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Lori Austin's (aka Lori Handeland) An Outlaw in Wonderland has been named one of Publisher Weekly's Best Summer Books of 2013!!
A big CONGRATULATIONS to Goddesses Lori Austin (Lori Handeland) and Sabrina Jeffries for being named as RITA finalists for their historical romances BEAUTY AND THE BOUNTY HUNTER and A LADY NEVER SURRENDERS!
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One of the questions I am asked most frequently is: “Do you write about your life in your books?” (Although lately I am asked non-stop about 50 SHADES OF GRAY. Sigh.) It’s always interesting to me that people would rather believe that I actually know a few werewolves than that I could construct such a disturbing set of circumstances out of my boring, Midwestern life.
However, when I look back on the fifty odd novels, novellas and short stories, I’ve written, I can find quite a few instances where a few truths crept into the fiction. The majority of my novels take place where I’ve lived or visited. Many of the characters impressions of those places are my own.
Sometimes a character is based on someone I met in my travels. For instance, when I decided to set the second trilogy of my Nightcreature Novels in New Orleans, IV and I took a three day tour. I’d been there twice before, but I needed more specific knowledge. The first day we were there, we ended up in an Irish bar off of Bourbon Street. The place had a terrific juke box that played Patsy Cline. The bartender was a gorgeous red head from Boston whose name was Diana. The bar appears in CRESCENT MOON as Kelly’s, where Patsy Cline sings “Crazy” while the heroine, a red head named Diana, asks pertinent questions of the bartender and the patrons.
Several other incidents on that trip to New Orleans, and the one I took after Katrina, made their way into CRESCENT MOON, MIDNIGHT MOON and RISING MOON (check out the jazz clubs on Frenchmen; they might seem familiar) and the novella “Voodoo Moon.”
Looking back, a lot of truth made its way into my fictional Harlequin Superromances. For instance, the dogs in DOCTOR, DOCTOR were named Jake and Elwood after the Blues Brothers. So were mine. The gun shy hound dog, Clint, in A SHERIFF IN TENNESSEE got his behavior from a pathetic excuse for a hunting dog we once had.
The little boy in LEAVE IT TO MAX is very similar to a little boy who used to live at my house (he grew into a young man when I wasn’t looking). A lot of his best lines ended up coming out of Max’s mouth. This little guy always opened all the doors and cabinets in every room he was in. You never knew what might be in there. He was accident prone big time. The day I went to the Fed Ex box to mail the manuscript (about a little boy with a broken arm) I returned home to a phone call from the school informing me that my version of Max had one too. That was kind of creepy. IV begged me to “never put him in a book.”
The heroine of my urban fantasy series “The Phoenix Chronicles” is from Milwaukee. So am I. Luckily I do not have to fight demons like Liz Phoenix.
Do you like books with a touch of reality or do you prefer complete and utter fantasy? If you write, do you put little tidbits of your life into your books? And as a reader how much reality is too much?
38 Comments on “Truth versus Fiction”
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I like my books, even the fantasy ones to have a little basis in fact. It makes them easier to relate to and absorb. Years ago Billie Green and I wrote to one another, in one letter I said my sons made my heart smile; she wrote back and asked if she could use the expression in one of her books. It showed up in Jessie’s Girl.That’s always been a nice memory for me, especially because we lost touch over the years.
I love all of your books because they have that feel of reality,even if they are paranormal.
Posted on July 3, 2012 at 3:13 am.
What a sweet phrase. I can see why she liked to use it.
Posted on July 3, 2012 at 7:32 am.
And as they get older the smile gets bigger. I have me some nifty sons.
Posted on July 3, 2012 at 9:41 am.
Sounds like!
Posted on July 3, 2012 at 9:46 am.
Aw. That’s so sweet.
I’ve heard that phrase since I was little — my grandmother used it. Now I wonder where she heard it.
Posted on July 3, 2012 at 6:34 pm.
For me I love my romances to have a bit of reality in them. When I can look at a person and knowingly say that this is the person that such and such was talking about then it is way too much information.
Posted on July 3, 2012 at 4:07 am.
Sometimes a little is too much.
Posted on July 3, 2012 at 7:33 am.
I too like a little reality in the books I read. I believe that it adds an element of truthfulness. I don’t know if that makes sense, and nothing better is coming to my brain as of yet. I have put little tidbits of my life into some of my writing. I really don’t like total fantasy, a little reality keeps me more interested. Oh, the little boy with the cast is adorable! His little sad face makes me want to scoop him up into a big hug, and take all his hurt away!
Posted on July 3, 2012 at 5:53 am.
Those casts get me everytime.
Posted on July 3, 2012 at 7:33 am.
Reality can always intrude into books I read. It’s inevitable, isn’t it? One has to assume reality is where authors get some of their inspiration.
However, your son with the cast – IV is right, that’s a little spooky.
Posted on July 3, 2012 at 6:42 am.
I don’t think I ever told the little guy. He’d have been freaked out.
Posted on July 3, 2012 at 7:34 am.
I just assume there must be a smidgeon of reality in every book written, because I always thought the best writers were the best people watchers.
One of my favorite sets of books is by Linda Howard, Drop Dead Gorgeous and To Die For. The main character is based on one of her friends. I may not know her specific friend. But I KNOW this character.
And being an adult I’d have to kid watch to get the character right, because who would think of the things kids do other than a kid. And kid logic. Only a kid could pull it off.
ie: A kid sees cars broken down on the side of the road…
Kid Logic: Don’t part on the grass! It breaks your car!
How much reality is too much…well I read 50 Shades, Not one of my favorite books, and I don’t need to know about tampons. I don’t need a long description about condoms. And in my cowboy stories, cleaning stalls, enough imagry.
Do I insert reality into my writing…hmmmm…I write about the care and feeding of a masked avenger who rides a tricycle and adds turbo power by using a grapping hook and latching into the bumpers of passing cars. Sure! Why just last week I was running late to work…. ;D
Posted on July 3, 2012 at 6:57 am.
Kid logic is a mystery.
Posted on July 3, 2012 at 7:35 am.
I think there has to be some truth to these people because we “know” them, or someone like the character who has sprung up in our own lives. I’m not a writer, but I do like the situations where there is a kernel of truth.
I didn’t care for 50 Shades, either. I thought the writing was bad and really, I didn’t like the characters in general. I skimmed most of it and moved on to better stories.
Posted on July 3, 2012 at 8:40 am.
Most of the times when I’m asked about a specific character and if they’re fashioned on someone I know, it’s someone so way out there I just blink.
Posted on July 3, 2012 at 8:52 am.
I like a little reality in my books, but at the same time, I like to suspend reality when I’m reading–I think that’s why I’ve always been such a fan of Nora Roberts. She walks the line between reality and fantasy/paranormal so well–I’ve read her books since I was in high school. That’s why I like your books, Lori–and Karen Moning’s, as well. There is a definite basis in reality on Earth, but there are oddities too.
I’ve heard so many mixed things about Grey….most are bad…they’re plodding, the characters are not well-developed, etc. I’ve never picked them up, and I’m not planning to buy them. I might read the first one if someone has it to loan me, but I have other things I would much rather be reading that I KNOW I will enjoy.
Posted on July 3, 2012 at 8:56 am.
Thanks, Julie!
I still read Nora too. And JD Robb. Probably always will.
Posted on July 3, 2012 at 9:09 am.
I’m in every book I write. I don’t think it can be helped.
Some character will say something I believe. Some setting is where I lived. Some bedspread, my bedspread. Some haircut, my haircut. Or a friend’s. Or a cousin’s. Or an aunt’s.
But mostly it’s the world view, the way of seeing things and the inner wiring that makes us who we are. I have written one western and I struggled with it mightily. I finally figured out that the heroine was flat and dead and I couldn’t get in her head. It was because I had written the heroine as a “Pleaser” and I do not possess one single cell of “Pleaser” in my entire body.
I rewrote her to be “Hates Conflict” and that fixed her. I could now identify with her and get into her head. It was then that I knew that I was in all of my novels in one way or another. Which is kind of creepy/scary.
Posted on July 3, 2012 at 9:54 am.
Hmm. Interesting. I know we filter our characters with our world view and reactions to situations. I don’t have anyone else’s world view, so it’s difficult to look at it any other way.
Posted on July 3, 2012 at 10:00 am.
The books I love writing best are those with an everyday heroine falling in love. But I enjoy reading across the reality spectrum. True to life, fabulous fantasy – if it’s entertaining and well told, I’m in.
Posted on July 3, 2012 at 10:16 am.
Same here!
Posted on July 3, 2012 at 10:36 am.
Definitely tidbits from my life creep in. I’ve had a few precocious boys in books based on ones in real life too, Lori. Traces of friends and families are in a lot of secondary characters. And the dogs in my books are always taken directly from the dogs in my life.
Posted on July 3, 2012 at 11:06 am.
Dogs have such great personalities. I need to write a Reggie book.
Posted on July 3, 2012 at 11:07 am.
LOL, Lori! I can’t help doing that, too! My sis has been known to tell people to watch what they say around me, because it’ll end up in a book. I love that the little quirky things we see and do might end up — altered to fit the circumstances — in what we write.
Posted on July 3, 2012 at 11:22 am.
My MIL always says she can hear me talking in some of my characters. Not sure if that’s good or bad. I guess it depends on the character.
Posted on July 3, 2012 at 12:41 pm.
I’ve always suspected that to an extent writers include bits of their lives, people they’ve encountered, whatever, into their lives. Usually, it doesn’t bother me, unless, I feel like I’m being browbeat by their politics, while I’m reading. There’s this fantasy author whose series I was reading, and I was LOVING it. I can’t remember what book it was into the series – 5 or 6 – and his politics offended me because it was so narrow-minded. It was the last book of his that I’ve ever read.
If I ever took up writing, I know that things that my daughter says would end up in the books because she’s always saying something funny. You could not not use them.
Posted on July 3, 2012 at 11:44 am.
I don’t want to hear about politics any time. Definitely not in a book. I’m with you.
Posted on July 3, 2012 at 12:42 pm.
Like with you, readers and interviewers always ask if some of my books are based on my life, and I used to answer NO. But also like you, I realized some things do filter in. A couple of times secondary characters were based on people I know. Any crisis in my life tends to engender plot points or character inclusions that are in no way direct, but probably a subconscious response to my life. For example, when my son was ill, I found myself writing a teen aged boy into my wip as a major secondary character. I do not think that was a coincidence.
Posted on July 3, 2012 at 12:18 pm.
I know! Sometimes I don’t even realize I’ve done it until after the fact. Must be theraputic.
Posted on July 3, 2012 at 12:42 pm.
I love all fantasy when I read. Reality is what I want to get away from when I read:)
Posted on July 3, 2012 at 12:50 pm.
There is that.
Posted on July 3, 2012 at 2:23 pm.
I think reality is all writing except maybe writing ads. Ads ads are fantasy. You could put all the reality in your life in a book and most readers wouldn’t know unless they know you very well.
Posted on July 3, 2012 at 1:57 pm.
I always say I want to be an ad exec and think up some of these ads. They are WAY OUT!
Posted on July 3, 2012 at 2:24 pm.
I love a touch of reality in all books. Not too much, though, but enough to make it believable. I really hate it when the bad guys win, and that happens far too often in real life for me.
Posted on July 3, 2012 at 6:35 pm.
I prefer the bad guys to die in horrific ways that are too bloody and disgusting to happen often enough in real life.
Posted on July 3, 2012 at 6:50 pm.
I like those real-life touches I find in books. There are times I read a phrase, a paragraph or a character description and I just know the author had to have brought this to the page from their real life.
I don’t intentionally do it when I am writing, but I find as I read back through my manuscripts bits and pieces of myself and my life have crept into the pages. However, in my current WIP I DO have a slightly nuts English mastiff who is modeled after my horrible chihuahua, Frodo. Frodo THINKS he is a big, bad dog so I made him one!
Posted on July 3, 2012 at 10:10 pm.
Bits of reality are fun. I got a pie once playing Trivial Pursuit with information I read in a book.
The few times I wrote something for a literature class, I used parts of things I knew.
Posted on July 4, 2012 at 12:07 am.
I prefer books that have a great deal of reality. As a writer, I also use a lot of real life experience in my plots, and my heroine will never do anything that a real person would not do. Having been a teacher for over 30 years helps a lot in this aspect, I find. I understand psychology and can get into my character’s minds.
Posted on July 4, 2012 at 1:18 pm.