Using Reality as Inspiration for Fiction

We see it often on TV ― those Ripped From The Headlines! storylines. It happens so often that just seeing that particular catchphrase as a tag line for a crime drama has many of us involuntarily rolling our eyes. Again? Can’t they come up with anything original on their own? But as a writer, the question becomes ― how often do you use real life as the inspiration for your own writing?

There are some writers that overtly use real life as their inspiration. When historical fiction author Jody Hedlund wrote her novel ‘The Preacher’s Bride’, she based the main characters on John Bunyan (author of ‘The Pilgrim’s Progress’) and his second wife Elizabeth. To be able to write this period piece accurately, Jody had to immerse herself in historical documents of the times. Did she exactly portray the historical figures of John and Elizabeth as they existed in 17^th century Bedford? Of course not; there was simply too much missing information that those documents could not or did not provide. Thus the term historical fiction. Jody freely and honestly admitted in her afterword that parts of the story had to come from her imagination for exactly that reason. But, in doing so, she provided readers with a well rounded and highly enjoyable version of what the characters’ lives might have been like based on the framework of that existing knowledge. She used a real life situation to entertain and inform, and did so beautifully.

But for those of us who aren’t writing historical fiction, is it cheating to pull from the real life experiences of ourselves and others to prime the creative pump? We certainly don’t think so.

We’ve often used reality as our inspiration for writing. One of our favourite short stories came from a news report about the remains of a Union soldier recovered 146 years after his hasty burial at Antietam. Some stories have grown out of our own personal areas of expertise. Some have been inspired by a particular scientific technique that we found interesting; we then worked backwards from that technique to construct a crime we could solve using that tool. When you write crime fiction that is very much grounded in reality, current events and realistic crime is often a great place to start. Truth really is often stranger than fiction, so with such a rich palette before you, why not take advantage?

An interesting case in point happened last week, once again illustrating how (in our case) two brains are better than one when it comes to this kind of inspiration. I’m lucky enough to have a partner who is extremely well read and constantly stays well informed. Ann ran across a particular news story that caught her eye and she immediately sent it to me. In this case, it wasn’t the whole story that caught me, but there was one aspect of it that had the effect of virtually stopping me in my tracks. About five minutes and a half dozen back and forth e-mails of ‘what if’ discussion later, we literally had a rough outline for the first third of a new novel in our series. That one little detail had the capability of being a springboard for us into a short marathon of story planning that may lead to a new novel for us. In our case, it pays to stay well informed.

What about you? Do you think that using a real life situation is a crutch or a legitimate source of inspiration? Do you often find yourself pulling from your own experiences or real life to enhance your storytelling?

Photo credit: jamesjyu

How to Write With a Partner (Without Needing to Hide the Body)

The questions that I get most as an author center around the fact that I write with a partner. I’m certainly not the first author to team up with a partner, but I know that my relationship with Ann is a little different than many writing partnerships. Many authors have short term collaborations with other writers, or have a more permanent relationship with another author to share the task of writing. Ann and I are a little different ― we share the brain storming and story planning, I write, she rips apart what I’ve written and, together, we rebuild it and make it better. A little unconventional, but it works for us, and has for almost four straight years.

Ann and I met over the Internet. After twenty-five years away from the keyboard ― going to University, starting a career as a bench scientist, getting married and having two kids ― my life had settled to the extent that when the writing bug came back with a vengeance, I had the freedom to indulge it. I wrote a few pieces and had posted a few things on-line where Ann started off as a reader, and then as a reviewer. I was very, very green, but a learning curve is a great thing (this is also why most of us can’t publish the first thing we write; we’re simply too low on our climb up the curve at that point). But there was something that Ann saw back then that caught her eye. Some kind of potential. So, green or not, she stuck with me.

And then came that fateful moment when I posted a chapter of the current novel I was writing and I made a mistake with a gun. To be fair, I’m a gun control loving Canadian, so I didn’t then have what I would now consider to be the knowledge base I needed for that scene. Ann immediately e-mailed me to let me know that in real life I might have just killed my female lead when the male protagonist pointed his gun at her after ejecting the magazine but neglecting to check for a round in the chamber during a scene re-enactment.

Oops. Leave it to the Texan to catch the Canadian in a gun error.

It was a true mistake in research and technique, but I’m forever grateful for it because it opened a door for us and started a discussion. When I posted the next chapter, complete with a small spelling error, Ann contacted me again to let me know, and the conversation continued. At the end of that discussion, I asked her if she wanted to help out in a more robust fashion as my beta reader. She said ‘yes’ and we’ve been together ever since.

During our first forays together, we worked hard at trying to find our feet. Initially, Ann was very kind and gentle and fixed very minor issues. But that wasn’t what I was looking for. I could do that myself with a careful reread. I wanted her to be honest if she found fault with my writing so I could improve it. She agreed that she could edit that way and she officially became my alpha reader. That was the real beginning of our partnership.

Ann ceased to be an alpha reader after about a month, and stepped into her current role of partner. I do almost all of the first draft writing, but she has a significant hand in everything else. Over the years we’ve developed our own system and, in doing so, we break a lot of the ‘rules’. You know those rules ― the ones that say you should write your entire first draft in one run without looking back and that you should never edit as you write. That’s definitely not how we work. We continue the way we started ― we story plan together and share the research responsibilities, then we write, taking it one chapter at a time, writing that chapter and then editing it sometimes up to 4 or 5 times before we move on to the next. Then we overhaul the story again as a whole at the end. It may not be the standard way to write a novel, but it works for us.

There are times when I swear we were separated at birth because we’re so often on the same page. We come from a similar background in that I’m still a bench scientist and Ann was one in a previous career (she's now a grant writer). Research is in our blood and our respective areas of expertise complement very nicely ― I’m hard science, academia, forensic anthropology and police procedures; she’s mechanics and mathematics, military matters, world history/politics and all things medical. And if we don’t know it already, we’ve both got the research skills to ferret it out.

People often ask me if it’s worth it to write with a partner, mostly centered on the loss of control. Yes, it’s true, I have to give up some of my control to make this a worthwhile process for her. But it’s a trade off. When it comes to story planning, I share some of the control with her, but I get her brilliant mind in return. Many of our best plot points have come directly from Ann (there is nothing like working on a pond for hours at a stretch to get the mind thinking about how to kill someone in the most nasty of ways...). And we’ve learned to really play off each other to build a great mystery and really solid characters. So it’s a trade off for me, but one where the final product absolutely comes out better for it. Honestly, yes, we’ve butted heads a few times over issues; it’s impossible to work this closely with someone for this long and not disagree occasionally. But we’ve also learned how to meet each other half way. When we do, the results are always worth the effort of compromise. Her name will be beside mine on the front cover of our book, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.

And, for those of you that are wondering, yes, Ann is contributing to and editing my blog posts. Because we’re a team...

Do any of you write with a partner? Do you have someone constant in your life who assists in your writing? I’d love to hear about how you write if you do.

Photo credit: 1photos

Welcome to Skeleton Keys!

Welcome to my new website. It’s something that I’ve wanted to put together for a while, but finding an agent and multiple revisions of our manuscript kept us busy. But now that we’re officially on submission, I really wanted to get my online presence off the ground. Thank you to all for joining me here.

What’s in a name? In this case, a double meaning. Skeleton keys have a mysterious air about them and open many doors. However, in forensic anthropology, the skeleton is often the key to solving a mysterious death.

I’ve only recently signed with Nicole Resciniti of The Seymour Agency so I don’t have a lot of official material yet, but I’ve based much the website on our manuscript for DEAD, WITHOUT A STONE TO TELL IT:

• The Books page consists of a short flap cover synopsis of the manuscript, as well as some info on our current work-in-progress.

• The Picture Gallery page contains photos that I took in September of 2009 when I travelled to Boston, Salem and the Essex Coast to conduct ‘boots-on-the-ground’ research for the novel before we put hands to keyboard. Many of the locations and settings we used in the novel are in those pictures, including the body dump site and the crypts under the Old North Church in Boston, a site that requires special permission to visit.

• The Links page includes some of the writing and publishing blogs that I’ve found invaluable, as well as links to many of the scientific resources that we consulted while writing the manuscript.

So much of blogging today is about branding yourself as an author. So what is my brand? It’s certainly how science can be used to reveal the human condition; that's the backbone of everything we write. So part of this blog will have a real science/forensics theme to it. I’ll also discuss our research and writing process, and our journey towards publication. I expect to be blogging once a week on Tuesdays, and next week will mark the start of the real blog posts.

A huge thank you needs to go to my eldest daughter for all her help on this site. She stepped in early as my artistic director and was with me through every step of designing the website. She created the banner, helped with the colour scheme and worked her artistic magic on a multitude of the photos on the website. Thank you, Jess, for all your hard work and your patience. The site looks fantastic and 90% of that is because of you.

A host of other people pitched in to help as well. My writing partner, Ann Vanderlaan, has gone above and beyond in the last few days as my troubleshooter and tester as we mapped the Squarespace site to my domain and then implemented a new commenting system for the blog (we're still working on the commenting system, so please let me know via the Contact page if you're having issues). As well, Ann and one of our main critique group members, Sharon Taylor, were kind enough to lend advice, suggestions and feedback on the website as a whole. My husband patiently fielded my questions on HTML programming when Squarespace was giving me fits. And when I needed fresh eyes to make sure there were no errors and everything worked as it should, Heather Paich and Alanna Pfeifler-McKee were more than happy to look things over. Thanks to you all for your help!

And so begins a new journey. Thanks for stopping by and I hope to see you all next week!