When Research Becomes a Novel: Under the Tulip Tree –Part 1

Michelle Shocklee

As an author of historical fiction, I know that solid research breathes life into my books. What I didn’t know was how it could change the trajectory of my life. In May 2013, I purchased a research book on slavery that would do just that. I Was Born in Slavery: Personal Accounts of Slavery in Texas is a small, unremarkable-looking book, with a black-and-white photograph of a smiling, older black gentleman gracing the cover. Yet the pages of this little, unassuming book are filled with the captivating, often heart-wrenching word-for-word narratives of life in bondage, told by twenty-nine brave individuals to interviewers employed by the government.

The Edge of Belonging

Amanda Cox

I’m the type of person who craves quiet—stretches of time where my thoughts have room to roam, whether in creative ventures or just to process the events and emotions of the day. Being a homeschool mom of three elementary-aged kids, finding time where I can follow a stream of thought wherever it leads are…umm… in short supply.

When it came to the idea for my debut novel, The Edge of Belonging I had recently finished writing my first novel. I didn’t have any exciting new ideas begging to be written, so I wondered if I’d reached the end of my “Can I Write A Book” adventure— one little story for my eyes only. I hoped this wasn’t the case. I’d fallen head over heels in love with writing.

Ellen Butler's Story Behind Pharaoh's Forgery

Ellen Butler                                          @EButlerBooks

Serves Up Romance & Suspense
With Style

I would say I come by my fascination with art and artifacts quite naturally. Growing up in the Washington, D.C. metro area means I am very lucky to have easy access to one of the largest museum complexes in the nation, the Smithsonian. One of the greatest pleasures I afford myself is the time to visit these magnificent buildings that are filled with irreplaceable pieces of artwork and artifacts. Surprisingly, what led me down the road to writing Pharaoh’s Forgery, was only a short fifteen second segment on the evening news. What would have been hours of news coverage in South America, received only a small acknowledgement outside the museum circles here in North America.

On September 2, 2018, around seven-thirty in the evening, fire broke out at the Brazilian National Museum, in Rio de Janeiro. The museum, which opened in 1818, housed over two hundred million artifacts. The beautiful neoclassical São Cristóvão Palace, which sits upon a vast parkland in the northern part of the city, was built in 1803 for the Portuguese royal family. The building held as much important cultural significance to the city as the artifacts lost in the fire. It was a treasure-trove of human history.

Author Answers Questions

 David Ssembajjo

    The reasons I chose the theme I wanted to highlight and expose the discrepancy in the lives and occupation of slaves. It was to give voice to all people concerned about the well being of slaves. I knew that it was vital to bring understanding and opinion over those who are captive beyond comprehension and purpose. The theme was to give a slave his destiny without being in bondage. I chose the theme to give a slave freedom to work with all their ability and power. A master who frees his slaves will be honoured and the slave would not be a liability but an asset to a master. I wanted to show that a slave has a future and life which can be productive and fulfilling. A slave can be industrious and a freed slave has a destiny in his life. 

The theme of book was to find out the struggle; of the slave, to work and to find out how he can endure. A slave can contribute towards society and he may have strength and give back to society. A slave can learn from his master and adapt the skills of his master. A slave is not a scrounger, weak or lazy. A slave can be innovative and he is willing to help all those who are weak. He invests in his freedom and helps those who are in need. It is important that a slave becomes free and offers his knowledge and wisdom to the world. The slave can become a master of his destiny. He leads and chooses his destiny without brutality and violence. He never fights for his resources but the master frees him because of his hard work. There are other slaves who are weak compared to him. He invests in his interests.

I chose the characters who I think are true to life. I wanted stronger characters familiar to life. I wanted to give the characters challenge and hope. I wanted to give them tasks to follow and whether they would endure the life of being a slave. I wanted to empower them and provide them with the tools to work. I never wanted them to be lazy but to have the right to secure justice. The characters exhibit love and are compassionate. The main character Mr Batwala is merciful and kind, he offers his love to all mankind and he is a humanitarian activist. He offers his wealth to the world and loves to help the disadvantaged. He offers his help to the dispossessed. However Nalukuli his wife has other ideas as far as the extravagance exposed by Mr Batwala. I wanted to show how strong she was in looking after his interests. She is a pillar and strength to him. She gives and provides him with solace and peace. She is his confidant and great parent that has responsibilities looking after their children. She rescues him from turbulent waters. She is progressive and offers him a helping hand. She offers him moral support and guides or teaches him virtues of living in this world. She is protective and when he is brought to trial she offers him a helping hand. She is pragmatic never fails in her quest to save their marriage. She gives every ounce of her life to love her man. She doesn’t abandon her lover but offers her love in the best way she can. Her love is dedicated to loving him. The characters assist one another and help one another despite the many challenges they face. The characters have a purpose and they exist to give a rough idea what it is to be a slave.

The plot was not difficult to work out once I had a story in mind. The plot follows time and pace. The physical location of the novel has different time zones and there are different characters in those zones. The plot begins in Africa and takes place out of Africa at a mysterious location. There are workers on the farm in the beginning and the farm forms a central part to the setting and has a fundamental impact on the story. The story moves from the village to a city setting. There is music as a dramatic theme to the story. The village is different from the city which means there are strange activities taking place. The main character develops and changes mood and pace as the story unfolds and it is a gateway of life. The story begins on the coffee farm and ends on the coffee farm. The coffee farm is part of the story and offers oil to a fire. The plot fires up with people having different problems and concerns. Mr Batwala is central to the plot and it was easy to workout life in the village and in the city. The coffee farm has workers and have different interests and the slaves departing on the sea is too a central part to the plot. The sea has its toil and sweat. The sea never resists its cargo sailing through coast to coasts. The sea plays a crucial part in the weaving of the story and plot. The sea ruins lives and leaves a lot to be desired. The sea becomes an enemy of the slaves and it is man rather than the sea to be blamed for the fate of the slaves. The plot was easy to workout.

The reader would take away the message that a freed slave is capable of mastering his life. The reader would find out that being freed as a slave doesn’t mean the slave has come out of the wood. There are many challenges he has to face and endure. He has a life to lead and he has to overcome all the problems in his life. Coffee farming too is still controlled by the master and there is no way he can determine coffee prices. The message in the novel is to try and help workers to determine their lives and the coffee prices. Coffee is dear to all our lives and nations rely on its impact in the world. Coffee offers us work and there should be a fair trade in producing coffee. A nation cannot rely on one single crop for its resources and exchequer. There needs to be a diversification in the economy and to have a great integrated source of revenue. The reader would be aware that coffee is crucial in the lives of all farmers in the world. Farmers need to be rewarded handsomely without bias or favouritism. Readers would understand the need to transform the world and customers have great power to change the world and can vote with their feet. Readers would be aware how coffee is produced and the toil it takes. Coffee is a product of a colonial crop that was there to serve the colonialists and it still serves the master as was intended. There is a need to end the tradition of depending on one single crop. There needs to end the reliance of one crop. The readers may advocate for change in the economic order and world system. The readers would understand the need to bring about empowerment by offering workers a chance to determine the coffee prices. The message in the book is to free workers and to get rid the colonial legacy and there to be a new chapter in the lives of the workers. The readers would be concerned that there is covert slavery still taking place even though it is not on the surface on the earth and it is subtle slavery that exists to this present day. The novel has a message of hope that a slave can have peace and can choose to live without interrupting anyone. A freed slave is a blessed slave. 

David Ssembajjo is a self-Published writer and has written five books. He came to Britain in 1991 and was a student and began writing the following year. He tried soliciting traditional publishers by submitting his work but received several rejection slips. He was introduced to publishers and wrote his first book The Stolen Gift, which was a political book, and he authored secondly a Journey to Maleba which was about a man trying to find paradise, then he authored Chronicles of a Soldier, a love story with a war element, then Servants of the Underground, about a dictatorship rule and lastly Mr Batwala’s Farm.

Ssembajjo as a self-published writer self-promotes his books by liaising with publishers and he contacts reviewers, librarians, and bookshops. He has appeared in classified journals and has appeared on BBC Radio Birmingham where he discussed his books. He was a former member of reading and writing groups and he was part of a team that published an anthology of poems and short stories.  In the groups they discussed diverse works and were assigned to write poems. He was a former member of Society of Authors, a former member of Player/Playwrights and a former member of English PEN.

He is a member of Author Licensing and Collecting Society and a member of Public Lending Right. He was long listed for Papatango New Writing Prize and his book Servants of the Underground was selected among the 60 best books submitted for the North Street Book Prize. He has submitted his poems and story stories to various magazines but has received no commissioning. He has posted his poems to various poetic websites which include My Poetic Side and Poetry Free For All. For more information https://www.austinmacauley.com/author/ssembajjo-david

A Good Few: Those Who Resisted Slavery Well Before the Civil War

Lori Benton

While writing my latest novel, Mountain Laurel, I had cause to research the grassroots beginnings of what would become the Underground Railroad, a secret network of routes established during the early 19^th century, used by slaves in the southern United States to escape into free states, or Canada. Because Mountain Laurel, set in the 1790s, has much to do with slavery and freedom, I wanted to look farther back, to discover—if I could—the earliest documented account of someone helping a slave to freedom. Most readers with an interest in Civil War history and the decades leading up to the 1860s have likely heard of Harriet Tubman and Frederick Douglas, two of the most famous participants in the Underground Railroad. But who was the first? We will likely never know, secrecy being a key component to the success of such actions, but I can imagine how it might have transpired.

Once upon a time, somewhere in a southern state or colony, a man or woman whose name is lost to history found the courage and humanity to aid an escaped slave along his desperate road to freedom. Perhaps he hid the fugitive in his hay loft. She might have offered food, or told of a friend, miles to the north, willing to shelter the runaway for the night. Perhaps he simply turned a blind eye to the fugitive when the laws of his day dictated otherwise.  

Whoever was the first to aid a runaway slave, by the mid-1800s an organized network of such people extended from the central United States into Canada. Those who guided the fugitives were called conductors. Places where slaves sheltered were dubbed stations. Those who sheltered them were stationmasters. For the most part they were farmers, business owners, ministers. Ordinary folk.

Levi and Vestal Coffin, North Carolina Quakers, established the earliest known system for conveying fugitives north to the free states, beginning around 1813. Josiah Henson, once a slave in Maryland, became a conductor for other fleeing slaves. Giles Pettibone, justice of the peace and state assemblyman, helped hide a family of slaves for weeks. Isaac Hopper, a tailor’s apprentice in Philadelphia, assisted fugitives to freedom with letters of introduction and directions to a sympathetic Quaker’s house. Whether or not these individuals—and hundreds like them—imagined themselves part of a national movement, they acted out of uncompromising conviction, courage, or compassion, recognizing in the face of a fugitive their shared humanity.

If this brief mention of some of those who put action to their convictions has you curious to know more, I highly recommend beginning with Fergus M. Bordewich’s Bound for Canaan, The Underground Railroad and the War for the Soul of America.

Lori Benton was raised in Maryland, with southern Virginia and Appalachian frontier roots generations deep. Her historical novels transport readers to the eighteenth century, where she brings to life the colonial and early federal periods of American history. Her books have received the Christy Award, the Inspy Award, and have been honored as finalists for the ECPA Book of the Year. Lori is most at home surrounded by mountains, currently those of the Pacific Northwest where, when she isn’t writing, she’s likely to be found in wild places behind a camera.

Visit https://loribenton.com/about

THE CHRISTMAS SWAP

Melody Carlson

For years I’ve dreamed of doing a house swap. You know—where you trade houses for an inexpensive vacation in a different locale. Since we live in the mountains with snow, winter sports and pine trees, I’ve imagined swapping for a warm sunbelt home with palm trees and a pool. But we’ve never actually done it. So . . . I thought . . . why not write a story about it? Especially since I’ve discovered that writing about things sometimes makes them happen.

So, when I sat down to write The Christmas Swap, I created two very different families who wanted to trade two very different spaces for the holidays. One house is in the Colorado Rockies and the other in Arizona. But the successful songwriter who owns the beautiful lodge-style Breckenridge house isn’t all that eager to trade it for Arizona sunshine. And when he meets one of the girls about to occupy his gorgeous home, he gets serious second thoughts. Something about this girl speaks to his heart. He wants to get to know her.

So, he decides, why not stick around, hole up in his studio/guest house and see what happens? Hopefully his family, already down in Arizona, will understand. But the misunderstandings break loose when he’s mistaken as the caretaker for the main house. To avoid the awkward situation and continue making the acquaintance of the young schoolteacher, he doesn’t straighten them out. Until things get messy. And they do! But isn’t that what makes story?

I’ve been writing Christmas novellas for about twenty years now so I’m familiar with the pacing and recognize the need to create an uplifting story in a limited amount of words. But I still want to make room for conflict and some surprises along the way. I realize the reader expects an encouraging tale and happy ending—and deserves as much in a Christmas novella—but I refuse to sugar-coat my story. To me, the best tales always include characters with some realistic problems. In fact, that is my definition of plot. Character plus challenge equals plot—and that makes a story.

Some writers might enjoy a more complicated process. And I completely respect that every author works differently. Even a bestselling author’s “secrets to success” won’t necessarily help everyone. Believe me, I’ve heard all kinds of theories and formulas and teachings on the art of writing in the past thirty years. I’ve even tried a few of these methods, only to discover that my ways are best for me. And my way is this—I prefer to keep it simple.

Whether you’re a beginner writer or have lots books under your belt, I believe the ‘rules’ remain fairly consistent. Create interesting relatable characters with tough conflicts, throw in an interesting setting, and your story is ready to roll. Let the fun begin! And even though I still hope to do a real house swap someday—I’m not going to swap writing styles anytime soon.

Melody Carlson is the award-winning author of over two hundred books with sales of more than seven million, including many bestselling Christmas novellas, young adult titles, and contemporary romances. She received a Romantic Times Career Achievement Award in the inspirational market for her many books, including Finding Alice. She and her husband live in central Oregon. 

Learn more at www.melodycarlson.com.

The Path of Fiction vs. Non-fiction, a Journey of one Author

Jane Kirpatrick

A funny thing happened on my way to writing my latest novel. I was invited to write a biography about Abigail Scott Duniway, who once lived and loved and wrote and walked in history. I was already contracted to write my novel Something Worth Doing from Revell about the life of this remarkable women. She was a wife and mother of six and a suffragist in the late 1800s. She devoted her life to bettering the lives of women and kept alive the move for women to be full citizens and have the right to vote. She persevered on behalf of women’s rights for over 40 years before Oregon women and national women earned the right to vote. She is one of only six women memorialized on the walls of Oregon’s capital building. Her story is compelling, and I wanted to answer the question, where did she draw her strength from?

Imaginary Friends Put Into Books

Kim Vogel Sawyer

When I was a little girl, my parents tell me, I had myriad imaginary friends with whom I carried on conversations and brought along on every excursion. Well, here I am, well past my “little girl” age, and I still have imaginary friends. I just put them into my stories.

A lot of writers are plot-driven. They come up with a scenario and then place characters into the situation. I’m character-driven. I see a vintage photograph in an antique store or a picture in a magazine, and something in the person’s expression captures my attention. Then curiosity compels me to learn that person’s backstory. As imagination takes a flight of fancy, the character develops in my mind and begins to reveal his or her situation, as odd as that might sound to people who are normal (you know, people who don’t write fiction for a living). And that is how Addie Cowherd, Bettina Webber, Nanny Fay Tuckett, and Emmett Tharp came to life in my head and subsequently on the page.

A couple years ago, I saw a photograph of a young woman on horseback handing a book over a cabin’s railing to another woman. The caption indicated it was a Pack Horse Library delivery. With my curiosity stirred, I did a little research about the program; and before long the woman on horseback in the photograph introduced herself as Bettina Webber, a life-long resident of Boone’s Hollow, Kentucky. Bettina harbored two secrets, and the money she earned as a pack horse librarian was going to take her out of the hills and to a big city before anyone in Boone’s Hollow could uncover those secrets.

As I usually do when the elements of story are cooking in the back of my mind, I did an online search for photographs of the Depression Era. I found a winsome-faced young woman who raised her hand and timidly requested to be included in the story. So city-dweller Addie Cowherd joined the band of horseback librarians…but not by choice. This job was a thorough distraction from her goal of finishing college and becoming a novelist.

A serious-looking young man also caught my eye. He grew up in Boone’s Hollow and—thanks to scholarships—earned a college education, but how was he supposed to make use of it during a time when jobs are scarce? Returning to Boone’s Hollow, where men made their living running illegal moonshine or laboring in the coal mines, was never his intention. But sometimes life takes us in directions we couldn’t foresee.

One last image—a woman with snow white hair and a gentle expression full of smile lines—grabbed hold of my heart. I knew she belonged in the story. Because she didn’t have anywhere else to belong. She’d faced endless rejection during her lifetime, but maybe…just maybe…she would find a friend in this city gal who’s come to help with the book-carryin’. Wouldn’t that be something?

It never ceases to amaze me how people in a one-dimensional image become three-dimensional in my mind. But they do. And somehow in the course of telling their stories, I learn something along the way. One of the themes that grew intrinsically from these characters’ interactions is how each of us possess a deep need for love and acceptance. So often, like Bettina, we try to force someone to love us, and sometimes that “someone” doesn’t have our best interests at heart. Or, if we’re more like Emmett, we try to earn love by turning ourselves into someone we really aren’t, and our heart’s call gets trampled in the process. Love is a wonderful thing, but it fails to satisfy us when we look for it in wrong directions.

Nanny Fay’s life was rife with disappointment, yet despite her many heartaches, she was content. She leaned into the source of love that never fails, never rejects, never demands, and never ends. She taught me that no human relationship, no matter how wonderful, will last forever. Everything of earth is temporal, but the relationship she had with her Source of Love is eternal. Because she had tapped into the true Source of Love, she was able to share His love with those around her. Her tenacity to be kind even the face of unkindness challenged me to follow the biblical instruction of being kind even to one’s enemies. Oh, how I fell in love with this woman who let life’s hardships make her better instead of bitter.

I truly wish Nanny Fay lived next door to me. I’d invite her for coffee every day. Since that isn’t possible, I’ll just visit her on the pages of The Librarian of Boone’s Hollow. I suspect she’ll welcome me as openly as she welcomed Addie. Won’t that be something?

Best-selling, award-winning author Kim Vogel Sawyer is highly acclaimed for her “gentle stories of hope.” Readers and reviewers alike are drawn to her books and the life lessons contained within the pages. Kim dreamed of being a writer from her earliest memories, and her little-girl dream came true in 2006 with the release of Waiting for Summer’s Return. Now with over 1.5 million books in print in six different languages, she praises God for blessing her far beyond her imaginings. When Kim isn’t writing, she enjoys traveling with her retired military hubby, quilting, performing in community theater, and spoiling her quiverful of granddarlings.

https://kimvogelsawyer.com/

How Much Responsibility Can One Man Shoulder?

Audra Jennings

Publicist

In Terry Brennan’s Empires of Armageddon series, three ancient empires  are rushing toward a collision in the volatile Middle East while an official high in the US State Department is conspiring with a foreign power against the US president. A centuries-old prophecy is unveiled that heralds Christ’s imminent return, and malevolent fallen angels are determined to invalidate biblical prophecy so they can manufacture a different ending to the Bible. The story
which began in Ishmael Covenant picks up right where it left off in the second release, Persian
Betrayal published by Kregel Publications.

Brennan explains. “In this series, our protagonist, Brian Mullaney, is drawn into this conflict against desperate evil forces who want to change the end of the Bible with an earthly battle that has eternal consequences. The spiritual warfare in Persian Betrayal is real, personal, dangerous, and frightening to our characters. And its outcome has eternal ramifications. Not so much different than today.”

One of Brennan’s key inspirations for the series came from the writings of the Vilna Gaon, Rabbi Elijah ben Solomon Zalman, who was the most revered Talmudic scholar of the late eighteenth century. In 2014, his great-great-grandson revealed a prophecy the Vilna Gaon wrote two hundred and twenty years before: “When you hear that the Russians have captured the city of Crimea, you should know that the times of the Messiah have started, that his steps are being heard.” Only months before that, Russian troops had invaded Ukraine and swept through the Crimean Peninsula. Brennan took the idea of the rising empires and the premise of an unexpected treaty between Israel and all its Arab neighbors and ran with it


In the story, Mullaney is wounded yet he is supposed to save the Ishmael Covenant, the treaty promising peace in the Middle East. Despite angelic intervention, Mullaney wants nothing to do with his final assignment. But without him, evil will win the ultimate struggle and humankind will have no hope left.

Brennan shows how Mullaney’s faith is evident throughout the story as he prays urgently and fervently, pleading for God’s help and direction. The spiritual warfare Mullaney faces also has deep biblical roots. “In the Bible, the book of Ephesians references ‘heavenly realms’ five times and refers to the battle ‘against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers . . . against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms,’”

The second prophecy, revealed in Persian Betrayal, is a product of Brennan’s imagination, though rooted in history that dates all the way back to the days of Moses and the battle between the Israelites and their ancient enemies, the Amalekites.

Terry Brennan is the award-winning author of The Sacred Cipher, The Brotherhood Conspiracy, and The Aleppo Code, the three books in The Jerusalem Prophecies series. His latest series is Empires ofArmageddon, which includes Ishmael Covenant and Persian Betrayal.

A Pulitzer Prize is one of the many awards Brennan accumulated during his twenty-two-year newspaper career. The Pottstown (PA) Mercurywon the Pulitzer Prize for Editorial Writing for a two-year series published while he led the team as the newspaper’s editor.

Starting out as a sportswriter in Philadelphia, Brennan became an editor and publisher for newspapers in Pennsylvania, Illinois, and New York and later moved to the corporate staff of Ingersoll Publications (four hundred newspapers in the United States, Ireland, and England) as executive editor of all US newspapers.

In 1996, Brennan transitioned into the nonprofit sector, spending twelve years as vice president of operations for The Bowery Mission and six years as chief administrative officer for Care for the Homeless, both in New York City.

Terry and his wife, Andrea, now live in Danbury, Connecticut.

More on Brennan can be found at www.terrybrennanauthor.com. He is also on Facebook (Terry Brennan) and Twitter (@terrbrennan1).

Poetry as a Spiritual Exercise

Sara Robinson   

Southern Writers Poet

We are aware that many poets, as their professional and personal lives expanded, felt that there was more to their writing than expressions on love, death, themselves, and nature. Many poets believed that they were on a quest, not just for truth, but for deeper meanings. For them, nature was a tool, a door, to allow them exploration into a spiritual side of their writing and consciousness.

Two notable poets, H.D. (Hilda Doolittle) and Robert Duncan spent a better part of their lifetimes into research on religion, and even the occult. They maintained that “poetry affects spiritual transactions.” For example, a devastating loss can compel one to seek solace in his/her faith and then write about what this means to him/her. Edward Hirsch, an acclaimed poet, focuses much of his writing on traumatic events in his life. This includes elegies for family members and friends. The elegy can be a meditative reflection on sorrow, remorse, extreme anguish; then how to use this grief to heal. Edward lost his only son, Gabriel, and wrote a masterful 78-page elegy. In this he questions his faith, where God is, and even demanding that God give him back his son.

There were a number of poets of “the greatest age of English verse,” who drew on the Bible as part of their prosody practice. We look to spiritual texts to give us inspiration as well as poetic technical help. For example, the meter, rhyme, and musicality of The Bible influenced many, such as Donne and Whitman. Our challenge today is to bring the antiquity to the present so that phrases continue to be relevant. Look at this line from Walt Whitman (from his poem Memories of President Lincoln): “I cease my song for thee, / From my gaze on thee in the west, fronting the west, communing with thee, / O comrade lustrous with silver face in the night.” A poet incorporating a spirituality in his renderings must find a balance between being pious and poetic.

Robert Alter’s book, “The Hebrew Bible: A Translation with Commentary” looks discretely and intensely at biblical language and how to bring it to modern poetic script, as translation and as poetic thought. Take this example: “The Lord is my shepherd, / I shall not want. / In grass meadows He makes me lie down, / by quiet waters guides me. / My life He brings back. / He leads me on pathways of justice / for His name’s sake. / Though I walk in the vale of death’s shadow, / I fear no harm, / for You are with me.”

When we use monosyllabic words with their modern syntax as we compose spiritual text, we create another kind of beauty. How will you embrace spirituality in your writing?

Author of Sometimes the Little Town (her fifth book and fourth poetry collection), is founder of Lonesome Mountain Pros(e) Writers’ Workshop, former UVA-OLLI instructor on Contemporary Poetry, and poetry columnist for Southern Writers’ Magazine. Published in journals and anthologies, she is a former Virginia Writers’ Club and Blue Ridge Writer’s Chapter officer.  Her most recent book, Needville has now been turned into a play.

Real Towns or Fictional Towns?

Susan Reichert @swmeditor

Many authors choose their hometown for their novel’s setting.

I loved the town I grew up in. Being a small town, in the 1950s it only had about 1500 people, give or take a few.

In the town itself, everyone knew everyone. Families had lived there for generations.

For me to write a novel and use where I grew up as the setting, I would not be able to write a horror, a thriller or anything that would shine a bad light on this town. I cannot imagine anything bad happening in that town nor anyone bad living there. That sounds a little like nirvana I know, but to me that is the town I grew up in.

How wonderful authors can set their novels in their hometowns because they are already knowledgeable of where everything is so it will make it easy for them to add buildings and other settings. Probably helps with creating characters too.

In writing something you know so well, you would think it would be easy, but I dare say for some authors it would not be so easy. I believe you would have to visit and look at the scenery through eyes of a writer, making notes describing places and buildings, even the scenery of nature.

In doing this you would be able to determine where you are going to take liberties to add buildings, such as houses and stores, restaurants, and other items as needed for the story.

In a small town, everyone knows you and your family background. Every time I visit, which is about once a year, I see people I know. The first thing out of their mouth is “You look just like your mother!” They know me, my name and they know my mother. If they are old enough, they will mention my grandparents who have been dead for many years. And you remember them, their children, and their parents.

For me, I would find it hard to create a character based on any of these people or on people I knew from the past in this small town. I know for sure I could not create a fiction person and make them all bad for fear people who knew me would be wondering who I was talking about. Yet authors do create characters based on people they know.

I am sure there are stories in my small town that if I chose to dig them out, I could find interesting things to create a good story. Since I would be writing about the town I know, it would certainly make research easier. I have also heard that when you place your story in a real place it gives it an anchor of sorts. Certainly, using real people, places and happenings would produce ideas for creating a good book.

Yet, writing about your small town and creating characters from people you know could make them wonder if you based that character on them or someone they know. Same things if you used a real store, they would wonder if you were basing it on their store or one, they know. Obviously, you risk offending people and a town you care about.

For me, the simple thing to do, is not use the real small town or its people.

I would have to make up a small town, make up the stores and the people. But nothing says I cannot draw ideas from the small town I grew up in.


Which do you prefer? Setting a story in your hometown or creating a fictional town?

Susan L Reichert is the author of God's Prayer Power and Storms of Life. She is the past Editor-in-Chief of Southern Writers Magazine. She is the Director of Southern Author Services and President of Collierville Christian Writers Group.

She and her husband live in Tennessee and have four daughters and three grandsons.

Sharing Kentucky Stories

Ann H.Gabhart                      @AnnHGabhart

After writing forty books, give or take one or two, I sometimes worry I’ll exhaust my idea bank. Usually the deposits in that bank all come from Kentucky sources. I am a lifelong Kentucky resident and so I’ve used Kentucky settings and/or history in all my books.

Years ago, when I was a young writer and only beginning to wrestle with the task of finding new ideas for stories, I read in a writing advice article that there were only ten basic storylines. Ten. That boggled my mind when I thought about all the books that have been written and that would be written. Some of them by me.

While I never exactly figured out what those ten basic storylines were, since I don’t think that was included in the article, it did take the pressure off about being totally original. It wasn’t going to happen. I was very sure those ten things had shown up in many books. What is it the preacher writes in Ecclesiastes? “And there is nothing new under the sun.” (Ecclesiastes 1:9b NKJ)

People are people and while our culture is much changed, we as people continue to do the same basic things. We’re born and make our way through childhood and school. We fall in love. We struggle and overcome. Or sometimes don’t overcome but have to find new ways to live. We have dreams and desires. We work and we play. Throughout time until our time is done.

Stories are about people and while each basic idea for a story may have been used a zillion times, the characters I choose to bring to life in my stories will be unlike any characters in other stories. They will be unique just as we as individuals are unique even while we share those same basic needs and wants.

So, when I was searching for a new idea for a book, I reviewed my Kentucky history and decided I could find another story in the Appalachian Mountains with Frontier Nursing Service history. I had written about the Frontier Nurse Service midwives in my book, These Healing Hills, but I wasn’t able to work in all the Frontier Nursing Service history I found so interesting. I wanted to tell more of Mary Breckinridge’s story and her vision of helping mothers and children by bringing better healthcare into the poverty-stricken mountains.

Sometimes we hear of needs and think I am only one. How can I make a difference? But Mary Breckinridge was only one. Yet, with determination and perseverance, she convinced others to join in with her vision. She talked midwives into coming from England to work in the mountains since when she started her nurse midwife service, America had no midwifery schools. She later established a midwifery school right in Hyden, Kentucky in order to train midwives for the Frontier Nursing Service since many of the English midwives returned to England to serve their country during World War II.

She also came up with the idea of bringing in volunteers to take care of the nurses’ horses and do various other menial chores in order to free up the nurse midwives to have more time for their patients. These volunteer couriers were generally young women from well to do families who perhaps were more accustomed to being served rather than serving others. They hadn’t experienced rough living without electricity and other conveniences. I decided to bring one of those couriers to life and let her have the summer of a lifetime as she discovered the joy of helping others while also realizing her own strengths and talents.

Piper has a summer never to forget in An Appalachian Summer. But while Piper is a product of my imagination, she is based on the many courier volunteers I read about as I researched the Frontier Nursing Service. These volunteer positions with the midwifery service became so sought after that prospective volunteers had to add their names to a waiting list.

Women who had served as couriers often added their infant daughters’ names to the list so that their daughters would have the same opportunity they had of being part of the Frontier Nursing Service.

So, once again I had walked across the Kentucky map to imagine a new story set in my home state. Even when my books aren’t centered on historical events, I’m still in Kentucky with my setting. The farm where I grew up was near a small Kentucky town that I used as the model for Hollyhill in the Heart of Hollyhill stories and also for my Hidden Spring mysteries. The setting for my Rosey Corner stories came to life from all the stories my mother told me about growing up in a small community during the Great Depression.

I’ve got a few more ideas for stories where I can drop down my characters into a Kentucky setting and see what happens next. I can’t wait to let my imagination introduce me to some new fictional people anxious to share their stories.

ANN H. GABHART has been called a storyteller, She’s lived up to the title with forty books published (give or take a few) and more stories on the way. Ann likes wrapping her stories around interesting historical times and events in her home state of Kentucky. She’s written about the Shakers in The Refuge, The Outsider and more, gone to the Appalachian Mountains for These Healing Hills and An Appalachian Summer, mined her family history for Angel Sister and Scent of Lilacs, found a feel good story during the 1833 cholera epidemic in Springfield, Kentucky, and more. Even her cozy mysteries under the author name A.H. Gabhart take place in the little town of Hidden Springs, Kentucky. Ann keeps her keyboard warm out on her farm where she likes walking with her dogs or discovering the wonders of nature with her nine grandchildren. To find out more about Ann and her books. www.annhgabhart.com.