What and Why I Write

The first thing I am asked, when someone finds out that I am a writer, is what do you write? Fiction, I say, and they ask what kind? Now, this is more difficult for me to answer. Occasionally, I am asked a third question, the most provocative query of them all. Why do you write? I have whiled away valuable time pondering that one. What kind of fiction do I write, and why?

Both stimulating questions. In the beginning, I simply labeled my stories historical fiction, but never felt comfortable with that classification. Having given it much thought, I recently settled on a more definitive answer. True to life, I now say. True to life fiction is what I write. Satisfying myself with the nametag, the notion that all fiction necessarily belongs under one established genre or another, prompts this explanation.

As a storyteller, I am drawn to historical settings for inspiration, actual times and places into which I may inject imaginary characters. These made-up people—had Fate ordained it—could have actually lived there, in whatever location I choose, among the natural populace. They experience, in their given situations, all the subjective nuances of real life. I believe that any richly detailed, character-driven piece of literature should reflect all the degrees and distinctions of the actual human condition.

Romance, drama, mystery, adventure, fantasy, and even horror, by their very natures, infuse themselves into our personal interactions, making life, to say the least, interesting. Just as aspects of all of them drive human relationships, elements of each genre should be present in any worthwhile reading. The world truly is a stage. So, true to life, in my opinion, best describes the kind of fiction I write.

Now, why do I write? Why do I charge myself with the uncompromising task of conceiving and creating unforgettable characters? Personalities who must snag you, the reader, at first glimpse, grab you immediately by the hand and heart, and pull you headfirst into the fertile drama of their complicated lives? Why? Here are some of the reasons.

My research as a genealogist has personalized so much history for me, making me aware of the individual, the real person, inside the lives of each of those who came before us. My ancestors are representative of so much more than names, birth and death dates recorded on a genealogist’s family group sheet, and on gravestones in ancient cemeteries. Passion-filled lifetimes are sandwiched between those dates—seemingly endless days spent between birthing and dying, loving and hating, laughing and crying, working and playing.

Sadness, happiness, excitement, and danger filled in the spaces, provided the very soul of the human experience for each ancestor inside his or her own allotted time, as it does for us today. I am committed to capturing and preserving more than just the cold bare bones of family history. It is the substance crammed between the dates—the alive, pulsating, flesh and blood stuff—that I’m after.

Real life personal biographies produce vivid dramas of adventure, achievement, and sometimes sorrow and dreadful failure. Genealogical records provide a rich and inspiring resource for me. These old accounts not only supply facts to be passed on to the grandchildren, but they provide the backdrop I need for weaving my fictional characters through and around the actual details of history.

My central character is most often female, fundamentally resilient, flawed to some extent, who unexpectedly finds herself in situations beyond her control. She might be someone my ancestor glimpsed, even touched in passing, on the road, or on some street in a bustling city, on the train, or along the wagon trail, in some church, or whorehouse, at the county fair, even perhaps at the world’s fair. Conceivably, she was someone my grandmother, or her grandmother, (or one of the grandfathers perchance) would have befriended, even loved, had she existed. The possibilities are staggering.

The common theme that seems to work itself into all my stories is the power of random circumstance in driving destiny. Being in a particular place at a precise moment, whether by chance or some grand design (this is always the question pondered), becomes a time-splitting event for my leading lady, altering her life in some way, always closing one door but opening another.

I compare my process of plot and character development to frosting and decorating an already delicious cake. It is embellishing and enriching the basic ingredients of the foundation, the events from another time and place. During the course of writing, my characters have full reign and are free to run me ragged, as the old saying goes, ordering me around like their slave.

So, why do I do it? Write? For more than one reason, to be sure. But, primarily, at the very core of my reasoning, there is a natural love for manipulating language, for the wordsmithery found in playing with the details, for the emotional soul searching the craft itself demands. For the flow, the structure, the rhythm, the artistry, the beauty of perfect phrasing on elegant paper in exquisite font, I write for all these reasons. But I also write for another.

I write in order for that otherwise unrecorded soul to live, the one who never actually existed, but could have. Or perhaps she, or sometimes, he, did exist, like light radiating from an undiscovered star, physically invisible due to the limited capabilities of the time. I write for her, and him. All the fantastic energy my conjured-up people generate, keeps my pot of ideas simmering. I can no more avoid giving them literary life by writing them down, than I can neglect recording my own genealogy.

One example of my true to life fiction is The Velvet Bridge, my first novel, which sprouted from a short story set in Dallas during WWII about a young widow’s struggle for survival and self-discovery. The story, entitled Paper Dolls, earned me the William Owens Award for Fiction sponsored by East Texas State University, now Texas A&M at Commerce, in 1993.

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