The Story Behind the Story...

By Rebecca Benston,

Author/Publisher/Owner

Higher Ground Books & Media

People sometimes forget that while authors tell you one story, they have a multitude of other stories that lead them to put those thoughts down on the page. Stories that aren’t often shared—sometimes because they can’t or sometimes, because they just won’t. So, when an author decides to let readers take a look inside their process, it’s a wonderful thing! Unless you’re a memoir writer—they tend to tell you more than you may have ever wanted or needed to know, but that’s a different blog. Seriously though, when a fiction writer chooses to let you in on the secrets that led to building their fictional world, it’s often eye-opening and sometimes heartbreaking. In my case, I’d say it’s a moderate blend of both.

This week, I’m going to talk a little about how I came to write my mystery series, The Rona Shively Stories. She didn’t just hatch out of nowhere. She’s a living, breathing mess…just like me. And I’ve loved sharing her stories with you over the last twenty years or so. I’m working on a new one as we speak and I hope you will truly enjoy this brand new adventure. This blog post is for the ten readers who have loved reading Rona.

In late 2004, there was a lot going on in my life. I had a one-year-old daughter. I had been married for a little over four years. I was stressed beyond my own comprehension and I needed a change. I had worked in an administrative capacity for an alcohol and drug treatment facility since 1998 and the job was wearing on me. I had also just finished my first master’s degree in human services, and I was hopeful that the accomplishment would bring me a slew of new opportunities. It did not. It did bring me to a new job—but that also didn’t turn out to be what I needed. It was more money, but also an hour-long commute each way and a very long day of problem-solving and feeling like I was too far away from my daughter each day. So, I talked it over with my husband and we decided that I could stay home and raise our child, for a while at least. I also desperately wanted to have more kids, so that was part of the plan, too.

Having worked outside the home for most of my adult life, staying home was fun, but also a little boring. What was I supposed to do while my daughter was sleeping? She was little. She took naps. And during her waking hours, there were only so many episodes of Dora the Explorer that one grown woman should have to stomach. I had to find a way to keep my brain from forgetting how to think. Not that raising a child doesn’t require thought, it’s just a different kind of problem-solving than what I was used to providing. And since I already struggled with having the requisite confidence to be a mom, I soon became a bit restless. The early days were a challenge, but one day while I was cleaning a closet, I found my big orange binder full of things that I’d started writing back when I had no other responsibilities. You know, the big book of hopes and dreams that everyone tucks away when adult life beckons? That one. Well, I pulled it out of hiding, blew the dust off of the cover, and ventured inside.

As I read through the stories, I stumbled upon one called, In the Wash. I had written a fairly sub-standard beginning to a mystery novel featuring a woman named Ronette. It seemed kind of funny, so I thought it might be worth looking at again. I was and am an avid audiobook listener. At that time, I was in between new releases from my few favorite authors and I needed a story to follow. Looking at this “Ronette” character, I thought, maybe I can create something interesting here. If only for my own amusement, I vowed to finish writing this story. And that’s what I did. As I began to write, I came up with characters that made sense to me. I had a very narrow scope at that time as I hadn’t really done much or been anywhere of note. I had only my sheltered past which was fraught with dysfunctional family drama. My inspiration came from my escape plan—it was all I had.

In a few months, I had created my heroine. Rona (formerly Ronette) Shively was born. A feisty, fearless, and fabulous private detective who had terrible luck with men and an attitude that required years of adjustment. Which she received over the course of ten books! I poured my heart and soul into writing Rona for several years until it became obvious that there was another issue I had to deal with. My faith.

My husband and I had been talking about trying to go back to church. We started having problems, but we had tried to ignore them—chalking it up to the usual trials of marriage. By the time we reached the nine-year mark, it was obvious that things had changed significantly and that we weren’t having fun anymore. On a random “date night,” we were talking and we decided that we should try going to church. We were both backslidden Christians, though he was a Catholic and I had been mostly Baptist. We had different ideas about God’s role in our lives, but we didn’t really talk about it. We thought that at this point, maybe Jesus could help. We ended up attending two churches; a bigger one for him and a smaller one for me. We went together, but it wasn’t having the desired impact. It was unfortunately too late.   

Church, while a last-ditch effort to save our marriage, proved to be so much more than that for me. My writing had become very important to me and church had opened my eyes to a whole different set of priorities that I had been neglecting. I had built my life on the broken pieces of my past and I was now scrambling for purchase among the shards. Reconnecting with God effectively gave me what I needed to sweep away the brokenness and allow healing to finally take hold. In the midst of that healing, I dealt with the new pain of divorce. Although some would question how I could say I was healing when I was divorcing my husband, I believe that the choice I made was between my marriage and the fate of my soul. I had never heard God speak so clearly as He did at that time and it taught me that listening to everyone else’s interpretation of what God wants us to do and listening to His actual leading are very different things. I tuned them out and stepped forward with God.

In the years since, I kept writing. I added several more stories to the Rona Shively series. And when my publisher went out of business, I opened my own publishing company and started helping others tell their stories. I set my criteria based on what God was showing me and telling me to do. And over the years, I ended up publishing over 250 books for over 60 authors! People just like me. People just like you.

We all have a story. Some of us have a few! And we may or may not want to tell those stories to everyone else. But we should never feel like there’s no way to tell it or that there is no one who would want or need to hear it. That’s the main sentiment that I’ve built Higher Ground Books & Media around. And for better or worse, we’ll keep fighting for our place in this world. Because we love to tell the story.

God bless you!