This month’s subject is a fun one. I’ve learned tons of
tips. I could wax on about the importance of honing craft. I often beat the
drum of discipline for the long hours of focus needed to produce an engaging novel.
I could talk forever about the cerebral dexterity we employ to write a book versus
sell one. But these are the basics required of all authors. No secrets here. A few
well-chosen workshops by reputable instructors can teach these technical skills.
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| Photo: Stuart Miles |
But one aspect of writing comes from living long enough. At
the ripe age of 55, it sparked for me after my first book. Yep. I’m a baby
boomer. Here's my tip:
All great fiction is threaded with truth—not the litigious
kind, but inner truth.
Writers come to the profession with a compost pile of life
experiences. The older we are, the bigger the pile. People, relationships,
places, bonehead decisions, and dinner-table stories get shoved into the
grinder, then they steam and percolate. Out shoots rich fertilizer for fictional
prose. While my characters are born from imagination, they only become real
when infused with truth. Some characters receive physical attributes and quirks
of people I know; others speak with unique turns of phrase or expose the inner
fears of those who've crossed my path.
A former corporate colleague phoned me after she’d read one
of my books and said, “I know who your antagonist is.”
“Do you now?” I said, and laughed. “I’m not talking.” The
name, gender, and physical description of this person had been changed in the
book. The only clues to a real identity were the inclusion of a few key personality
traits—but they were real. I drew from those days of driving home in tears after
being undermined, lied to, and pushed aside by a boss with a vicious, competitive ego. My
private hell. Poisonous venom oozed through of
my fingers and into one of my characters. Is that literary revenge?
On the flip side, my husband of 36 years got a twinge of
jealousy with my new book Indigo Lake,
due out later this year. One of my characters gets a love interest. This man
looks nothing like my husband, so it took some finesse to make him realize I
wasn’t fantasizing about another.
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| Photo: Stuart Miles |
“Look closer, you goof,” I said. “He’s you in a different
skin. My character responds to his predicament like you would. When Olivia
meets Woody, the chemistry is me meeting you.”
My elderly mother ran into herself in my fourth book, The Executrix. As one of my toughest beta readers, Mom
gave me “the call” after the second chapter.
“Hey! You killed me off before the book even got started?”
she said.
I rolled my eyes. “No, Ma. It’s fiction. She’s not you.”
“I know it’s me. Ellen Dushane says things the way I do.”
Of course, Mom was right. Aren't all Moms right? While I didn’t exactly lift my mother from life, I infused a slow drip of her in my book. I wove the character of
Ellen Dushane with tiny stitches of gold truth thread—fine stitches only visible under a magnification loop. Ellen becomes three-dimensional as the book progresses, even though she dies on page thirty. In the end, my Mom laughed and took it all in
stride. I expressed “the real” at the safe distance of fictional prose, which
crystallized my own fear of losing her. Beneath the outrageous humor in The Executrix, I confronted the ever-present lump in my throat for the inevitability of becoming a middle-age orphan.
The greatest compliment a writer can receive is when readers
say their fictional characters are real. That they identify with their attitudes,
moral dilemmas, and chemistry. My latest book spawned these comments, which is
why The Executrix is now a trilogy
about the Dushane sisters. The enthusiastic response allowed me to expand the arc of the three
colorful sisters. Yes, they’re modeled after my own two siblings. At signings where
my mother attends, readers ask her to autograph the book. Mom writes, Truth is stranger than fiction in jiggly
scrawl.
Some stuff you can’t make up, and as a writer it takes
courage to slip truth on the fictional page. Dig deep into the compost pile. That’s why
my favorite T-shirt displays the saying, Careful
. . . you’ll end up in my novel.
Courtney Pierce is a fiction writer living in Oregon with her
husband of 36 years and bossy cat. She writes for baby boomers. Her
novels are filled with heart, humor, and mystery. Courtney has studied craft and
storytelling at the Attic Institute and has completed the Hawthorne Fellows
Program for writing and publishing. She is a board member of the Northwest
Independent Writers Association and is a member of Willamette Writers, Pacific
Northwest Writers Association, and Sisters in Crime.
Look for the second book in the trilogy, Indigo Lake. Due out in fall, 2015. Visit Courtney's website at www.courtney-pierce.com. Her books can be purchased at Windtree Press, Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Kobo Books, and at several independent bookstores in the Portland and Salem area..
