? Which comes first - the story or the characters?

Without doubt it's the characters. I might have a flash of an idea first, but never enough to know what to do with it until the characters come in and start talking to me. It's the hero and heroine who interest me most and draw me into their story. I like to watch how they interact with each other, and how they're forced to deal with their personal perceptions. One of my beliefs is that people don't often see themselves clearly. I like to place my hero and heroine in situations where they're not only forced to reassess their views of themselves, but also where they change and grow.

When do you write?

I write whenever I have time. I write before work. I bring my laptop to work and write on lunch. I write on the weekends. I try to write when I get home from work, but that's not always easy because I have other things I need to do too. There aren't enough hours in the day and the time I spend writing flies by much too quickly.

Who are you favorite writers?

I have so many must-buy authors! Linda Howard is my absolute favorite. I love Justine Davis, Susan Andersen, Sherrilyn Kenyon, Karen Marie Moning, Fiona Brand, and of course, Susan Grant and Kathleen Nance. I have both of them on my keeper shelf and was lucky enough to start reading them from the very beginning. That was part of the excitement for me about the 2176 series, getting to work with two authors I've read and admired for years.

Were there any certain books that inspired you to write Romance?

Not really. I think I was always geared to write Romance. My Barbie and Ken dolls had extremely involved love lives, certainly more elaborate than what most six-year-old girls created and I was always daydreaming.

When I got older and was reading everything I could get my hands on at the library, I'd add a romance in my head between two characters I liked in the book. I still remember one mystery I read where the woman I'd picked as heroine turned out to be the killer. Very disappointing.

I found my first Romance book when I was fifteen and I was thrilled. These were exactly the stories I wanted to spend time reading. My book choices were still eclectic through high school and college, but I kept coming back to Romances because I enjoyed them the most. I love that happy ending!

What do you have planned for your next book?

I'm working on two different proposals. One is a Paranormal Romance with a heroine who's a troubleshooter for a society of magic users. She's really kick-butt, almost too much so, but she has some interesting reasons why she is this way.

The other is a Romantic Suspense. This heroine is a con artist and a thief and she's giving the hero fits. But he's much too controlled and she's ripped his numbness away, so she's good for him.

Do you plot it yourself or do the characters come alive and take “control”? Do you write in pieces or straight through?

My characters have more control than I do, but I can influence them. Sometimes. At other times they'll absolutely refuse to do what I want them to do and I'll sit, spinning my wheels, until I do it their way.

Each book so far, has come a little differently. I didn't plot at all with Ravyn's Flight, just sat down and wrote the book, but with The Power of Two, I did something I call chapter goals. When I'd finish a chapter, I'd look to the next one and write down what I needed or hoped to accomplish there.

That doesn't mean my characters didn't surprise me; there's a thread in the book about traitors within the army that I did my best to avoid. I even rewrote the scene where it first comes to light several times to get rid of it. Jake snuck it in on me anyway. I finally decided to let it stay, and if I needed to, I'd just delete it on revision. It ended up making it into the final version of the story.

I write sequentially. Because I only have a vague idea of some of the things that may happen in the book, each chapter needs to build on the one in front of it, so I can't hop around. That's particularly important when it comes to the characters and their actions and reactions. They change as my stories move along and how they'd behave in a given situation in chapter one can be drastically different than how they'd behave in that same set of circumstances in chapter twenty.

How do you write? Are you day writer or a nightowl? In silence or with music for inspiration?

I usually write with the television turned on, but the sound muted. I need it quiet. My preference is to have a baseball game playing, but if there isn't one on TV or if it's the off season, I'll have something else going. Usually the shopping channel. Whatever it is, it needs to be something that doesn't require me to pay attention. If I can just glance up occasionally and see what the score is and what's going on, I'm happy.

I write best during the day, but because I work, I've learned to do it in the late afternoons and evenings. I find that I spend a lot of time listening to my characters away from the keyboard, and although that isn't actually writing, I think it helps when I am at the computer.

How hard was it for you to make your first sale?

I'm almost embarrassed to say how easy it was. Ravyn's Flight wasn't the first book I'd finished, but it was the first one I wrote once I'd really committed myself to writing. I knew that there were few houses interested in Futuristic Romance, so I wanted to find an editor that liked my voice. To do that, I sent Ravyn out on the contest circuit.

I won the first contest in which I entered the revised version of the manuscript and Kate Seaver asked to see the whole thing. I sent it out after New Year's and left ten days later for Hawaii. I came back to two voice mail messages and an email to contact Kate. Of course, it was much too late then to call New York, so I had to wait till the next day. My friend kept assuring me it meant I sold, but it was only three weeks since the story had arrived at Dorchester, so I thought she was wrong. I was sure someone had dropped it or spilled coffee and they wanted me to send a new copy.

When I did call, I found out my friend was right; I had sold Ravyn's Flight. And just to make things more interesting, I had a terrible phone connection; I could barely hear Kate. I had to keep asking her to repeat what she'd said, and since I'd picked up a bug while on vacation, I was trying not to cough into the phone. Not the smoothest beginning of all time.

Do you have any advice for beginning writers?

The best advice I have is to write and keep on writing until the story is done. Everything that needs to be fixed can be taken care of after the first draft is completed. Then, when the book is revised and finished, send it out and work on another one.

Where do you wish to see your career ten years from now?

I hope that ten years from now readers think of me as a writer who delivers a good story with real characters who stay true to who they are. I'd like to be thought of as a writer who doesn't pull her punches, but tells the story as it should be told. My goal is to write the best story I'm capable of each and every time, to give my

characters the best I can do and deliver a memorable and well-written story to my readers.

The RIO Reviewers wish to thank Patti O’Shea for taking time from her busy life and career to share her thoughts with us. We wish her the best

on future projects and eagerly await the release of The Power of Two.