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Interview with
Amy Wallace on
Ransomed Dreams RW: How did you get the idea for this book? AW: Actually, the idea for the book came from watching 9/11 events unfold on television. Like everyone in America, I sat and watched news coverage for a week, just glued to the TV, not believing what happened. I watched the firefighters, the police officers, the FBI agents, listened to the press conferences, and God really put something in my heart at that point. I felt the need to do something, to give something back. So my girls and I made thank you cards and sent them to the firefighters and police officers. It was a seed that God planted. But I really didn’t know what else to do with it. Then that Christmas, I was looking for some home school books for my kids. When we went to the library, I picked up some grownup novels too—I hadn’t read fiction since college because I didn’t think I had time. But I read these and gave them to my husband. He’d read them, and then when he gave them back, I’d go, “Okay, what did you think? Here’s what I would change.” And we’d get into great discussions about things I would have done differently. After about the seventh one, he handed it back and said, “You know what? You need to write your own.” I looked at him and said, “No way.” Not long after that I had a dream, and it was one of those dreams you just don’t forget. A week later I was still seeing that dream—it was Gracie and Steven. I knew there was a mom on a quest for answers, and there was an FBI agent with a scarred heart. I just didn’t know what to do with them. I told my husband about it, and he of course had a smirk on his face, saying, “Well, there’s your story.” So I got a bunch of FBI books, read tons of FBI biographies. Because of 9/11 and my husband working in a ministry, he actually met a secret service agent whose wife he worked with, and asked if he’d be interested in meeting me. Jack said yes. So my husband comes home and says, “Guess what, you’re going to meet with a secret service agent.” So between God and my husband there was no way out. LOL But it was fun. My Secret Service advisor is a great guy, and was very, very helpful. I had a basic plot, a basic outline of what I wanted to do, and I’d done my research. So when Jack and I sat down and talked, we took about an hour going over plot ideas. He helped me really come up with some things I wouldn’t have found online. He was and continues to be very helpful. Anytime I have a question, I shoot him an email, and he’s always quick to reply. He’s been invaluable. RW: What other research techniques were helpful? AW: Well, the FBI books and the FBI website were helpful, and of course my secret service contact. But other than that, I think just talking to other Christians and really listening to what people struggle with helped me to write real. Fiction is such a great tool to touch somebody’s heart with what they might be closed to hearing in another way. RW: Is there a theme in RD? AW: Yes, very strongly, there’s a theme of forgiveness. Gracie struggles with forgiving the person who took so much from her, and Steven struggles to forgive himself. I think so much of the church struggles with the issue of forgiveness, and we just don’t know where to look for answers. In writing Ransomed Dreams, I really prayed that God would take these two different facets of forgiveness and help me write it in such a way that people would see Him. RW: You picked a hard topic with crimes against children. Was that difficult? AW: In writing it, yes, it was very hard. I remember writing the prologue and rewriting the prologue and editing the prologue and crying every time. When I originally wrote this story, I knew nothing about writing. I just sat down and wrote it, and by God’s grace I had something to fix after I learned what I was supposed to do. As I typed, I remember looking at the pictures of my kids on my desk. So to write thinking about how I would live through what Gracie lived through was really a challenge. It was painful to crawl into her skin and live it as I wrote it. But my hope was to connect with moms. It was a double-edged sword, though, because as real as I could make it, it also made it painful. But a lot of the moms who have read it really appreciated that I didn’t dance around the difficult stuff. I brought in what it was like as a mom to have kids, to love their kids, and what you would do to live past something like what Gracie experienced RW: Gracie and Steven both faced a big loss. To touch back on the forgiveness theme, how did they handle this differently? AW: I think how Gracie handled forgiveness was very poignant because she was gut-wrenchingly honest in how she dealt this with issue. I wrote her originally to be a whole lot nicer and more sugar-coated. But something about that never worked for me. I guess that’s how I hoped I could handle life, but it never rang true. So in rewrites, she became much more of a real person. At one point in the story, she refuses to forgive because she feels like if she forgives, she’ll lose everything. And I think sometimes that’s a very real way we feel—like unforgiveness is the only defense we have against someone who’s hurt us. The reality is that it’s killing us, not them. So for Gracie to be honest about that earned her some respect—as opposed to just saying, “Well, you need to forgive. It should be easy.” But it’s not. She had a lot wrapped up in the situation, a lot of loss, a lot of pain. She needed the space to be honest with God, to wrestle with God about that, so that she could come to the conclusion that God really did love her and because He was with her, forgiveness was the best choice. RW: And then there’s Steven, who walked away from his faith. AW: He did. He was an interesting example of how life, if we let it, can beat us down pretty quickly. Granted, he deals with death everyday, like a lot of law enforcement officers, and it’s hard not to get calloused, not to get hardened against faith and anything you can’t touch, see, feel, control. For Steven, his issue was himself. He thought he could have, should have, done better in his life and his job. With him it was really an issue of coming to grips with the fact that he had no right to hold himself to a higher standard than God did, and no right to play God or try to control God. For him it was really about allowing Gracie and his son back into his life, realizing that he was losing out by holding God and other people at a distance. RW: One of things that really struck me as I read the book was that nothing was easy—the characters really had to work for everything. Was this part of the original plot, or a consequence of how the characters developed? AW: It was never a straight romance—it was more of a suspense originally, though the parts balanced each other. Gracie and Steven were both fighting for something in the beginning. There was more than just circumstances, more than just an internal issue. I originally wrote Steven as a widower too, so dealing with their similar losses drew them together more than it pushed them apart. But when we changed it to him being divorced that really changed how he had to deal with forgiveness. It made his growth different and his relationship with Gracie harder—he had another real person to deal with and issues still pushing at him. That really made their relationship harder, which was part of the plan. I think it really worked to make it more realistic, more complicated. None of us have simple relationships, and most of us aren’t sure how to work those things out. RW: What message did you want to get to your readers? AW: It’s my prayer that readers walk away from Ransomed Dreams wanting to understand more about God and His forgiveness. I think my real passion in writing it was that people would go deeper with God. There are things Gracie and Steven struggle with beyond forgiveness that I think a lot of Christians struggle with: whether you can get angry with God, whether He’ll listen to that, whether He’s really going to be there. Steven had walked away, and Gracie was unwilling to deal with the issue God kept bringing up. I hope people see that God isn’t bothered by our inability or rebellion—He still loves us. There are consequences for our choices, but in the end we have a very loving God, who works things together for good. RW: What’s your biggest challenge as a writer in your daily writing life? AW: Writing. (Laughs.) I think the biggest challenge used to be getting out of the story and going back into the real world. Since I homeschool and only write on Saturdays, my biggest challenge now is balancing the business part of writing with sitting down and just writing. I miss getting to write as much as I used to. It’s a hard balance, having a family, writing and the business part of writing. RW: What or who are some of the biggest influences in your life and your writing life? AW: In life, my kids are big influencers. They’re such a neat picture of God for me. They do everything 110%, if that’s possible—they play hard, they laugh hard, they love hard. I would have forgotten how to laugh if not for them. My oldest daughter and I could sit and read all day and be studious and serious, but the younger two really love to laugh. All three of them are such a great picture of different facets of God, and they really brought out a lot of who I am at the core. I grew up in an alcoholic home, so having kids isn’t like reliving my childhood, but more like getting to understand and catch of glimpse of what God means when He tells us to be like children. They challenge me to stay honest and open to God too. In writing, Dee Henderson was my first favorite author. I cut my teeth on her books, wanted to be her when I grew up. I loved how she could tell a great story with a great message. I never got bored. I never felt like I was in the dark so long that the light didn’t balance it out. It was a great way to learn how to write, just by studying her books. I have a wonderful mentor, too, Mary Griffith. She taught me how to bleed on a page—to open up and be honest, and to write with the rawness that life gives us and with the goodness that God shows us, even in the pain. Mary’s been a great example. She encourages me, she prays with me and challenges me often. I also have some really great critique partners that don’t let me get away with anything. If something doesn’t ring true, they’ll make me rework it. RW: Finally, to sum it all up, how many books are in the Defenders of Hope Series? AW: Three, coming out in the Aprils of each consecutive year. RW: Can you tell us a little about the next book? AW: Healing Promises is Clint and Sarah’s story, and it deals with the question of whether God can be trusted in the midst of tragedy. RW: Is there anything else you’d like to tell your readers? AW: Well, every time I go and speak to a writer’s group or other groups, I like to remind them to dream big. We serve a big God, and He’s not daunted by our brokenness or the dreams we thought were shattered. He has a great way of taking dreams we thought we could never have again and making something beautiful out of those tears and that pain. And for writers, I like to remind them that God has a perfect time, and nothing can be gained by trying to hurry Him up, because He has so much to teach us in the midst of life. We short-circuit that if we try to push ahead of Him. We get frustrated and struggle with the process—it’s painful. But on the other side of the contract, I’m really glad I had people to say, “Take your time and wait on God. Don’t try to do it on your own.” There are always issues and challenges, but the best lesson I’ve learned is just to rest in Him.
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