By Katy Lee
My story, Warning Signs, flew
from my fingers when I received word that I was invited to pitch a story to the
Harlequin Love Inspired editors in spring, 2012. I knew exactly the story I wanted to
share. I used to work with children with
hearing impairments. I learned to allow
them to show me what they could do before I made assumptions that they
couldn’t. Warning Signs is a way
for me to pass this valuable lesson on. It is also a way to give credit and
validity to a unique language.
In my romantic-suspense story, my
heroine, Miriam Hunter, is deaf. Owen, my hero is not, but Miriam and Owen are
connected at first by the deafness of Owen’s son. Owen knows sign language but
has some misconceptions about people with hearing impairments. It is a big
theme I had to tackle in the story.
I will also admit that as I wrote Warning Signs, I feared I wouldn’t be able to make the American Sign Language to
feel real on the page. It took work and
a constant effort to read each word/sign carefully to make sure I did the
language justice. I was challenged to make sure the reader felt involved in the
language without any confusion. The goal of reading is to find enjoyment and
enlightenment. I wanted readers of Warning Signs to have this experience, too. I didn’t want this story to come across
as a tutorial. So, for the most part, I used tags such as he signed instead of
he said. Where the sign/word has a crucial role in the story, I describe the
sign specifically.
Another way of communication I paid
close attention to was through expression. Miriam is a funny lady, and much of
her communication incorporates her visual facial features. So for those, too, I
had to carefully imagine her expressions and put them into words the reader
could follow and understand.
Now that the book has been released, I
am hearing from many readers who are deaf, and also friends and family of loved
ones with hearing impairments, that they enjoy imagining the signs as they read
along. After reading these messages, and
also the review from the Romantic Times
Book Reviews magazine, I think I can say that Miriam is touching many lives
through her beautiful language, and I successfully accomplished what I set out
to do.
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As an Inspirational Romantic Suspense
author, Katy Lee writes higher-purpose stories in high-speed worlds. Through
her writing, ministries, and teaching, she dedicates her life to sharing tales
of love, from the “greatest love story ever told” to those sweet romantic
stories of falling in love. Katy and her husband are born New Englanders and
love to travel with their three adventuresome children. You can connect with Katy anytime at her
website, www.KatyLeeBooks.com. Here find her social media links to Facebook https://www.facebook.com/KatyLeewriter and Twitter https://twitter.com/KatyLeeBooks
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