Today I’m happy to host author Virginia’dele Smith as she shares some of her tips for writing a small-town romance. Be sure to read on for info about her new book, GROCERY GIRL, and a giveaway.

Tips for Writing a Small Town Romance

Consistency and detail are both critical to developing the setting when a story takes place in a small town. I like to think of the community I am designing as a character with attributes that my readers want to see and hear and feel and smell and sense and touch.

To keep up with how the town is created, I recommend building a world guide from the very beginning of your book or series. The world guide is a document that lists everything you know — both stated in the book and still living in your mind — about the small town. Include geographical region/state/country/roads/lakes/rivers/mountains, the names of businesses/parks/neighborhoods/schools/medical services, and be sure to write about the feeling, ambiance, and personality of the town through community events/festivals/ceremonies/decorations/teams.

Write down every single detail…the high school’s mascot and team colors, the name of the Christmas festival, the color of the reading benches that surround the courthouse on the grounds of the town square…every single detail. These seemingly petty, minute details foster a feeling of belonging within your readers. They know things that only the honored residents of the town know which makes them special, unique, and part of an elite and exclusive group. But when you include them in the text of the book, you must remember every tiny thing you’ve shared with the readers.

As authors, we juggle settings, characters, tropes, mysteries, deaths, births, loves, weddings, tragedies, victories, and many story elements that get edited out of a roughdraft and elements that we don’t even write into a story. It is so easy to forget what we thought and what actually made it into the final manuscript. This is why a world guide is essential to using wonderful details and maintaining consistency when writing a small-town romance.

Your world guide can be a tool that you keep behind the scenes just for your reference, or you can use your world guide as a lead magnet or share it to connect with your audience. If you’re writing a series that takes place in one small-town, refer to the elements of the community that you shared in earlier installments while adding new locales and interesting tidbits to keep your readers engaged, both in the small town and in its residents.

Grocery Girl

by Virginia’dele Smith

GENRE: Wholesome small-town romance

Blurb

She inhales life with every breath. He’s suffered a world of pain. Can they rise above tragedy to find their happily ever after?

Maree Davenport refuses to let a tearful past rule her future. After losing her parents at the age of five, the big-hearted fabric designer is determined to embrace her feelings and find happiness no matter what. So when she literally runs over a handsome new firefighter in the produce section, the hopeless romantic is certain she’s just collided with destiny.

Everyone Rhys Larsen ever loved has died. And though he may have hit it off with the pretty girl at the store, the haunted EMT knows better than to let her into his heart. But when an accident leaves her wounded and in need of care, he vows to nurse her back to health.

As Maree struggles to break through the grieving man’s walls, she fears his deep-seated superhero complex will make him unreachable. And as Rhys grapples with trying to protect the beautiful woman from his curse, he worries he’ll have to choose between doing the right thing and true love. 

Can this conflicted couple reconcile their opposite takes on adversity and find purpose in each other’s arms? 

Grocery Girl is the touching first book in the Green Hills wholesome small-town romance series. If you like strong but vulnerable characters, emotional growth, and quaint backdrops, then you’ll adore Virginia’dele Smith’s celebration of joy.

Read an Excerpt

And then her gaze locked with a set of uniquely gray eyes.

Maree had never seen this firefighter before. Their stare held for a smidge longer than a split second. Then he nodded a brief acknowledgment and kept walking. It took her a blink or two — or maybe ten — to get her wits about her.

He was definitely new in town, because there was no way she would have forgotten having seen him before. Taking a deep, intentional breath and with a little shake of her head, she broke out of the mini-trance she’d found herself in, forced herself to refocus, and finished her shopping.

She giggled at herself when she recounted the whole second-and-a-half time lapse of the not-quite interaction to Miss Sadie when she delivered her fruit a half hour later. When Sadie asked what the rest of him looked like, Maree honestly had no idea.

“Miss Sadie,” she confessed, “I didn’t make it past those eyes.”

“Well, that’s surely a shame,” Miss Sadie crooned. “Now you’ll never know if it’s the same fellow when you meet him in town or simply walking down the street.”

She was giving Maree a hard time, teasing in good fun, but Maree wasn’t worried.

“Oh, I’ll know him,” she replied with dreamy confidence. “I’m certain I’d know him anywhere.”

Virginia’dele Smith will be awarding a $25 Amazon/BN GC to a randomly drawn winner via rafflecopter during the tour. Click here to enter the giveaway.

Meet Virginia’dele Smith

Ashli Montgomery is a wife, a momma, and an author whose passion is sharing love stories, books, quilts, yoga, recipes, and all of her favorite things in life. She is quilting to mend the mind by spearheading and educating a community of friends who love quilts and quilting but hate Alzheimer’s disease through Quilt 2 End ALZ, Inc. (https://quilt2endalz.org/) , a 501(c)(3) nonprofit she launched to use her quilting hobby as a platform to advocate for an end to Alzheimer’s disease.

Ashli writes under the pen name Virginia’dele Smith to honor Syble Virginia Tidwell, Adele Gertrude Baylin, and Etta Jean Smith. These three cherished grandmothers were beautiful role models, teaching Ashli to love without judgment and to always put family first. Through Grandma Syble’s journals and appetite for books, through Momadele’s priceless cards and handwritten letters, and through many, many hours of visiting over fabric at Mema’s kitchen island, Ashli also learned to treasure words.

You are invited to join Ashli in Green Hills (https://www.facebook.com/groups/welcometogreenhills) and learn more about Virginia’dele Smith by subscribing to Ashli’s newsletter, The Gazette (http://eepurl.com/gJIDcv), at AshliMontgomery.com.

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