363. Basing Stories on True Events with Stephanie Landsem

Author Stephanie Landsem talks about family history, incorporating it into your story, and all of the consequences that can follow in a special episode of Writing and Editing.

Listen to it with your own family or find that quiet space for your much needed Me Time. Happy Holidays!

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Take a look at Stephanie's website and grab a copy of her books:
https://stephanielandsem.com/

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Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Hello, I'm Jenia Delima. Welcome to Writing and Editing, the author-focused podcast that takes a whole person approach to everything related to both writing and editing. Moments with our families often lead to our most emotional memories and experiences. But when we're inspired by them, how can we delicately incorporate these people and moments into our fiction? Author Stephanie Lansome is here to offer her guidance on this topic and to tell us how she did this for her newest release, The Fault Between Us. Well, thank you so much for being here today, Stephanie. I'm so glad to be here talking to you.

SPEAKER_00 0:34

Thanks for having me.

SPEAKER_01 0:36

So with The Fault Between Us, did the spark for the story first come from your imagination or from something within your family or your family's history?

SPEAKER_00 0:45

Well, I would say for this particular book, it really was from family history. It was something that my parents had gone through and and been a part of. And I'd heard about it all my life, and just kind of family stories and lore and all that, you know. Remember when? But I just kind of assumed that everybody else knew about this event. And then when I started talking to people about it, they're like, Well, no, we've never heard of the Hebgen Lake earthquake that hit Yellowstone in 1959. And I'm like, Are you kidding? It was really amazing. And there was all this heroism and this amazing rescue attempt. And you don't know about this. And so I thought, well, there's a good story. So yeah, it was mostly inspired by family then.

SPEAKER_01 1:30

What was your family's connection with that?

SPEAKER_00 1:33

Well, my mom and dad lived in Yellowstone at the time. All of us five, all of us five kids were born when my dad was working for the National Park Service in Yellowstone Park, and that was in the oh 50s and 60s mostly. And so they went on to work in other national parks. My dad worked for the National Park all of his life, but he transferred to California and then ended up in Washington State at North Cascades, which is where I'm from. But they loved Yellowstone. Like the Yellowstone has was always like the place of their heart because that's where they met. It's a very cute meeting story. And it's most of that also I used in the book, The Way They Met. That's where they met, that's where they first lived when they got married. It was a very hard time for them, like financially and also like personally, first years of marriage, and oh yeah, you know, away from their families, living kind of in this remote wilderness.

SPEAKER_01 2:30

Oh, especially then.

SPEAKER_00 2:32

Right. Um, that also had like geysers and hot pots and bears and snakes and all of these like things. And so, I mean, it's it's quite an origin story for a family. I really enjoyed like taking a lot of those family stories in that lore and weaving it into a book about not necessarily about them, but with a lot of references to some of the stuff that happened to them.

SPEAKER_01 2:59

And then how did you decide what to incorporate and what to leave out or fictionalize when you were first drafting?

SPEAKER_00 3:07

Oh, I had no idea how hard it was. Yeah, and I would say to anyone who is writing a story that's based on or inspired by family, to realize that this is going to be a lot harder than something that's coming just straight out of your imagination. You're like, I don't know, you're just so much closer to it, and you have like an emotional attachment to some of the stories, some of the characters, that doing what you need to do as an author, which means cutting, right, yeah, tightening and making the narrative move faster and doing the things that are required to make a book really readable, is like 10 times harder because you're far more attached to your story than you should be.

SPEAKER_01 4:02

Was there anything you found yourself so emotionally attached to that you decided to leave it out, even though you originally thought you might include it?

SPEAKER_00 4:12

Yeah, there was a couple of things specifically, my mom lost a baby during that time that I wrote about. So I wrote about her, I wrote the story of the main character. She has like a four-month-old, five-month-old baby girl. And that's kind of based on my oldest sister, Jennifer, who was the first child in my family. Um, but right after her, my parents lost a son, and he only lived for three days. And it's just been heart, it's heartbreaking still to my mom. Like she still can barely speak of it because they were in a remote area, and it was a really difficult situation for them, although they weren't at fault. But it's hard to tell the mother that. But anyway, and I thought, oh, like weaving that into the story would be really realistic, it would make sense because it had happened to them. And then the more I thought about it, the more I decided that would be too hard on my mom to see something like that in a book, and also just too close to her heart and too still just too raw and difficult for her. And so even though I had roughed in some ideas about how to incorporate that in the story, I was like, no, I'm gonna, I'm gonna leave, let Billy rest in in peace and have him as part of the story.

SPEAKER_01 5:32

Well, was there anything you changed that was different from real life events because it would make for a better or let's say more compelling story?

SPEAKER_00 5:41

Oh, yeah, I did a lot of changing. In fact, I had to reiterate, I you caught me just on my way home. I got home from visiting my mom last night, and part of the reason I went to see her was to give her the book. Oh, nice. Yeah, it was really, really fun to see her reaction to the cover and to her dedication. But um, I did have to remind her again like, mom, it's it's fiction. So you're gonna read some things and you're gonna be like, oh, this is the story of when the bear did this, and then it's gonna not be that story, it's gonna be different. So don't get mad at me. What to do in order for them the story to work together, it's inspired by the things that you you remember and you told me about when I interviewed you, but it's not exact. And so and she says, I know, I know, I remember.

unknown 6:35

I'm like, okay.

SPEAKER_01 6:38

Do you recommend anyone who does this type of writing where they are inspired by family that they also take that approach and maybe let surviving family members know? So, yes, the story is in here, but it's different in these ways.

SPEAKER_00 6:52

Yeah, I definitely would. And it really depends on um your purpose in writing the story. Like this is my sixth novel with Tyndale. So my purpose is to write a good story about a little known historical event that my readers would be interested in with us with a story that resonates with them about these three sisters. So that's my purpose. And if you if your purpose is to write good fiction, then yeah, go to town and cherry pick as much as you want and change as much as you want, but make it very clear to family that that's what you're doing. If your purpose is to chronicle your family's history, then that's entirely different. And then I would very much recommend not changing anything. And also, you're gonna get in trouble no matter what you write because some family members really remember things differently than others. That's something I ran into a lot. I was like, huh, that's interesting. I interviewed my mom and her sisters, and they remember the same event differently. Like, hmm, but it's fiction, so it doesn't matter. I just take the one that I like best.

SPEAKER_01 8:00

Are you able to give an example of that or a time when that occurred?

SPEAKER_00 8:04

Well, so my mom has three sisters, and they all grew up in Minnesota. And my mom moved out to Montana and the Yellowstone area in Wyoming when she married my dad. Her sisters loved her and missed her very much, as they do in this book. And so they went out to visit her frequently. And in those days in Yellowstone, you were able to work on this in the summer. They were always looking for people to work in the summertime in the tourist industry. So her sisters went out and did that. And two of the sisters that I interviewed had entirely different memories of how my mom and dad met.

SPEAKER_01 8:41

Oh.

SPEAKER_00 8:43

You think your mom would be the authority on that one? Right. And well, she I I definitely believe her version the most. She was there, so yes. Right. And one of them had actually dated my dad. And I think she was just like really kind of pro that fact that she had dated him first, and then her version was pretty much about how she had let go of him in order for my mom to, you know, meet him. And it's not really how it happened, according to my mom or my dad for that reason. He passed away 10 years ago, but I remember very clearly his version of how he met mom. So yeah, it was a little bit, hmm, okay. We won't, I'm not gonna argue with her. I'm just gonna say thank you for this interview. It was very fun to talk to all of them.

SPEAKER_01 9:30

Well, so when you're writing something like this versus something purely fictional, does your approach itself to writing differ at all?

SPEAKER_00 9:38

It shouldn't, uh, really. I I as I learned as I was looking through it, it really shouldn't differ. You know, I still should be focusing on the way I plot the story and you know, making things move along quickly and not adding too much detail, but just enough, you know, historical fiction is tough because you want the detail in there, that's what really immerses your reader into the story, but you can't go off on a tangent. And it's really hard when you're dealing with personal memories and people that you know not being like, Oh, this is really fun, and I think I'll just like shoehorn this in here. Yeah, can't do it, and that's where a great editor comes in handy because she's not attached. She wasn't my editor, Kathy Olson at Tindale, was not attached to my people and my story, and so she was very gentle and very firm on which parts needed to go. I've never cut so much from a story. Let's just put it that way. And so, therefore, you know, you spend too much time, you know, because you're writing all the things that need to be cut.

SPEAKER_01 10:51

No, but I can see even with it not being historical fiction, because we see that with a memoir too, where these memories are precious to us, and so we want to include them, but they may not necessarily fit. It might not be something that the reader is really interested in. It's not going to have that same appeal or emotional impact that it has for you. So yeah, you do need someone who has that distance and who doesn't tear up when you think about so-and-so opening that beloved Christmas present they'd waited for or whatever. But that has no relevance at all to the overall story.

SPEAKER_00 11:26

Yeah. Yeah, that is true. And in and it's I do have really great critique partners who have always read my post. There's four of them, and they've always been very good about keeping me a little more focused, which is usually, you know, my my downfall. And they were really good about this book, too, just saying, like, we love the family stuff and we love the sisters, but get to the earthquake. The earthquake is what the book is about. And I like right, you're right.

SPEAKER_01 12:01

Well, do you ever think that there's anything in someone's family history that should be off limits when it comes to what we include in our fictional work?

SPEAKER_00 12:11

Well, yeah, I mean, it uh it depends a lot on your family and how how invested they are um in your writing and whether or not they have a I don't know. I mean, I think you do have to be very careful not to break family, you know, secrets or just bring up things like with my mom's anything that would be hurtful. It's one of those things, like maybe if you're writing for a little further removed, like most of the family members that you're talking about are deceased, that makes it maybe a little bit easier. On the other hand, sometimes it doesn't. Sometimes someone who's deceased, you know, has been sanctified in a way that that people consider like saying anything against them, yeah. Anything negative that would reflect badly on them would be very forbidden within the family, let's say. Um, so yeah, I just I just say you just to be very careful about it and to have lots of conversations. Like one of the themes of this book is how important it is to have hard conversations with your family and not to let things fester and not to like bury um the hard things that you don't want to talk about. Um, that it's always gonna come back, it's always gonna hurt, but to not have those conversations is worse and can lead to estrangement, which is like terrible, like this division within the family. Same thing when you're writing, have those hard conversations. Like, is it okay for me to say this? Is it is this gonna hurt you? Is there a way I can do this that's gonna honor everyone, but also be truthful?

SPEAKER_01 13:51

Yeah. So, how did you approach some of those hard conversations in real life, or how did you even prepare for them ahead of time?

SPEAKER_00 14:00

Well, I was lucky that when I'm reading fiction or writing fiction, I could really pick a lot of the more innocuous, just interesting things that went on. There was, let's say, in this novel, Claire, the main character's dad, was very against her getting married to Red, her husband, because of his background, because of his lack of prospects and like not very great job, all that those things. And he was taking her away from the family. And the dad was very attached, and that is very close to what was going on with my mom and dad at the time. And her dad was very attached to her. He's deceased now, of course, my grandpa. So I just talked to my mom about it and said, like, this is kind of how I'm gonna present this. The names are changed. There's a lot that's it's not gonna sound like your dad, and it's not gonna sound exactly like the situation with you and my dad, but you might see some similarities. And you know, is that gonna be okay with you? Because I know it was kind of rough between my dad and grandpa, but is that gonna be okay? And she's just like, Yeah, I think that's all right. Like, it's the truth. It that was a relatively easy conversation, so we didn't have anything real tough things to talk about. She's 90, you know, she's just like, I'm good with most things to lay it out there like it is when you when you hit 90, you're just like, ah, I don't care what people think.

SPEAKER_01 15:34

Well, can you give an example of a hard conversation that comes up in the book? And if it was also based on maybe a hard conversation that actually took place.

SPEAKER_00 15:45

Well, the hard conversations in the book are, I would say the ones between Red, who's the hero, I would say, and also my dad's name was Red. Um, and that was one thing my mom requested. And I said, Mom, okay. I know you love, you know, his name was Red, and everybody knows him by that. But remember, it's it's not gonna be dad. Like, I need to have him have some different personality traits in order for the story to work, so it's not dad. But they had to have some hard conversations about just their marriage, that first year of marriage. I mean, I don't know. Yeah, I think everybody who's married remembers that it's a tough year, you know. You gotta be able to talk about really hard things like money and and kids and you know, your future and where to live and how you feel about things. And I think there's some some hard conversations that maybe first-year married couples don't want to have. So Claire and Red don't have them, they just pretend everything's fine, and they never fight.

SPEAKER_01 16:58

Oh, we've heard how that's problematic before, yes.

SPEAKER_00 17:01

Right. And so if you never fight, it means you never bring things up that are bothering you, you just put push them down. And so I think towards the end, as they realize after this tragedy and this horrible night of the earthquake and the terrible danger that they were all in at that time, they realize like we need to talk, we need to like be not just here for each other physically and just like married, but you know, we need to truly open our hearts to each other. And that's hard for men. And if men don't do it, sometimes it's hard for wives too, to be like, I'm not gonna be the only one talking here. So yeah, I think that's some of the some of the tough conversations that I think are most satisfying as you get to the end of the book. You're like, oh, they're finally talking.

SPEAKER_01 17:52

Yeah, so we see that a lot in romance too, where you just want the just open up, please.

unknown 17:57

Right.

SPEAKER_00 17:59

Just say what's going on. It's not that tough, but for a lot of people, it really is.

SPEAKER_01 18:05

They've never meant hard in real life, yes, exactly, which is why I think it's both frustrating, but we understand it at the same time.

SPEAKER_00 18:12

Yeah, and if your family of origin doesn't do it for different reasons, then when you get together as a married couple, you don't know how, you know. Yeah, you don't know how to do that.

SPEAKER_01 18:24

Or especially when one person maybe grew up in a family that was very open and shared and have those discussions or had them in a healthy way, and then the other person maybe came from a family that was reserved and was very much just brush it under the rug and move on with your life. Right.

SPEAKER_00 18:40

Right. Yeah, I think that leads to a lot of misunderstanding and hurt and difficulties that I mean can be avoided, but kind of work through it.

SPEAKER_01 18:49

Yes. Did any responses from family members as they were reviewing it or going over it ever result in you changing anything in the story? No, because I didn't let them see it. Well, that's one way to do it. Yes, that makes that easy.

SPEAKER_00 19:06

Yeah, I mean, that would not have worked well. I have a lovely family. I love my sisters. My mom's sisters are all still living, a very long-lived family. They're all in their 90s. But I was not going to open that can of worms of here's the manuscript. Let me see if you have any um suggestions or whatever. It's like, oh no, no, no. No, it's just I cover it with the with the blanket statement of thank you for the interview. I'm gonna use some of the things that you've told me, but this will be fictional. So remember, it's not gonna be exactly how you remember it. It's I'm just gonna be inspired by you. And they were like, Oh, that's fine, we're fine with that. So, and they haven't read it yet. So they I just got my author copies, I just sent them out. So I don't know.

SPEAKER_01 19:53

Ah, congratulations, exciting day.

SPEAKER_00 19:56

Yeah, maybe I'll get some complaints though. Who knows? But I don't know, too late now.

SPEAKER_01 20:03

No, but using inspired is such a good idea, and I think that that would alleviate so many concerns or even possible upsets that could take place otherwise, where someone thinks, because you never even know what might bother someone or not bother them. It could be something as small as, well, that wasn't the color dress I wore to prom, and I can't believe you got that wrong. And right.

SPEAKER_00 20:26

Right, right. Yeah. And I my hope is my greatest hope is that when my aunts and my mom and my even my sisters who know these stories also read it, what I want them to be is so immersed in the story I wrote about the characters I wrote. Oh, right, that they'll just be like, this is awesome. And then later look back and go, Oh, you know, I remember that, or oh, that was that must have been based on that time the bear got on our porch or whatever. I want them to be so like in love with Claire and Franny and Bridget that they don't even see themselves in it. You know, that's my feelings.

SPEAKER_01 21:07

Well, before we end, do you feel like you've gained a new understanding at all about anyone in your family or anything in your family's history as a result of these interviews and then writing the story?

SPEAKER_00 21:18

Oh, absolutely. I mean, I've always known my mom and dad were pretty adventurous people. Um, and I knew my mom had had really stepped out of her comfort zone when she married dad and went to live in you know Yellowstone and have five children in the middle of nowhere. Um, but the stories when I interviewed my aunts who had gone to visit her and been in the earthquake with her too. I mean, they said to me so many times, like, your mom is the bravest person I've ever known. Like, your mom learned how to live out there. And then the stories she told me too that were new to me, she'd be like, Oh, yeah, I remember when I did this, and you know. No, we saved this lady who's being kidnapped by her in-laws because I mean that story is actually a big part of the book. Her in-laws weren't allowing her to leave because she was pregnant and her husband had died, and then they were like keeping her in their home. And my mom and dad like broke her out and sent her on the train.

SPEAKER_01 22:19

Oh my gosh.

SPEAKER_00 22:21

I didn't even know that story. So it just gave me this huge new respect for my mom and my dad, and really her aunts too, because they jumped out of their comfort zone to even go visit her. Um, just like all of the crazy dangers that they faced in those days in the wilderness. And they didn't have what we have now, they didn't have cell phones, they didn't have a lot of different ways to communicate with each other. They rode horses, they just were like, wow, you guys are amazing. So yeah, an even greater appreciation of my parents and what they did to raise kids in the in the great national park system.

SPEAKER_01 23:03

Well, thank you again for such a fantastic interview. And I know I am ready to read this one, so I hope that others feel the same way after listening to this.

SPEAKER_00 23:11

Good, good. I hope so too.

SPEAKER_01 23:13

All right. And thank you for listening. And be sure to check out the show notes for additional information, including all of Stephanie's links. Thanks again.