Writing the Novel Based on Real Characters
Women who have unusual occupations or do out-of-the-ordinary things have always been a source of fascination to me. Maybe it’s because I was raised as an independent, self-reliant girl on an isolated eastern Montana ranch. Or maybe because I had a grandmother who rode steers in rodeos during the 1920s.
For many years, I believed her story should be told. But she wasn’t a famous personality like Annie Oakley or Dale Evans, so who would be interested in publishing a biography about a little-known Montana cowgirl from the 1920s?
Still, because I was a journalist, at first I attempted to write non-fiction stories based on anecdotes my dad told me or newspaper clippings I found in a scrapbook my grandmother put together.
The stories were stilted, the characters wooden. I was frustrated. I knew these people. Why couldn’t I make them come alive on the page?
http://prgoodfellow.blogspot.com/2010/04/writing-novel-based-on-real-characters.html
- Category: Books, Family, Genealogy, Writing & Publishing
- Planted: 16th Apr
- Buzzed: 1 time in 2 years 5 weeks
Fiction or Non-Fiction: Writing a Novel based on Real People
I read a blog post recently written by Pamela Goodfellow (don’t you just love her last name?) where she discusses her struggle with bringing a real person/true story to life, considering she was a journalist and not a fiction writer. With every word and every sentence that I read, I kept saying to myself, “Yup, I know what she means”, “Yup, that’s so true”, and “Yup, PREACH!”.
My first novel is the prime example of her written struggle. It, too, was the product of real people turned fiction, and I initially had a difficult time putting a little “umph” to the story b/c I wanted to stick with “the truth” or with what really happened. Like Pamela, had I stuck to simply “the truth”, then my characters and storyline would have been cold, boring, and shallow. I have always written fiction; it’s what I know best.
http://angeliquethenovelist.wordpress.com/2010/04/22/fiction-or-non-fiction-writing-a-novel-based-on-real-people/
