Inspired by

This old bridge no longer exists, but it's strong in my memory.

Where fact and fiction collide

Long before I could read or write, I understood artistic license.

My parents and teachers regaled me with countless stories. There were Tall Tales of a giant and Babe, his blue ox. There were fanciful adventures through wardrobes and magical lands.

I let all the stories live in my head, and I learned how to tell fanciful tales and entertaining untruths.

One of the key things I learned early on in storytelling was to embed a grain of truth, just enough of a kernel to keep people hooked. Ninety percent of story may have them baffled and unbelieving, but that 10 percent tugs at them and makes them want to believe the whole thing.

How good is my storytelling?

In elementary school, I convinced my friend I couldn’t attend her birthday pool party because I’d contracted rabies after being bitten by a dog. It was easier for me to lie about getting shots than to admit I didn’t know how to swim. (This story doesn’t end well for yours truly, but that’s for another time.)

Ironically, much later in my life, I convinced grownups that I’d been bitten by a human during a game of Ultimate Frisbee. Even after I confessed, people still believed the lie.

Great Liar was never on my resume under strong skills, but it’s been quite helpful as an author.

There are tons of places to find that 10-percent nugget for the arc of a story these days. Just scroll through the television channels and note how many shows and made-for-TV movies have been ripped from the headlines.

My pure gold nugget was dug from my own memory. It was just a matter of recalling the stories my dad shared with me about growing up in Lexington, Missouri. Once I had the vignettes solid in my mind, I had to pick one to be the key arc and let the others play supporting roles.

Some people may have trouble figuring out which of their parent’s memories is the memory to anchor a novel. Luckily, that wasn’t my issue.

When one of your dad’s childhood memories is a night-time encounter with Bigfoot, the plot is a no brainer.

Developing a novel inspired by my dad’s youth was a literal labor of love that came with numerous issues, the likelihood of the existence of the Wooly-Bully—oddly—being the least of my troubles.

I set the story in my dad’s hometown of Lexington, MO. We visited when I was a kid and lived there for a year and a half while I was in high school. When I sat down to write, the town in my head was a mix of the Lexington my dad told me about, the town I lived in, and the history of the region.

Drawing from memory, I wrote the first third of the book. I created key scenes and characters. Then, I got stuck and googled a map for clarity.

Bad move.

Turns out, those pictures in my head were a little off from reality. The vast majority of the town is right where it should be, but a few things were tweaked.

However, I decided I could live with that. Why? Because I think it happens more than we care to think. We live in a place, move away, and then go back for a visit, and it feels as if it’s exactly the same and totally different at the same time.

The bigger issue was the main character, whose childhood is inspired by stories my dad told me. I learned that while as a writer I could easily pick and choose stories my dad told me and keep that separate from my dad’s actual overall childhood, some of my beta readers could not.

They knew my dad, they knew the town, and they were quick to point out the things that didn’t seem to fit into what they knew.

It’s my own fault, really.

In my head, inspired by gave me that 10 percent starting point and then I was free to do what I wanted with the other 90 percent. And I hoped (greatly hoped) that people aside from family and friends—who never knew my dad or Lexington—would also read the book, and they’d never know any of the tweaks.

So, I hedged my bet. Typically, an acknowledgement goes at the end of a novel. However, I wanted to start on the right foot with readers, especially, family and friends, so I put an extra acknowledgement at the very beginning of the book explaining why a few things in town were slightly askew.

My hope is I’ve been true to that 10 percent of my dad and written a novel he’d be 100 percent proud to have inspired.