Real Stories come from the REFLECTIONS of real people
Keeping History Alive
Unique Challenges
Though historic fiction writing presents many unique challenges, the most difficult one is that the writer didn’t live during the time period of the novel. Because my favorite time period to write in is the early to mid twentieth century, my most valuable asset in writing five historical novels has been using real stories coming from those who lived them or those who knew someone else who did.
A case in point is my novel, Blackberry Road — a snapshot from a certain Oklahoma summer in 1934. Biddy, a young teen, narrates a spooky mystery tale beginning when her favorite teacher is murdered. Blackberry Road has won several awards, and the most frequent feedback is that Biddy’s family feels like a real family. Why is that? Because the backdrop of this novel is based on a real family.
Fortunately, their true stories didn’t die.
Our challenge is to make fiction seem like reality and reality seem like fiction
Collecting family stories, recipes, lore, and copying old handwritten Bible notes over the years created the realistic and true backdrop for Blackberry Road. Fictional Biddy has twelve brothers and sisters. The real Biddy had eleven. Both Biddys, the fictional and the real, were born into sharecropping families living in Oklahoma in the 1930s.
I was fortunate to have the opportunity to mingle with a real sharecropping family who were real relatives. You can be sure the stories and tales at our reunions sailed around the room like a drunk June bug on a string, and there I was in the thick of it, laughing and asking questions, my pen flying over the notebook I always kept handy.
This is not me, but it is exactly how I was at the family reunions
Dirt-poor but rock-solid, families in those tough times had to eat, live, and survive everything from snake bites to drought to flood, miserable housing conditions, and, sometimes, crime. When you have no money and lots of little mouths to raise and feed and clothe, how do you do it? With more sweat equity and tenacity than any of us can comprehend.
Most members of the real Blackberry Road family have passed on, of course, but their lives and experiences can live forever because I didn’t let their stories die.
No Family Stories to Collect?
Don’t despair if you don’t have actual family stories to gather. Story opportunities pop up everywhere. All you have to do is be aware and be ready. A chance to record stories “from the horse’s mouth” is as close as that elderly lady you see every day on the bus. Befriend her and see life as it was through her eyes.
Maybe it’s a friend’s uncle who served in the military and lived through stories that seem too crazy to be true but are.
A person volunteering for a church street choir used to be homeless many years ago. What was that like, and how did he or she escape homelessness?
The Vietnamese family down the street who barely made it to the USA in 1971… how did they do it, and what happened when they got here?
Your friend tells you she has a grandfather who was once a “butler” to a rich family in the Deep South. Wow! Can you finagle a face-to-face with him to make sure his stories don’t die? You won’t know until you ask, right?
Living stories are everywhere waiting for you to discover, record, and turn into great novels. Sometimes, those stories will be written; sometimes, they will be from “the horse’s mouth.”
Three old stories that didn’t die
“I remember Mom making my dresses from flour sacks and my bloomers *that’s country lingo for underwear* from flannel undershirts. She used inner tube rubber for the waist and legs. She made me at least three dresses for the year. When I grew out of them and had to wear them anyway, it was sure pitiful.” ~ the real Biddy
“It was my job to lead my blind grandma to the outhouse, and I would read the Sears and Roebuck catalog to her while I waited. That’s how, when I was ten years old, I got the second doll I ever owned. I read about her in the catalog, and she cost nine-five cents. Grandma bought her for me for taking such good care of her. I thought my doll was the most beautiful thing in the whole world. She had a little dress and rubber bloomers, and I kept her hung up on a wall. In those days, we didn’t have screens on most of the windows, and some grasshoppers got hold of those rubber bloomers and ate them up. I had to kill those dadgummed things for doing that.” ~ the real Biddy
One night, a pretty young woman *we’ll call her Doodles* from our family went to a local dance with her older brothers. A catty young woman became jealous of Doodles’ beauty. Throughout the evening, the woman heckled her, making verbal innuendos and snide remarks. Doodles ignored her bully, dancing and promenading around the dance floor.
Later, as Doodles started home under the full moon with her brothers, the woman hid and threw rocks at her as she passed. It was too much. Doodles marched into the bushes and took the girl to the ground with enough vigor to make all her seven brothers and one of her sisters very proud.
During the scuffle, the band scuttled outside in the glittery moonlight and played a lively rendition of Don’t Let the Stars Get in Your Eyes. Needless to say, sixteen-year-old Doodles had no more trouble from the jealous woman, and this became an energetic, favorite story at all the family reunions for years to come. ~ “Doodles” was my real aunt.
Jodi Lea Stewart is a fiction author who believes in and writes about the triumph of the human spirit overcoming adversity via grit, humor, and stubborn tenacity. Her lifetime friendship with all nationalities, “outlaws,” intellectuals, cowpunchers, and the Southern Gentry allows her to write comfortably about… well, anything!
What’s the latest? Novel #8 The Bulls of Bashan… Debuting now
A mid-20th-century historical thriller blending global adventure, a hunt for hidden artifacts/keys, postwar intrigue, slow-burn romance, and strong character growth amid exotic locations. Prepare for a thrilling journey filled with danger, mystery, and self-discovery, where adventure awaits at every turn and the greatest treasure lies within. The Bulls of Bashan is guaranteed to scratch the itch for globetrotting suspense and that “Indiana Jones meets historical depth” vibe. See the book trailer HERE.
