Ali Brady is the pen name of writing BFFs Alison Hammer and Bradeigh Godfrey. The Beach Trap is their first book together. Alison lives in Chicago and works as a VP and creative director at an advertising agency. She’s the author of You and Me and Us and Little Pieces of Me. Bradeigh lives with her family in Utah, where she works as a physician. She’s the author of the psychological thriller Imposter.

Three tips for writing a bookish novel from two authors who just wrote one!

One of the most popular pieces of advice that’s given to writers is to “write what you know.” And since most writers are also voracious readers (we certainly are!) it makes sense that there are so many wonderful books about books.

When it came time to write our own book about books, we asked ourselves, “how bookish can we get?”

Turns out: very.

From the beginning of the writing process for Battle of the Bookstores, we knew this wouldn’t just be a romance novel, but a love letter to the whole bookish community. We kept romance readers and booksellers in mind as we wrote, giving them a book boyfriend to fall for, enough tension and spice to drive them wild in the very best way, so much banter, and plenty of insider book references.

If you’re looking to infuse your love of books into your own story, here are a few helpful hints.

#1: Location, location, location!

Bookstores and libraries make a perfect setting for a novel, especially a romance novel. There’s something magical about the rows and rows full of stories and ideas and possibilities. They’re a built-in metaphor for discovery, community, and connection.

Even if a bookstore or library isn’t the main setting for your novel, it’s a great place to let your characters bump into each other or hang out together. The books someone picks up or where they linger in the store can say a lot about them.

Which brings us to our second tip:

#2: Even if your characters aren’t booksellers or writers, make them readers.

You can learn so much about a person based on the books they read and how and when they read them. In Battle of the Bookstores, we gave our characters two very distinct reading identities to build contrast and give readers special insight into who they are.

Our MMC, Ryan, is a romance lover and a one-book-at-a-time kind of guy. He listens to audiobooks because of his dyslexia, something that shaped his relationship with reading. As a kid, books were a huge source of joy when his mom read to him—but then they became something he couldn’t access easily on his own. His journey back to reading (and the self-acceptance that came with it) added a quiet depth to his character (along with some funny stories about Esmerelda, the parrot he read smut out loud to).

On the other hand, Josie, our FMC, is all about the big literary novels. She loves gritty stories and complex characters, and she reads several books at once, rotating between them depending on her mood, the moment, or the location (she even has a designated “toilet book” and she’s not ashamed to admit it).

While Josie’s favorite books give the reader a window into her character and personality, the books she doesn’t like almost tell us more. Even though she’s the main character in a romance novel, Josie isn’t a romance reader. To understand (and overcome) that, she has to face her past, including her mom’s love of “bodice rippers” as a way of escaping reality and dealing with her failed relationships.

#3: Know the tropes and have fun with them!

If you’re writing a bookish novel, you’re bound to have a few tropes in there. If your characters are big readers, they might even be aware of the tropes they’re living in the story, and it’s fun to break the fourth wall and have them address the situation (we do that a few times in our book!). Readers love feeling like they’re in on the joke.

The most important thing about tropes—whether you’re writing a bookish book or not—is to use them in a way that’s interesting and fresh. Readers love when things feel familiar, but they don’t want it to be too predictable. It’s a fine line to balance.

Another thing that’s important to balance is the amount of literary references you include in the book. Some readers love it, but it can take others out of the story, especially if it feels like it’s done for the sake of name-dropping and not adding value or texture to the scene. Since the characters in our new book are booksellers, it would have been strange if they didn’t reference their favorite books and characters.

At the end of the day, writing a bookish novel is about more than just including books. It’s about capturing the joy, nostalgia, comfort and connection that reading brings us. After all, book people are the best people.

So go ahead. Let your characters read. Let them argue about authors and cry over fictional deaths. Give them a story worthy of the kind of dog-eared, underlined, well-loved paperback they’d carry everywhere.

And when you do, let us know—we’d love to read it!

Battle of the Bookstores by Ali Brady

Josie Klein and Ryan Lawson may manage neighboring bookstores, but their personalities and tastes in books could not be more different. When their bookstores are combined by a new owner, quiet rivalry explodes into full-blown competition as they scramble to be the last manager standing. Only their chats with an anonymous friend in an online book forum provide comfort admist the conflict, but unbeknownst to Josie and Ryan, they’ve been chatting with each other the entire time. As their chemistry blossoms both online and in real life, Josie and Ryan realize that romance might be in the books for them after all.

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