The story behind the story
Often, a reader will ask something like “Where did you come up with that story?” or “Where did you get that idea?” Certainly valid questions after spending their time immersing themselves in a world you created. My primary answer is “What if?” scenarios. A notion pops into my head based on something I’ve read or seen. It yields to: What if? From that point a story develops.
However, in the case of Ark City Confidential, the idea came from good old-fashioned story-telling. Not my own, but my wife’s uncle.
A long time resident of a community in south central Kansas near the Oklahoma border, Larry would pass along tales of underground tunnels, a nickname of “Little Chicago”, and the mysterious “grandfather on the hill.” Out of curiosity, I tried looking up these various elements just in general. I have always been fascinated by the peak of the gangster era in the U.S. from 1933-34 so I was already familiar with the fact that Charles Arthur “Pretty Boy” Floyd lived in the northeast section of Oklahoma and made his way into Kansas; that the car Bonnie and Clyde were killed in was stolen from a gentleman in Topeka, KS; and that the state had a long history of desperadoes and bandits. The story came almost naturally.
It’s important to note that my two prior novels (now out of print) were contemporary crime fiction. The notion of historical fiction was a daunting challenge but one certainly worth taking.
In 2016, while attending the OWFI Writers Conference, I pitched the book. I was also told that series characters were very big. I took it as more than a hint. So, on the two plus hour ride home, I fabricated ideas for the second and third books. Secrets of the Righteous came out this year; I’m currently writing the third in the series and outlining the fourth. The fifth will be the last in the series.
Some might think it’s easier to write a series having spent the better part of the first book developing the main character. However, as we grow and change, so too do our characters, main or secondary. There might be a natural progression in the story telling, pieces connected from one to another, but each book has its own introduction, build up, and resolution.
What I have found fascinating is how the research into history has revealed the kind of stories that are beyond even a writer’s imagination. “Truth is stranger than fiction?” It certainly is.
