What to Do When You Want to Write a Story from Family History But Don’t Have Enough Material

Welcome to another installment of my advice column where I answer readers’ questions about writing compelling stories from family history:

Hope asks: I would like to write about a great-aunt who always fascinated me because she was locked away in an insane asylum. The family does not talk about her beyond very basic information. How do I go about this?

My answer:

This is a common quandary. When writing family stories, we invariably come upon intriguing characters about whom we don’t really know...