Fact & Fiction

Okay, we all do it. There’s an old adage that says you have to write what you know. Now that doesn’t mean you have to commit murder to write a mystery, for example, but writers are students of human nature.

There’s also an element of truth in a lot of writer’s works. Just look at John Grisham, who used his insider view of the legal world. And we all know that The Five People You Meet in Heaven was inspired by Mitch Ablom’s uncle Eddie, and that Nicholas Sparks used the romance of family members to create The Notebook. For today’s blog topic, I thought I’d share some insider secrets as to what was real, sort of, in two of my works.

From my first book, A Little Office Romance (Oct 2000), the scene at Busch Stadium (the old one) where Alex is in the bleachers and Julia’s in another section and the bleacher section starts calling her name: real. This actually happened to my friend, Lisa. Her friends couldn’t find her, so as the game time neared they abandoned her, and she didn’t have a ticket to get in as they’d taken it inside. Some nice businessmen gave her one of theirs and she sat with them on the third base line since the bleachers and the rest of the stadium didn’t directly connect. When her friends saw her on the Jumbotron, they got the crowd to call her name. I was up in the nosebleeds with the kids I was babysitting. When I wrote my story, it seemed a fun way to actually take the hero out of his element. As for where Julia went to college, it was Webster University, my master’s degree alma mater. (And this Lisa is the one to whom Nine Months' Notice is dedicated.)

The Wedding Secret (Dec. 2006) ranks as one of my favorite books. The entire scene at the wedding where the Luke declares Cecile to be his date is based in reality, right down to the switching of the bridesmaids because of height. This all took place at my friend Jane’s wedding, many years ago when she was the first of us to succumb and marry a great guy named Joe. The sad thing is, I showed up an hour late to the rehearsal. I felt like a real heel until I asked where Jenny was, and Jane admitted that her other bridesmaid hadn’t showed yet either. (Oops. That’s what you get for putting a rehearsal at 5 PM on a Friday and have poor working girl bridesmaids who can’t afford to take off.) So Saturday, before the wedding, we were jostling for who had to walk with whom, since we weren’t there the night before to get this important detail nailed down. I ended up with Paul, who thankfully was cute and sweet since I had to eat dinner next to him. (You know how those head tables work.) As one of my very single sorority sisters went by in the line for the buffet, which wound past our table, she started asking him all sorts of questions, including where his date was. He declared it me. Okay. First I’d heard of it, considering I’d just met him a few hours before. However, unlike Cecile, I didn’t imbibe in a magical sleepover or ever see him again as he lived in New Orleans. Mostly we danced and he spent the night pulling up the front of my dress which didn’t fit very well and kept threatening to fall down. Such was my life, and when I started this book, I knew that I simply had to use the memory as it simply would set the tone for the rest of the work. As for the rest of it, all made up.

More insider secrets in my next blog post!

Michele Dunaway