The Story Behind the Story Archives - Page 3 of 4

December 4, 2017 - Lisa Manterfield Leave a Comment

How I Found the Perfect Antidote to a Broken Heart

Sometimes people ask me if the characters I write are based on real people. For the most part, the answer is no, at least not directly. The truth is that most characters have elements of people I’ve met, or heard about, or they say or do things that I’ve witnessed in real life. It’s impossible not to draw from experience. In fact, much fiction writing pulls incidents and emotions from real life and drops them into fictional scenarios. It’s the same way that actors draw on their own emotional experiences to give depth to the characters they portray.

That said, of all the characters in A Strange Companion, one is pulled from real life.

Owen was a later addition to Kat’s story. During one rewrite, I realized that, if Kat was really trying to move on after Gabe, she needed to have an enticing option to consider. And thus, Owen was born. Naturally, if Owen was going to be swoon-worthy, he had to be a scientist. I mean, brains over brawn every time, right? And so the floppy-haired, cake-baking chemist loped onto the page.

Years ago, I met a retired petrochemical engineer who had taken up baking and produced the most delicious cakes. This unlikely baker had become so proficient that his claim to fame, he was proud to tell me, was that a recipe correction he’d sent to a well-known culinary magazine had been printed in the following month’s edition. When I’d expressed my surprise that someone who’d spent a life working with toxic chemicals had turned his hand to fluffy cakes and confections, he handed me the line that would later shape Owen’s character: “Baking is pure chemistry.”

But Owen’s cake-baking isn’t the only thing borrowed from a real-life person. The original meeting between he and Kat, when they introduce themselves via charades and a rebus, is based on an another, more personal, interaction pulled from my life.

When I was in college I met “Owen.” Our friendship began with an exchange of information between my study room in the library and his dorm room window. It blossomed into a sweet and fun friendship, and would have undoubtedly developed into a romance had it not been for the appearance of a dashing suitor.

Sadly, brawn trumped brains on that occasion, and “Owen” was cast aside. (I know, don’t judge. I was young and foolish. What can I say?) Of course, the relationship with Mr. Gorgeous went nowhere. He turned out to be neither sweet or fun, and provided my first big lesson that yummy on the outside doesn’t automatically mean yummy on the inside. So, when Kat’s story called for the perfect antidote to her broken heart, I had to bring in “Owen.”

I sometimes imagine that the original Owen might one day read Kat’s story and recognize himself, and maybe even accept his cameo role as an apology for my appalling behavior. Sadly, experience has taught me that people rarely recognize themselves in books, and those who think they’re the models for characters seldom are.

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November 20, 2017 - Lisa Manterfield Leave a Comment

Remembering the Real People Behind Tragic Statistics

After the recent wildfires here in Sonoma County, our local radio station read the names and ages of all the victims, adding more as news came in. We’ve also, sadly, become accustomed to seeing the faces and hearing the names of victims of gun violence, long lists of people no longer alive. As hard as it is to hear these names and see these faces, it’s important for us to remember that real people with full lives, with families and friends who loved them, are behind these news headlines. I never want to lose sight of the fact that they were far more than simply terrible statistics.

When I first began writing The Smallest Thing, I was intrigued by the story of Emmott Syddall and Rowland Torre. I imagined a romantic tale of two young lovers separated by a quarantine. But, as I brought the story into present times, it morphed and evolved, as all stories do.

I imagined what it would be like to be held inside a quarantine zone, uncertain about your future. I couldn’t stop thinking about the real people of Eyam, who made the decision to impose the quarantine on themselves. What would it have been like in 1665 with no social media to gather information or cell phones to stay in touch with loved ones outside the zone? Would it be any better or worse in the 21^st Century?

When I visited the real-life plague village of Eyam for research, I was struck again by the sacrifice made by the villagers, and the scope of the tragedy. In the village church, I saw the parish death register listing the names and dates of death of every victim.

Because that tragedy happened when record-keeping was imprecise, it’s unknown exactly how many people lost their lives in the village. Estimates suggest that 260 of the approximately 350 villagers perished during that 14 months. In some cases, entire families perished, one after the other. In the register, I saw, in writing, how the disease picked its way from person to very real person. Among the dead were six members of the Syddall family, including Emmott.

Seeing her name made me realize that I needed to tell more than just a tragic love story. It had to write about survival. It had to tell the story of an ordinary girl who finds herself in an extraordinary situation, who witnesses a catastrophic tragedy and is forever changed by the experience. More than anything I wanted to make Emmott real.

Even though the true story of Eyam and the plague happened more than 350 years ago, we can’t forget that it happened to real people, not so different from us.

If you would like to read the names of the Eyam plague victims, you can find them at the Eyam Museum website.

October 30, 2017 - Lisa Manterfield Leave a Comment

When Truth is Stranger Than Fiction

In A Strange Companion, a lot of peculiar things happen around Kat. Another character in another story might have chalked up all these signs as coincidence, and then maybe I’d be writing a romance novel about a girl who falls for a guy who bakes a wicked chocolate hazelnut marble cake (*see below for more about this). But that’s not this story. This story is full of strange coincidences that may or may not prove that Gabe is back.

A while back, I wrote a post about some of the weird things that happen when you’re dealing with grief. If you’ve ever lost someone you love, you’ll know that nothing is beyond the realm of possibility as you try to come to terms with someone being gone.

There’s always a danger of crossing a line in fiction and making coincidences unbelievable. I mean really, what are the odds of Mai calling Kat by the pet name Gabe gave her, or having a birthmark in the exact same spot as his? But while I was editing the book, I got a sign of my own that weird coincidences happen in real life, not just in fiction.

On my office wall, I have Plot Planner, a long sheet of brown paper where I keep track of my novel and its various storylines. I like to gather pictures as I write, images of how I see the characters and some of the settings. It helps to get the story clear in my head.

I found the perfect picture of Mai, cut it out, and stuck it on my story board. It wasn’t until weeks later that I took a close look at the picture and realized that the dress the little girl is wearing is made from identical fabric to my living room curtains!

Is this a weird coincidence or a sign of something else? I’ll leave you to decide.

* Owen’s chocolate hazelnut marble cake was a big hit with Kat and it was an equally big hit with Mr. Fab when I tried it out on him. If you’d like to get the recipe to make your own, plus recipes for five other dishes mention in A Strange Companion (including Kat’s mother’s prawn cocktail and Jon’s blackberry lavender scones) I’ll send you a free recipe book (plus a collection of short stories) when you sign up for my newsletter.

September 18, 2017 - Lisa Manterfield Leave a Comment

When Tragedy Strikes, Supporting Characters Suffer Too

Over the past couple of weeks, the threat of tragedy has set many people on edge. First Harvey swept into Texas, then Irma battered the Caribbean and headed for Florida. Meanwhile, Jose and Katia built, bringing more uncertainty of what they would become or where they would go.

People in the direct path of the storm faced the very real possibility of tragedy. They stood to lose their homes, livelihoods, pets, and even their lives. Many were called upon to tap into reserves of strength and courage to get through a situation for which they had little time to prepare.

Meanwhile, many of us outside the danger zone could only watch and wait. Although I didn’t have anyone close to me directly affected by the storms, my social media feeds were full of posts from friends who did have loved ones in danger. Lots of people were afraid of what might happen, but felt powerless to do anything about it. That kind of stress can have a huge emotional toll.

I thought a lot about the effects of powerlessness while writing The Smallest Thing. On the pages of the main story, Em finds herself stuck in the middle of an unimaginable tragedy that she is completely unprepared to handle. She does what any of us would do, which is to figure out how to survive. She doesn’t always make the best choices, especially at first. She has no role models or experience to call upon, but she does what she has to, and then she does what she needs to do. She finds her inner strength and a side of herself she never knew existed. And while she thinks she is powerless, she finds ways to take action.

Meanwhile, in the fictional world beyond the book, Em’s mother and little sister Alice experience the powerlessness that many of us felt last week as Hurricane Irma barreled towards our loved ones. Although their story isn’t told in the book, I’ve imagined them watching helplessly as Em and her father fought for survival.

I imagined that Em’s mother, like many us last week, would carry enormous guilt that she had gone to visit her sister and so had avoided being swept up in the quarantine. She’d feel helpless because there would be nothing she could do to protect her loved ones. She’d be terrified and probably frustrated that she didn’t know, at every second of the day, what was happening to them. She’d have moments of fury when others judged her actions or those of her loved ones, without full knowledge of the situation (hello, social media haters) and perhaps relief when one kind person asked how her family was doing and how she was holding up.

In fiction, and in our real-world tragedies, the stories of the supporting characters aren’t generally the ones that keep us riveted. But if you were a supporting character in the recent news headlines, you know, like Em’s mother, that you have your own story, too.

August 28, 2017 - Lisa Manterfield 2 Comments

How Aiden Walked into Em’s Story and Almost Stole the Show

We authors love our main characters. We have to if we’re going to spend so much time with them. But I’m always interested to see which of my supporting characters most pique the interest of readers. In the case of The Smallest Thing, Aiden is almost stealing the show.

Aiden is a relief worker who comes into the quarantined village to provide assistance and support, and ends up befriending Em and helping her in ways neither of them had anticipated. Here’s what one reviewer had to say about him.

“Aiden oh Aiden what a wonderful caring character. He also sounds absolutely delicious for a guy hiding in a hazmat suit. Haha. He is a perfect match for Emmott and exactly what she needs in her life.”

As you can see, Aiden is making quite an impact! But, he didn’t exist in the original idea for The Smallest Thing. Like many of my characters and story twists, he was born from a writing prompt.

The prompt was a first line, “He hides in the marrow of my bones” and here’s what I wrote in my notebook back in May of 2014:

In case you can’t read my scrawl, here’s the whole scene.

He hides in the marrow of my bones, never showing on the outside, but going with me wherever I go. I lie in bed at night and I clear my head of thoughts of him, sweeping his image aside with reason after reason for why he doesn’t belong in my head. And after I’ve brushed him into little piles of jumbled memories and admired my handiwork in cleaning up my mind, I feel a gnawing in my bones and I know right away it’s him.

I saw him in the village today, and even though he looked like all the other members of the crew, covered from head to toe in his yellow hazmat suit, isolated from the world and me by his sealed hood, there is something in the way he moved, a flow to his body, that let me know it is him. I turned away before he could see me, pretended I hadn’t seen him and hoped he wouldn’t see me either, and yet I lingered in the street, stopped to talk to a neighbor, and I could tell from the stiffness of my movements, the way I held my head and exaggerated my expressions, that my instincts were pulling me to look and only my determination prevented it.

As I turned back towards home, I saw him looking at me, the face guard of his suit turned my direction. I felt my sense slow down, as if I were moving through water, and before I could stop myself I was swimming his way.

He raised a gloved hand as I approached and through the little window of his mask he smiled at me. His eyes were hazel, with flecks of gold, but as he turned I saw greens and browns and yellows. Tiger eyes, I thought, as the moisture evaporated from my mouth.

“Hi,” he said. His voice was raspy and echoed in the chamber of his respirator. “How’s it going?”

I tried to answer, but my voice had left. All I could do was smile.

I read what I’d written in my workshop group and the response was immediate and intense. Everyone wanted to know, “Who is this character? What is he doing in the village? Why is he dressed in a hazmat suit?” One of the writers in my group developed an immediate crush on this mystery man. And so Aiden was created.

Around that same time, the Ebola outbreak in West Africa was just making its way into the news. With it came stories of relief workers risking their lives to provide care in the region. I was struck by the personal stories of ordinary people putting themselves in danger to help others, and I knew that this was who Aiden would be in the story.

As I kept writing, his character blossomed into much more than that, and he eventually became a hugely important part of Em’s story. But he started life as a ten-minute writing prompt. The rough scene I wrote that day didn’t end up in the final book, but if you’ve read The Smallest Thing, you’ll know that elements of that first inspiration did.

If you have favorite characters you’d like to know more about, leave a comment and I’ll be glad to tell their stories.

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