Stories I Become Immersed in by Dora Bramden

With pen in hand, I could be scribbling in my notebook while laying on my cozy bed or on a windy beach with waves crashing around me. In my head, I’m in an Italian palazzo overlooking Lake Como or slipping and sliding on Hadrian’s Wall in the UK because I’m living vicariously through the characters in the book I’m writing. The wonderful thing is, it’s a complete break from my everyday life, and the possibilities are endless for my characters but for me, not so much. What I can’t do in real life I can do in my imagination as I write or as I’m reading someone else's novel. I’ve always loved reading and getting lost between the pages of a great story is marvelous.

Romance stories are my preference as they lift me out of the everyday and into a magical realm. I love to write stories that could be about fairies and goblins and knights in shining armor, but instead of them being from a magical kingdom I make them human and send them on a journey, a quest of some kind. To make amends for past mistakes or to find a wife so that the future of an orphanage is secure. I find a way to make the people come to life as they pursue a dream or salvation. It’s never easy, and there’s a struggle, and I think that’s the kind of story that really gets me immersed. As a reader or writer, I want to have high hopes that the characters win, in the end, achieve what they needed to and I want to feel sorry for them when things don’t go as planned.

When adversity strikes, it flows from the actions of the hero and heroine. They must heal a past hurt and learn from their mistakes through the love they have for each other. Mistakes made due to previous heartbreak and an endeavor to protect themselves can create a sticky web that binds them in pain. When even the reader can’t imagine a way out because they seem so stuck, the story is intense and keeps the reader so engrossed they barely notice turning the pages. My favorite Jane Austen character is Captain Wentworth from Persuasion. He has created an expectation that he prefers Louisa, too late he discovers his love for Anne (his one time fiancé) is still strong. Although it’s Anne he really wants, he can’t have her because honor demands that he follow through on the previous attention he's given to Louisa and marries her. Poor Captain Wentworth! Poor Anne! I’ve read this book so many times, but I always feel their anguish.

In most books I read, the setting and the characters create an alternative world for me to inhabit and that is so addictive. In writing, I enjoy the same effects. The cheapest holiday ever. My two novels ‘The Scottish Billionaire’s Secret Lover and The Italian Billionaire’s Secret Baby’ are wholly and partially set in countries overseas from Australia where I live. I visited the UK and wrote the places I went to into my novel. I did the same for another later trip to Italy. I got to relieve these wonderful places again as I wrote the novels. The next novel to be published this year is set in Australia and India. I’ll admit I haven’t been in person, but I did a lot of research and read travel brochures on holidaying in the Rajasthan area. I also met a fashion designer who’d actually lived and worked in this area, and I was able to ask her heaps of questions. So in writing my last book, I didn’t have the expense of a trip to India, but I became immersed in the romance of a fashion designers life, working in that country, through my writing.

Learn more about Dora Bramden on her website

‘Healing Love, Passionate Romance.’