The Power of Words: Maria Denison's Journey from Corporate America to Captivating Storytelling

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome to the Living the Dream Podcast with Curveball. If you believe, you can achieve. Welcome to the Live in the Dream with Curveball Podcast, a show where I interview guests that teach, motivate, and inspire. Today's guest is author and entrepreneur Maria Dennison. And she is the creator of the Reflex series, a suspense thriller filled with realism and preternatural that forces readers to question everything that they believe. Maria had a career that took her to 50 states and 40 countries, and so she's using her lifetime of observing people, places, and personality to make rich field stories with twists for careful readers that reward careful readers. So we're going to be talking to Maria about her career in her book series and the book, next book coming up in the series, and everything that she's up to and gonna be up to. So Maria, thank you for joining me.

SPEAKER_01 1:17

Thank you for having me, Curtis. It's a pleasure to be here.

SPEAKER_00 1:20

Why don't you start off by telling everybody a little bit about yourself?

SPEAKER_01 1:26

I um spent a good portion of my career uh either working for corporate America or, as I like to say, working beside corporate America. Um, about 20 years ago, I started my own company, although all of my clients were big corporate clients. So I have a lot of experience in that area. I have a lot of experience with dealing with people who need to have everything happen inside the box, with people who need to have everything stay in its lane. And personally, that's not my personality. So I sort of had to conform and learn to conform to that. But something interesting came out of all of that, a lot of very interesting things from that experience. The first one that I like to talk about is the power of words. I think people don't give themselves enough credit when they're working in a big office or they're working in a corporate environment. They don't give themselves enough credit with how they approach conversing and emailing colleagues and superiors. Like words are so powerful. I mean, just the position, which words make a tone to everything you write. And I think I quickly realized like you don't just whip off emails. Like you author them, you write them because they can come back and bite you in the ass if you don't do it correctly. Like you have to make sure the tone of everything you write, especially when it's going out to like, you know, 20, 30, 40 people, that tone is so important. So I think I was beginning to realize I was crafting and authoring just about all of my communications. Um, because of the job I did, I was a uh construction project manager. I was working with, you know, whoever was on the project. Sometimes it was the staff and all of the people I needed to coordinate with. So again, these emails were going out to hundreds of people. Sometimes it was responding to a complaint or a concern. But little by little I was starting to realize like, I really am crafting. I'm, I'm, this is, this isn't business. This is art. Um, and I started to take more of an interest in words, I think, as my career progressed. I always was a voracious reader. Um, and I started to think, you know what? I I want to write something. I want to use that talent that I've mastered that made me successful in business. And I want to use it to start creating some fun, fictional, but very relatable stories. Um, and I also wanted to use the experiences that I had meeting all of these thousands of people over my career and hearing their stories. I mean, I hate to say that they were fodder for my imagination, but they were. I mean, some of the stories I heard were incredible. Um, I mean, and they're all in there, they're all stored in there, waiting to be twisted and told. And I just feel like I had so much material that I sat down one day and just started writing this one story, the reflex series. Um, and it just poured out of me. It poured out of me. And when I was done, I realized I had five books before the series had ended. Um, and I did nothing with it for a little while, but then I did eventually decide that I would try to self-publish it and see if I could uh, you know, get people to read it and enjoy it as much as I enjoyed writing it.

SPEAKER_00 5:18

Well, you didn't set out to write a typical mystery. So talk about what was missing in the books that you love that made you decide, hey, I'm not gonna write a typical mystery. I'm gonna write the uh, I'm gonna write what I want to write and what I want to see in a mystery.

SPEAKER_01 5:35

I think that the two biggest things that I noticed reading um was there was a lack of mature protagonists. Um there were, you know, there are more and more female protagonists uh over the last couple of decades. And I I love that. I think it's great. But they weren't mature. I mean, we were talking about, you know, 18 to 21-year-old anjoys and naive um girls who, you know, find their strength and and save the world. And that's all lovely, it really is. It's just not entirely relatable for the rest of us. It's not relatable once you've been married for 15 years or 30 years, once you've had children and you've had to parent and you've had to watch these kids grow. Like suddenly, a lot of those stories and the emotions that those protagonists feel just become unrelatable. Um, and I wanted a story that was just as exciting, but also incredibly um relatable. I wanted people to be able to connect with these characters, despite their um extreme circumstances, besides their extreme secrets and their backgrounds. In the end, they're still just regular people with regular problems, um, trying to sort through everything. So for me, the emotional and psychological part of these books was very important. I I needed to feel like I was writing something that people could connect personally to. Um, and so I broke some rules. I mean, I broke publishing rules. I didn't stay in a particular lane. Um, I didn't write a book that could be sold mass market. Um I again, I I thought outside of the box, I I got out of the lane and I ran in the median. So yeah, I mean, that I was trying to do that. I mean, it wasn't by accident. I just really wrote something I would want to read.

SPEAKER_00 7:40

Well, speaking of running in the median, you talk about leaving cares throughout the story instead of cheap surprises. So talk about the difference between a uh a cheap twist uh or or a twist that's earned versus uh when the author cheats.

SPEAKER_01 8:00

I think see for me, I like a complete plot twist. Um I think from from most books, and again, I'm not degrading anybody else's plots, but I think you see the plot twist coming, you sort of know something is about to happen in mysteries. You I'm one of those people who's kind of figured it out already. Um and I wanted this book to be really what happens when secrets have to come to the forefront. And again, here's the relatable part. We all walk into relationships with secrets, we all walk in with things we don't want to discuss or things that we places we don't want to go. Um, and that's what creates vulnerability in people. And so these characters to me needed to be vulnerable. Um, but yes, they hide a lot of secrets. And this first book is really about those secrets coming out, except I really wanted these secrets to be a bit stunning, um, kind of like blow you away. I didn't see that coming. There might have been a few carrots if you read it very, very closely. But um, yeah, I really wanted the twists to be left turns. Um, and and not all of them. Some of them are are, you know, again, there's enough carrots where Elbrider would see it coming, but definitely a couple of big left turns. And I continue that style of writing through all five books. Um I really I like using banter um that seems innocuous, that seems unnecessary, but hidden in that banter are clues. Um, I think it's fun to read banter more than it is to read, for me, imagery or lyrical prose. So again, it's more my writing style. Um, it would be like if you and I were having a conversation, and within this conversation, I'm giving you clues. Um, you know, you pay attention to the banter here, but it also the banter gives me an opportunity for some humor. Um, I call it the comic relief of these books. Uh, I think personally humor is and comedy is very important. I I know people argue it's a coping mechanism, but I think, you know, to me, humor is a bomb to life. I think we should be able to laugh at some point about anything, you know, and just be able to get a good hearty chuckle from something. Does that answer the question?

SPEAKER_00 10:38

Absolutely. Well, you describe your books as preter natural rather than paranormal. So talk about uh what that distinction means to you and why it's so important.

SPEAKER_01 10:49

When I think paranormal, I think a lot of people do this. We think uh shapeshifters, vampires, uh, the fee, um, shadow daddies, uh, you know, all kinds of um fairy tale, gothic sort of things. Um, this this book isn't about that. This book I call it preternatural or touch of supernatural, because what I'd like to do in this book is take what is real science and take it a step further. Um, as if to say, you know, magic exists in this world, but there is a science behind it. So instead of just creating a magic system or world building towards that, or world building in more of a science fiction type environment, I just wanted this to be reality plus one. Um, so the idea that suddenly you may discover you have a gift, um, and that there is some science behind that gift. So preternatural is is pretty much the accurate description of it um versus paranormal, um, because it really isn't that standard paranormal fare.

SPEAKER_00 12:05

Well, you talk about how you don't have a a lot of literary accolades on the shelf, but but you do have a lifetime of world experience. So talk about how traveling to 40 countries has made you a better storyteller.

SPEAKER_01 13:41

When I travel, I have always, excuse me, I've always told people that I like to immerse myself. Like for me, it's less about hitting every site, every tourist destination, every church in Europe, every museum in Europe. Not that I haven't been to many of them, I have, but it's also about just sitting down in a piazza in Italy and just observing, you know, just noting how people go on about their lives very differently in different countries than we do here, even within this country, um, depending on the region or the state or the city, everyone has a different way that they approach their life, a different routine. I like to notice those routines. I like to pay attention to them. Um I don't know, maybe because most of the time when I was traveling, I was doing it by myself. And when you have some alone time, you know, it's always sort of fun to do that. Like I'm that person at the airport who makes up stories about every traveler. You know, I'll see somebody and say, okay, this is what's happening to him. I think it's fun and it keeps me busy when I'm otherwise unoccupied, waiting for the flight. Um, but I but I do that in every city I'm in and I do that a lot in every country I'm in, where I just immerse, you know, if I'm if I'm in Prague, I want to be a Czech for that for those five days. You know, I want to know what it's like. Um, so I think that helps me a lot. Um, I always tell people, I don't write about anywhere that I haven't been. Um if a city or country shows up in one of my books, you could be guaranteed that I have walked the path of the character in the book. Um, and I am describing it exactly the way I see it. Um I'm giving it the feelings that I felt when I did it. Um, so to me, that's very important. I've again, I you know, a history of reading books. And um I use Las Vegas as always my example because I um I live in the area now, but I've always been somebody who spends a lot of time um in the Vegas area for either work or something else. And um, you know, when people set a story in Las Vegas, it's like they never get it right. They never get it where you really have to come here and understand you don't go from one casino to another in less than five minutes. It just doesn't happen. I mean, the floor print of the casinos on the strip are are, you know, sometimes two miles wide. So, I mean, little things like that will bother me in a story. It's like obviously you didn't research that to know that the character couldn't get from destination A to destination B that quickly. Um, so those kind of things, like I said, as a reader, they always sort of bug me because they're not the continuity and the accuracy isn't there. So again, when I'm writing, I try to stick to what I know or research what I know um and go there. Before I released the um the reflex, I'd spent a lot of time in Washington, D.C. But I talk about one of the suburbs of DC that I hadn't been to. Um I had driven by it, but I had never been to it. So I made sure to go back to DC and just drive around the suburb. Um, you know, we talk about the CIA and Langley, and of course I can't go to Langley, but I can drive around the property of Langley and get a real visual for the buildings. So, and that I did. I mean, um, I'm sure people were watching me, but yes, I try to get, like I said, as accurate as possible. I'm sure that I get things wrong, but at least I'm attempting to do it correctly.

SPEAKER_00 17:25

Well, comment from project management, do you outline every every detail of a five-book series, or do your characters ever force you to abandon plans?

SPEAKER_01 17:36

Ugh, that's a good question because a little side story. Um, I think I'm an amazing, excellent project manager. Um I really have had some great, great success, but it does not come naturally. I am an intuitive. So if you have any understanding of like intuitive versus sensing, I am not naturally observant. So I have to force myself to look at things like in project management, you need to know and remember everything that you saw or experienced. So I had to learn to document things. Like I could go to an office, let's say, leave, call the client, and the client would say, Well, what did you think of the lighting? And I would draw a blank because I'm like, did I even look up? Did I look up? And then all I could think of was, well, I could see when I was in there, I could, you know, I didn't think the lighting was bad, but I never actually looked up to say, hey, what kind of lights do they have in here? So the first time that happened, I realized you go on site, you take pictures of everything, everything, uh, as inconsequential as it seems. Because again, that kind of sensing observation, it does not come naturally to me. Because of that, when I write, I let the intuitive part of me, which is natural, take over. So I plot, I plot points. I say, you know, I need to get from A to B to C to D. And that's it. Everything in between, I let the story take over. Um, one of the things with the reflex is uh one of the side characters. Well, one of, I'm sorry about that. Um, one of the side characters was um not going to be a main character, but as I wrote the book, he just said in my head, I I need to be more. I need to be more, I need to be big. And uh, and I sort of went with it. So I I do let them live in my head, I do let them evolve uh all by themselves. And and with that, of course, the plot may change, not so much the big plot, but the subplots. So, yes, I mean the books evolved all by themselves. And no, I am not a planner, I am completely disorganized.

SPEAKER_00 20:11

Well, I know that your stories rely on suspense just as much as psychology. So, when creating a character, what matters more? The backstory or the decisions that they make under pressure?

SPEAKER_01 20:23

I think a little bit of both. I mean, I think a backstory defines them. I mean, we are all defined, you know, by our childhood trauma or by our experiences, you know, the nurture that we've had. So I think a little bit of the backstory definitely again makes or sets that character up for their vulnerabilities going into the story. So that trauma is sort of the setting stage to create the suspense. I think you do have them start, you know, interacting with that trauma and having them feed from their insecurities. Um, and and that for me is what, and I think that's also why for me, they're all very emotional psychological emotions, because as the suspense goes, I think you're seeing everyone, every character's individual vulnerability, and and it sort of pushes the story forward. And I think it creates the suspense. I don't believe in the plot device of you know, every chapter having characters almost die. Um, to me, that gets old. It's like obviously you didn't learn anything. Where's the growth here? Where is the you know, the Gantt chart that shows that with every page you are growing and learning? And and that that does get a bit tiresome when I read. So again, I didn't want that for these books. I want these characters to learn, learn from their mistakes, learn from their their vulnerabilities, and to grow. So with each book, these characters gain more and more insight into who they are, into each other, into their relationships. And it doesn't come at the expense of near-death. Um, it sometimes just comes from personal growth and more subtle means. Um, and those for me are more plot-driven devices than the actual action.

SPEAKER_00 22:32

Well, I know that uh the five-book series is already complete and that takes a lot of discipline. So talk about what advantage that gives you. Um the fact that you created the the series before publication.

SPEAKER_01 22:47

I think there's no pressure. Um, you know, I know from interviews with Trav publishers and other indie publishers, there's if their first book is a success, they now have to try to make the second book better or the third bird, you know, book even better. Like I feel like I got to write all of these with no pressure. Um, and I'm really not changing them based on the success of the first book or the the unsuccess of the first book. Um, to me. The story stands. I make subtle, obviously edit changes, but but but I haven't made any big plot changes. Successful or not, it's the story I want to tell. But I do think having had the opportunity to get it all out, there's good and bad to that. I mean, the good thing is I won't change it. The bad thing is I won't change it. So that may discount me to uh literary agents and things like that who have you know approached me and said, well, we you know, we could do this or we could do that. You know what? I don't want to do that. I like the story as it stands. I I don't want to make it more marketable and more um generic. So that's one of the biggest advantages of it, I think, of having written it. But like I said, it could also be construed as a disadvantage. I mean, it depends how you look at it.

SPEAKER_00 24:21

Where your books blend mystery, realism, and and the supernatural. So have publishers or readers ever tried to put your books in a single box? And if and if so, how did you respond?

SPEAKER_01 24:38

That's part of the problem when you genre braid is that you're not in a box. Um, you know, even I have trouble with search engine optimization. I mean, what do I call these books? Um, suspense thrillers, suspense mysteries, psychological mystery, psychological suspense. Um it's that's been my biggest problem. And and this is what happens when you, you know, write outside of the box is that there are no categories for your book. There are just multiple categories for your book. Um and again, I would say if I knew this before I started to write, would that have changed the book? It may have. It may have. Instead of writing from the heart, I may have tried to follow some more genre guidelines and introduced a trope, but maybe not. It's hard to say. I mean, it's hard to say, but it does make marketing the books difficult. Um, this really does braid a lot of different things. Um, and to be able to pick out one thing is is difficult. Um, sometimes I call it an urban fantasy because it probably falls a little bit in that category. Um I have had people say it's an espionage book. I don't really think that that's an accurate category. Yes, there's an espionage background to these characters, but it by no means is an espionage book. Um, it's it's a plot tool, but it's it's not the plot. Um so I I I do want people to to kind of see it for what it is. It's it's really kind of a found family, um relatable, psychological, emotionally deep um book that you know, you kind of have to look beyond the words and get the vibe of when you read it. Um, don't look at it as what it is in the surface. See, see beyond. It's like those emails I was describing. Um, you know, take take note of the vibe that you get when you read it is what I like to tell people. And of the people who have read it, I have gotten very, very good reviews. Um, so that does make me very happy. I just need more people to read it.

SPEAKER_00 27:01

Speaking of that, I I know you say that readers won't see the ending coming unless they play pay close attention. So what kind of reader do you hope pick up the Reflex series and read it?

SPEAKER_01 27:13

You know, I think anyone could read this book. When I originally wrote it, I thought it would be mostly women. Um, and I learned quickly um with some beta reads that there were men who loved this book. So it's it's a very um non-binary book. I don't think you have to be one thing or another. I think you just have to be able to, like I said, get the vibe for the book. Um there are, you know, the the protagonist is female, but there are some very, very, very strong male protagonists in this book. It's it's really a collection of characters. Um, I like to call them my my band of misfits, um, who are incredibly smart, incredibly skilled, but incredibly um emotionally uh inept. So to watch them deal with things and to watch them grow with with the plot um was very fun for me. But they are in the end just a band of misfits. Um so I mean, I think anyone can read this book. I really think if you if you don't mind a little spice, because there's definitely a little spice, um if you have few triggers, um, there really aren't any major triggers in the book. There are some some small ones, but if you're used to you know books that have some major trick triggers, this is going to be an easy read. Um so I mean I think like I said, anybody who enjoys a good piece of suspense, mystery, and and some characters that I think um people can fall in love with. Not all of them, but I do find from readers that they definitely fall in love with one or two of the characters. They always seem to have a favorite, which I love. Um, you know, they'll tell me their team so and so, um, which I think is great because they're definitely seeing or relating to at least one of the characters.

SPEAKER_00 29:13

Well, tell us about any upcoming projects that you're working on that listeners need to know about. I know that uh you're gonna be doing a standing romance. So what's the exciting excitement about you know, telling a totally different story?

SPEAKER_01 29:27

Well, and it's just for me to try something different and and to stay in the box. So I'm gonna take my writing style, but I'm gonna I'm gonna try doing something inside the box with my style. So I'm going to do a first person, these books, the the reflex series is third third person limited. So you're kind of in the third person and different characters' minds at um any given point in the books. For the next book, we're gonna be first person and again, not a series, a standalone uh romance with tropes, um, but again, with some some of my style, making the characters more relatable, making the characters vulnerable, um, having their backstories be, you know, again, something that I can draw from. And again, they're not particularly young. Um, the standalone romance, uh, one of the characters, the female character is in her early 30s, the male character is is is about 40. So again, giving these people some experience in life, giving them something to draw from, um, giving them death, I guess is is probably the best word to use. Um, but I think it's gonna be fun. Um, it's definitely a a sort of work romance um trope. Um, and I've I've probably about a third of the way through with it. I'm I'm finishing the editing on my third book in the reflex series, trying to get that out by October 1st. And then I'm hoping before Christmas, the standalone will be out as well.

SPEAKER_00 31:07

All right. Well, so people can keep up with everything that you're up to, they'll add your contact info.

SPEAKER_01 31:12

Uh go to my website, maria denison.com. Just the way it's spelled, M-A-R-I-A-D-E-N-I-S-O-N.com. Um, you'll see interviews, blurbs, blogs, um, places to buy the book. Um, there's even some um discount connections to Ingram Spark if you want to buy the book in paperback or hardcover. Um, there are discount um links through Ingram Spark, so that it's much cheaper to buy uh than via Amazon or anywhere else or Barnes and Noble. I don't know if I'm I can say that, but I'm saying it. It's also both the the reflex and the reaction are out on Kindle Unlimited um right now. Uh so if you have Kindle, you should be able to download it for free. Um and give them a shot. Give me a chance, try it out. You can always DNF it, but if you have Kindle, just download it and give it a shot and let me know. Leave reviews, good, bad, or ugly. I I don't mind. The truth is is the truth, and I'll take it. Um, but yeah, that just everything should be on my website. I'm also on TikTok and Instagram. I I have a Facebook, but I'm not a fan of Facebook. So most of my updates stay on Instagram and TikTok. And again, it's author Maria Dennison, um, the handle on those.

SPEAKER_00 32:34

We'll close us out with some final thoughts, maybe if that was something I forgot to talk about that you would like to touch on. Any final thoughts you have for the listeners?

SPEAKER_01 32:42

I think one of the things in the reflex that was important to me was the idea of manipulation. I use this word, I use it in in book groups, I do book clubs where I, you know, I'll come into town uh with a group of people, and I always talk about this and I get some cringy um feedback. But the reality is I think there's a certain amount of manipulation that we all perform in life without realizing that we're doing it. I mean, some people like to call them uh polite white lies, but a polite white lie is an act of manipulation. Um, you you don't want to look at it that way, but it is. So one of the things in my life that I started to understand was that those polite white lies were getting more and more complicated because you realize that you do have to approach a situation um psychologically. I mean, you have people who may be very, very upset with you for a decision that you didn't make, but you need to implement. And so, how do you handle those people? Um, do you just walk up to them and say, listen, this is the decision that came down from headquarters and this is what you're going to do? Maybe you could, but you're not gonna get a whole lot of effort on their part if you go that way. So you take a different approach. You go in manipulating. Um, and and and you you you work the psychology to your advantage to get these people on your side. I mean, attorneys do it all the time, lots of people do it in their in their industry, but nobody calls it what it is. It's manipulation. Um, it's taking a situation, looking at it from all angles, and working out your best approach on how to grab these people and bring them into you. So when I realized what I was doing and how well I was doing it, it became a big prop in these books because I mean, really, what all these characters have been doing is sort of manipulating their reality. They're manipulating their relationships, they are living the happily ever after, but they're doing it based on these white lies or these lies of omission. So I guess the whole premise for these books came out with what happens when the manipulation falls apart? What happens when you are not able to do that anymore, when the truth becomes crystal clear? So a lot of that is the theme of these books. And again, like I said, it sounds harsh, but it's sort of what's really happening in real life. I mean, the sooner you realize that to get something done, you have to massage the truth, the quicker it gets done. And like I said, as much as that's a hard truth to swallow, it kind of is the truth, unfortunately. Um and so it, like I said, I get cringy, you know, sometimes I get cringe effects from everyone when I talk about this. But then I hope they go home and they look at their own lives and think, yeah, you know what? I just did a little white lie this morning to my mother. I said I needed to leave to get her off the phone, but I wasn't going anywhere. Or I just, you know, did a little white lie with so-and-so. So I mean, I think we're all doing it on a day-to-day basis. We're just not really looking at it for what it is. Um, like I said, sometimes you cover it up with saying it was just polite to do that. It was polite to tell the host and hostess the dinner was great. The dinner was horrible, but you wouldn't say it. I mean, they've invited you over. So you say, oh my gosh, that was amazing. And you walk away and you just blatantly lied to them. But we call it manners, we call it politeness. But what is it really? It's manipulation. So I think, you know, an imparting thought is, you know, if people are listening to this, think about your life. Think about what you do, what you say, how you act. I mean, how much of it is premeditated white lies and manipulation. And I'm not saying it's a bad thing, I'm saying it's what we do. It's it's life, it's how we save other people's feelings. I mean, it's almost like you have to do it. So, I mean, I like to take these simple things and sort of spin them and make them more extreme in books. Because again, I think that's what makes the books relatable is that we've all done something like this. You, but these books are an extreme version of it. So that would be my parting thoughts for everyone.

SPEAKER_00 37:49

All right, ladies and gentlemen, MariaDennison.com. Check out our website, check her out on TikTok and Instagram, pick up the reflex series and that standalone uh romance when it comes out later in the year. Follow a rate review, share this episode to as many people as possible. Also, to keep up with all things live in the dream, visit www.curveball337.com. Or you can sign up for the newsletter if you haven't already done so. And you can leave reviews and suggestions and feedback, all that good stuff. Thank you for listening and supporting the show. And Maria, thank you for all that you do, and thank you for joining me.

SPEAKER_01 38:32

Thank you for having me. It was a pleasure.

SPEAKER_00 38:35

For more information on the Living the Dream with Curveball Podcast, visit www.curveball337.com. Until next time, keep living the dreams.