When Your Book Features a Misunderstood Career
When Your Book Features a Misunderstood Career
When I first got the idea for my debut novel, ONE TOUGH COOKIE, I knew it would be set at a food manufacturing plant, similar to the one I used to work at. I have a PhD in Food Science and previous work experience as a quality assurance manager, but after relocating to Germany, I’d been unable to find a job, which is what ultimately led me to writing. I thought it would be fun to incorporate my education and experience into a novel, to not let all that knowledge go to waste. But would people find it interesting?
Most foodie fiction is set at bakeries or restaurants, and feature protagonists who love to cook and make food from scratch. This would be a factory, with employees pouring ingredients into mixers and a semi-automated process. Though I was nervous about the novel becoming too technical, I decided to go for it. The unique setting would help my book stand out.
First off, I decided to have the company make cookies, a fun product that ties in well with a women’s fiction/romcom book. Since I’d never worked with cookies, I researched cookie processing at an industrial level, and the food safety and quality regulations for that product. I came up with a secondary plotline in which the company at the center of my book is preparing for a food safety inspection, something I had experience with from my previous job. I finished the first draft and sent it to my critique partner. To my relief, she didn’t find the book boring or confusing. She only recommended I condense a few sections for flow.
Next came countless of revisions and rewrites. I added more conflict to the inspection plotline, making it more personal to the protagonist, tying it more to her character arc. After two and a half years of work, I signed with an agent, and then a year after that, came publisher interest. But they weren’t thrilled with the inspection plotline. They wanted more of a bakery, for the protagonist to be a baker, and the quality assurance manager to be a pastry chef. I was horrified! After everything I’d done to craft this book to be about food science, to be different, they wanted to reduce it to a bakery.
Whenever people ask me what I studied and I say “food science,” I’m either met by looks of confusion or a follow-up question, along the lines of, “You’re a nutritionist?” I always have to elaborate. Few people understand that there are scientists in charge of processing food.
What is food science? According to the Institute of Food Technologists, “food science draws from many disciplines, including biology, chemical engineering, and biochemistry to better understand food processes and improve food products for the general public.” It is not nutrition—it has nothing to do with eating a healthy diet and how the body processes nutrients. It is the study of the processing of food, how to make it last longer, and be more nutritious. While processed foods are generally maligned, most of the food we consume is processed in some way. Some—like bread, pasta, yogurt, milk, and vegan and gluten-free products—are even considered healthy.
So when I was asked if I could turn a cookie manufacturing plant into a bakery, I explained why it couldn’t be possible. For starters, a bakery can function with a small amount of personnel while a company has different departments. It would create a completely different book. No more co-worker friends having lunch together, or gossiping about the new mechanic that joined the company. No more tension when my protagonist wants to avoid said mechanic but can’t because they work together.
I also explained how important it was for me to include my profession in the book, how it would help people finally understand how most of the food we consume is produced, and all of the measures taken to assure these products adhere to the highest levels of safety and quality.
To the publisher’s credit, they were open to suggestions. They asked for an outline of the changes I would be willing to make.
I agreed to delete some of the more technical scenes which dealt with regulations and procedures. I added more of the product development side of things: coming up with recipes and testing them, which I think is what most people can relate to. And most importantly, I added scenes where the characters discuss the differences between a bakery and a manufacturing plant, the misconceptions of what a food scientist does, and the importance of food safety.
I sent the outline and hoped they’d like it. I was afraid that if they didn’t, my book would never be published. Sometimes being different, doesn’t work to your advantage. There was a high probability that other publishers would feel the same about this aspect of the book, and would also reject it.
But to my surprise, they loved it, and made me an offer. I was relieved and ecstatic. I think the changes I made elevate the book, and make it much more approachable and less tedious. I hope readers come out with more of an understanding of what a food scientist does, how food is manufactured at an industrial level, and that the food industry is not as evil as they’d thought.
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Delise Torres grew up in Puerto Rico, watching telenovelas and re-enacting scenes with her Barbies. Once she outgrew her dolls, she turned to daydreaming, and it wasn’t until her late thirties when she finally put her own stories to paper, and her passion for writing was born.
She has a PhD in Food Science and former work experience as a quality assurance manager in the food industry. When not writing, you can find her trying to time-manage her life, singing, reading, and streaming shows and movies. She lives in Germany with her daughter and German husband. One Tough Cookie is her first novel.
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/torresdelise
Twitter: https://twitter.com/torresdelise
ONE TOUGH COOKIE
A Latina Fleabag committed to her carefree single life meets a sexy new mechanic determined to break through her defenses, in this humorous and heartfelt foodie women’s fiction set at a cookie company.
All cookies are made with love—even if twenty-seven-year-old Karina Cortés doesn’t believe in the concept. For her, a simple life with no attachments is a good life. And her life is indeed good—even with her biggest accomplishment being passing the GED exam. Karina is able to secure an incredible and well-paying job at Singular Cookies, Inc., a small family-owned cookie manufacturing plant in Fort Pierce, Florida. And although the founders of the company treat her like family, Karina insists she doesn’t need or want one. Not after her mother chose a man over her own daughter, pushing the young Karina to move out and make it on her own.
And she couldn’t be happier with her single life, unlike her friends, whose lives revolve around men.
Work and play collide when she meets the company’s hot new mechanic, Ian Feliciano, who stirs up feelings she tends to avoid. Karina knows she shouldn’t date him, but she’s strong; she’ll never turn pathetic like her friends or, especially, her mom. And with a looming plant inspection and trying to break up the CEO’s new romance, Karina has enough to distract herself.
As the inspection draws near and Karina battles her heart, she’ll have to decide whether to continue holding on to deeply ingrained beliefs that keep everyone at bay, or learn that love is not as dangerous as she fears and in the end, it is our history—our singular recipe—that shapes how we live.
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Category: On Writing
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