Incorporating Real-Life Events into Your Story

 by Janice Cantore

In the fiction I write and read, I love to feel a sense of reality and authenticity. It’s easier for me to lose myself in a story if it’s all plausible. That’s what incorporating real-life events into a novel does—it makes the fiction seem real. A fictional tale that sounds real becomes more than words on a page. Readers can picture the story in their minds when each page sings with something that could have come from today’s headlines. When I write, one real-life event may simply nurture my story idea, while another may become a whole novel. Adding realistic details throughout can also infuse a novel with life, making everything about it come alive for the reader.

In every novel I write, I try to incorporate something I’ve personally experienced or a real-life event I’ve read about. The idea for my first book with Tyndale, Accused, grew from a very sad real-life event. A sixteen-year-old had been arrested for killing a crossing guard and stuffing her body in the trunk of a car. I was working juvenile at the time, and I remember seeing the kid and wondering what made him into a killer. He looked so normal. Later, more and more what-ifs strolled through my mind, and I landed on the story idea. “What if he didn’t do it?” Then, “What if the only person who believes him is the cop who books him?” Accused was born.

In my novel Catching Heat, the third in the Cold Case Justice series, one of the story ideas was born after I watched an episode of the TV show Cold Case Files. It was about Kristen Smart, a college student in San Luis Obispo who disappeared in 1996. Everyone in California who was alive then probably remembers the name. Her photo was everywhere as her frantic folks begged witnesses to come forward. The last person to see her alive was a guy who claimed he simply walked her home. There were holes in his story and circumstantial evidence pointed to him, but his parents shut down any police inquiry, and the case went cold. 

Sadly, it’s very plausible for a college student to go missing from her college campus. Making up a parallel case for my novel, I had my cold case detectives travel to San Luis Obispo to work on the case. In this case, the boyfriend was the suspect and everyone involved in the cold case knew he did it; they just couldn’t prove it. My fictional detectives worked their way through the evidence and found a way to trip up the boyfriend and solve the murder. 

As an interesting side note, the detectives handling the Smart case never gave up. In 2016, police in San Luis Obispo announced they had new evidence. By 2021, the guy who walked Kristen Smart home—and his father—were arrested and charged with her murder. 

In my latest novel, Code of Courage, real-life riots spawned the story. I’m certain most people can remember the riots last summer, images of stores burning and large angry mobs confronting police. I was horrified by it because it brought up memories of the riots I experienced while a police officer in Long Beach in 1992. I wanted to tell a story about riots and their impact on a community, from the perspective of a police officer dealing with the danger of an out-of-control, rioting mob. 

Incorporating real life into a novel is more than single events. Often in my novels I include minor details that I remember from patrol work. Things like how the leather in my belt squeaked when I would get in and out of the car, or how hard it was to secure a combative suspect in the back seat, or how bad a drunk smelled at two in the morning. Sometimes the odor lingered long after the drunk was gone. I also try to convey how wonderful it was to belong to the brotherhood of law enforcement, the thin blue line. The feeling of family makes working in law enforcement special, and I hope readers get that sense from my books.

Yes, it’s fiction, make-believe, but the more real you make a story sound, the more easily readers will get lost in the fiction. I love to get lost in a novel when I read, and I hope people reading my stories will feel that way about them.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Janice Cantore is a retired Long Beach police officer who now writes suspense novels to keep readers engrossed and leave them inspired. Her twenty-two years of experience on the force lend authenticity to her stories. She has penned thirteen novels: the Line of Duty series, the Cold Case Justice series, the Pacific Coast Justice series, Critical Pursuit, Visible Threat, Breach of Honor, and Code of Courage.

ABOUT CODE OF COURAGE

Detective Danni Grace has never met a police officer who wants to face a scenario where pulling the trigger on another person is the only option. When the worst does occur and there’s a police-involved shooting, it leads to riots and calls to disband the entire police force in La Rosa, Danni’s hometown.

After fifteen years on the force, Danni has had enough. Injured in the line of duty when a protester throws a chunk of concrete at her and shaken by the vitriol being shown to the police, Danni realizes for the first time that she’s lost her passion for the job.

While she’s on a leave of absence, though, a community activist in La Rosa is shot and a fellow officer is blamed for his murder. Taking on this case means stepping back into a job Danni’s not sure she can do anymore . . . and working closely with her ex-husband, Gabriel Fox, an investigator for the city prosecutor’s office. Danni will need to tap into her code of courage to uncover the truth, prevent another injustice, and uphold her oath to serve and protect.

Release Date:July 19, 2022

Thank you, Janice!  

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