Friday, May 24, 2019

Building a Story World: Part Fact, Part Fiction



by Pam Hillman

Creating a story world is like being captivated by a stranger’s face through a rain-soaked window, or traveling through an unfamiliar countryside blanketed in heavy fog. There’s a hint of what’s on the other side of the glass or the haze, but you can’t see everything clearly. But because of that very thing, your imagination is given the freedom to paint the picture you most want to see in your mind.

If you could wipe the glass clean or burn away the fog, you might discover that the story world in question is part fact, part fiction.

This is true of the story world I created for my Natchez Trace Novel series set in the 1790s. Each story begins in Natchez-Under-the-Hill, a real place that dates back to the 1730s, touching on some of the aspects of the seedy wharf and making reference to actual streets that were laid out at the time of my series. Manuel Gayoso de Lemos, governor of the Natchez District, his future wife, Elizabeth Watts, and his secretary, Stephen Minor, make cameo appearances.

My characters travel along the Natchez Trace, stopping at a tavern called Harper’s Inn. This particular inn is fictional as I wanted it to be a very rough establishment and didn’t want to “cast aspersions” on any real establishment from the period. Mount Locust, on the other hand, which was a very respectable inn and is still standing to give visitors a look at what inns (also referred to as stands) of the day consisted of, is also mentioned multiple times throughout the series, giving anyone familiar with the area a yardstick by which to gauge where my characters are as they travel back and forth along the trace.

Breeze Hill Plantation, Magnolia Glen Plantation, and Cypress Creek are all fictional, but if pressed, I could take you twenty miles north of Natchez along the old trace, find a hill surrounded by rolling countryside, and claim it as the spot where Breeze Hill would have stood. The plantation home itself is based loosely on the floor plan and design of Linden Hall, part of which was constructed in 1785 and is located in Natchez proper to this day operating as Linden Hall B&B. Most of the other plantations, homes, and businesses sprinkled throughout the series are fictional.

Travel a few miles east of there and we’d find Magnolia Glen. Due west in the tract of land between the Natchez Trace and the Mississippi River and you’d find the virgin forest that Caleb O’Shea and his brothers logged in The Crossing at Cypress Creek, along with the rough-and-tumble little river town dubbed Cypress Creek.

So, we have a little bit of fact and a little bit of fiction.

Why use a real location at all? Readers are anchored in the story when an author uses a real town, country, or geographical location that they are vaguely familiar with to set the stage. It might be as broad as “the Mojave Desert,” or “London, 1845”. The exception, of course, is science fiction where the story world is created entirely from the author’s imagination.

With the reader anchored solidly in fact, the author can then add in a fictional ghost town or fort at the edge of the desert, a small millinery tucked on an unnamed side-street in London, an entire plantation along the Natchez Trace in 1791, and a river town along the Mississippi River in 1792.


All three ebooks in Pam's
Natchez Trace Novel series are on sale during May!
Links to each where you can select your favorite retailer:
The Promise of Breeze Hill - $1.99
The Road to Magnolia Glen - $5.99 
The Crossing at Cypress Creek $4.99

CBA Bestselling author PAM HILLMAN was born and raised on a dairy farm in Mississippi and spent her teenage years perched on the seat of a tractor raking hay. In those days, her daddy couldn't afford two cab tractors with air conditioning and a radio, so Pam drove an Allis Chalmers 110. Even when her daddy asked her if she wanted to bale hay, she told him she didn't mind raking. Raking hay doesn't take much thought so Pam spent her time working on her tan and making up stories in her head. Now, that's the kind of life every girl should dream of. www.pamhillman.com




40 comments:

  1. Well good morning. I missed you guys Wednesday. My computer wouldn't load the fresh blog and kept bringing up Suzanne's Maine blog. It eventually brought up the revision blog, but by then I had to leave. Problem probably on my end. My IT person comes over on weekends to do her laundry, maybe I'll address it with her.
    This is a good post and timely for me as I research the third and last book in my Oregon Trail series. For the third book I wanted to do a big, sprawling Western saga, with my heroine Jenny Thatcher wandering over pretty much the known world. I want real places and cameos by real historical characters. It is taking way more research than the first two books, but that's okay. As Jenny would say, "Ain't got nothin' better to do."
    I have another series, not sold yet, which takes place in northern New Hampshire, and I created my own small town but nestled it among landmarks in the White Mountains. Wanted the freedom to create and landscape my town, no way was I going to make up an entire mountain range.
    My third series, also not yet sold, takes place in New York just after WWI. I created my heroine's family's brownstone, her uncle's bank, and the settlement house where she worked as a nurse, but everything else is real. How could one little Christian fiction writer make up ANYTHING better than New York?
    I'm off now, I've got a 10 a.m. graduation to attend, my niece is VALEDICTORIAN. May check in later.
    Kathy Bailey
    Making some of it up in New Hampshire

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    1. Kathy, you don't have a tech problem! :) It was a scheduling glitch on our end. So no worries. I did crack up that your IT person comes to wash clothes on weekends. hahahaha! Yeah, I know how that is. If we ever have a problem around here, we just call our kids. :)

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    2. Congratulations to your niece, Kathy. I am really looking forward to reading your Oregon Trail series.

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    3. Congratulations to your niece, Kathy!

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    4. Kathy, your idea with your heroine traveling to different parts of the known west sounds fun and exciting. But, the research will be challenging. But you can do it. :)

      The good thing about writing my entire series in the same time period and general location was that once I was saturated in the 1790s in the Natchez District, everything from language, social mores, flora & fauna, landmarks, which nation was in charge (Spain at the time), didn't change for the series. So, that part became easier as I wrote the series.

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  2. I can't believe I'm the first one to comment. Or, knowing my tech situation, everybody else has already commented and it just hasn't loaded on my computer. Oh brave new world that has such people in it.

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    1. Your computer is fine. We're all just a little slow in arriving today. And Pam has a sick grand baby. :(

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  3. Oh my stars, Pam.... I love using real places and placing fictional ones alongside so I don't get in trouble with readers!

    If I go too real in contemporaries, folks contact me to correct me so I learned early on to keep the real as the basis... but to make up my fictional towns.

    But in the Martha's Vineyard Mysteries from Guideposts, we used the real setting and made up fictional shops to mix in with real ones, and that was so much fun! And who's going to argue with Guideposts????

    It's a delicate balance sometimes, but a strong story blends the two together.

    I'm in North Carolina right now, working on a Love Inspired on my daughter's porch and it's so sweet.... so many birds, and different from my northern birds' sounds.

    I love it!

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    1. Enjoy, Ruthy!! I bet it's warmer and maybe dryer. :)

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    2. Have fun in NC, Ruthy. I know you will with grands and writing. What's not to love? :)

      "keep the real as the basis...but make up fictional towns."

      Perfect way to describe it. Yes!

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  4. I love the description she gives at first. Where we can see some of the world, but not all of it.
    In my books, I tend to write about small towns and suburbs because that's what I know. My town of Honey Springs, Texas is somewhere around where Round Rock actually is because that's where I was familiar with. But I also talk about Austin, some.
    And Sassafras, Arkansas is completely made up. North of Little Rock and west of Searcy. :-)

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    1. Amy, I love to write about towns near me. I just make up a name and then picture the real place as I'm writing. Then I add in made up stores and such.

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    2. Sassafras, AR. ... love it! :)

      I made up Chestnut, Wyoming for a story set at Christmas, then on the advice of an editor, moved the story closer to Chicago because of railroad logistics at the time. His advice was spot on and I later sold the story... Stealing Jake, my debut novel. But I failed to check if there is a Chestnut, IL. There is, and it's not close to where I set my story. In all these years, I think I've had ONE person email me that she either lives near or around Chestnut, IL. But I hated that I didn't confirm that before publication.

      Missy, I like your method, esp. since you write contemporary. You could even use the real store names, then change them all out before going to print. I did that with a bunch of little kids in a novella for Barbour where I couldn't keep the names straight. I ended up naming the stair-step girls after sisters I knew who were close to the same age as the ones in my story with the intention of changing their names. In the end, I asked their mother if it was okay to leave their names and she said yes. So, Emily, Samantha, and Marie have been immortalized in fiction. :)

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  5. Great post, Pam! I love that your books include so much history! So far, my books have all been set in Texas, since it's what I know (I'm a seventh-generation Texan). The main settings have been fictional towns, but I have mentioned Fort Worth, Austin, Palo Pinto, etc. in the historicals. In the contemporary (unpublished so far), I have a scene set on the San Antonio Riverwalk - one of my favorite places. Think I may need to do more research there :-)

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    1. Laura, I think a research trip sounds like a great idea!! :)

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    2. I love the San Antonio Riverwalk!! You know the ACFW conference is in SA in September this year. You ride an elevator to the ground floor of the Hyatt, walk about 20 feet and you are ON the Riverwalk. It's simply wonderful. Hope to see you there. :)

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  6. Fun post, Pam. I always like to hear how authors incorporate real and fictional place names. I am trying to do that in the book I'm writing.

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    1. Sandy, I think that makes it easier. I love the fictional part because I can make it all up. But then I sometimes have my characters go to Atlanta and maybe mention a real street.

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    2. Sandy, I think part of this comes with maturity as a writer and determining how REAL you want to be. Some authors enjoy writing real places, stores, restaurants, etc. Since I'm writing historical fiction in the 18th century, I have [I started this comment 3 hours ago... got sidetracked by the wild-child-8-month-old!] to create a lot of my own stores, store owners, etc. Hey, we create imaginary people. Seems like readers would expect us to create imaginary settings and props. :)

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  7. I loved your post, Pam. It's a timely one for me. Next week I'll be doing a book signing in the real town in which a large portion of my historical novel takes place. I also grew up nearby many years ago. I'm hoping the readers there will be more anchored in the story because of the real location I used to tell the story of my fictitional characters. I've only been back a few times in all these years. It's exciting. Have a wonderful Memorial Day weekend, everyone. Keep safe.

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    1. Pat, enjoy the book signing! Sounds so fun!

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    2. Pat, that does sound exciting! Enjoy the book signing. I've written a couple of novellas set close to home, and my local fans are always excited to get their hands on those stories. Your friends and family back home are going to love this. :)

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  8. Sorry to be so late getting here, but I have 2 of my grands today and just got the little one down for a nap. Older one is sick, but is watching a movie right now, so I have a few minutes to spare. Hopefully, I'll have time to catch up on comments. :)

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    1. Pam, I'm glad she's doing okay! I wasn't sure if you'd have to take her to the doctor.

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    2. She went yesterday, so we've just vegged at home today. Mom just picked them up, so I'm free now. Kinda sorta. :)

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  9. I love reading stories set in real places because you can learn so much from them. But, it's nice to mix in fictional places with them, too. Sorry to hear about your sick grandbaby, Pam. I hope things turn around quickly and you and your family can enjoy the long weekend. We had our long weekend last week. Have a good one, Seekers!

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    1. I'm glad you had a nice long weekend, Laurie!

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    2. Thank you, Laurie. She's not too bad. To look at her, you'd think she wasn't sick at all. But she'd been running fever and tested positive for strep, so of course, moms and Pammies worry.

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  10. Hi Pam:

    "The exception, of course, is science fiction where the story world is created entirely from the author’s imagination."


    While this can be true and often is, a great deal of science fiction does use real locations just as you would. There are the time travel books, the current day books like "The Invisible Man", and near future books which may take place in NYC in 2050 or how about "1984"?

    And as much as I like real places, or real places with different names, like Gotham for New York City in the Ed McBain 87th Precinct books, I also like to see mention of real historical figures in fiction since many famous English authors toured the USA in the 19th century because they could make so much money giving lectures for pay. A lot more money than their writing produced!

    I have a question for you: I'm having a real problem being the vicarious hero of "The Promise of Breeze Hill" because he is a slave of a woman. I just can't enjoy that. Would reading the second two books in the series be okay if I have not read the first book? I have all three of them, by the way. :)

    Vince

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    1. Well, Vince, you're having a problem living vicariously through Connor because you're male. Women, on the other hand, have all fallen madly in love with him! I'm teasing you, friend! But, truly, women readers seem to find him irresistible.

      Regarding, skipping book #1, and only reading #2 & #3: I'll leave that decision up to you. However, each book does stand alone, even though the heroes and heroines, and many secondary characters continue to make appearances in each book. So, it can be done.

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  11. Pam, first of all, I really like that headshot. :)

    Secondly, I hadn't thought about the advantages of using real landmarks/street names to ground a reader in a partially fictional location. I haven't tried that. Is this something you can use in contemporary novels?

    You've got my mind whirling with possibilities. :)

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    1. I was so excited about the headshot that I forgot to answer your question. I'd say YES. Ruthy & Missy mention doing that in their comments. I love books, tv shows, or movies that anchor me somewhere. It doesn't have to be specific, but just enough that readers know where they are, especially readers who are familiar with the area you're writing in. I think it makes it come alive to people.

      Even if your writing about someone lost in the Sonoran desert, I'd still like to know where they started from, where the nearest town should be. Are they in the states or in Mexico. Just stuff like that.

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  12. Jeanne, thank you for the compliment on the headshot. It's a selfie!. I took it recently to mark an anniversary of sorts, and I liked it as well. It's rare that I find a photo of myself that I like. I now have two. One taken by a five year old, and a selfie take using portrait mode and the 10 second delay on my iphone. :)

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  13. I love using real places in my stories, looking at maps and when I can get them paintings or photographs. I once had a reader say they wish they had known I when I was in Needles, CA for my research, because they would have liked to have met up for coffee. This pleased me no end, because I've never been to Needles. I constructed the setting town from historical documents, maps, and photos. Google Earth is a wonderful thing! :)

    I love the setting for your Natchez stories. Especially those tavern photos you once posted. :)

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    1. Erica, that (about being in Needles) would have made my day as well! Cool!

      Yes, the tavern was King's Tavern. I had a fight scene in The Promise of Breeze Hill that took place in a tavern. I named it something else, but in my mind, it was King's Tavern. :)

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  14. I like my historical fiction books to be anchored in a real place but the contemporary stories don't matter. Lol I'm not sure why that is. I've enjoyed your series thus far and have my ARC queued up in my Kindle app. Can't wait to dig in! Lee-Ann

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    1. Lee-Ann, that is interesting. I like to know where I am in contemps, too. Just having the city and state (or country) at the beginning or mentioned a couple of times early on is enough. Otherwise I feel a bit lost throughout the story.

      Oddly enough, just mentioning "somewhere in the Pacific Ocean" or "along the Amazon deep in the jungle" also works. I don't know enough about other continents to need more details. Broad stripes can work.

      So glad you're enjoying the series. :)

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  15. What a beautiful profile picture that is at the end of the post, Pam. Your joy of the Lord, just shines through.

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