Which is More Difficult: Truth or Fiction?

HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN: Weird question for you. I was talking to someone at an event recently, and they asked if my new book was based on a true story.

When I said "no, I made the whole thing up," there was a look of...disappointment.

"Oh," this person said, "I always love when books are based on true stories."

Well, yeah, sometimes I do too, and real life is always an inspiration for everything I write, of course, my books can only be my books because they come from my experience and my curiosity, and my adventures and my hopes and dreams and my way of looking at the world. And coincidence, you know, what I happen to see and when I happen to see it.

And of course people think my books are based on my television stories. And when I say “well, of course my experience in being an investigative true crime reporter certainly is reflected in my novels, but my novels are not my television stories disguised into fiction” –Again, disappointment. Or maybe surprise.

Why is this, Reds and Readers? Do you think a novel is more interesting if it’s based on specifically and solely real life? 

I always think, I have to say, doesn't it take more brain power to actually make something up? Yes yes yes, our imagination is inspired by real life, there’s no question about that. But are you disappointed when something is not based on precisely something that happened in real life? What do you think about this?

I mean, Lee Child was once asked how he knew that the ignition switch of a certain kind of tank was red. “Wow.”  the person said, “you must’ve done a lot of research.” And Lee said “well no, I just made that up.”

 And the person was–you guessed it– very disappointed. 

Really?  Doesn’t it take an equal amount of talent to create a story so realistic that it feels real? I mean that’s what we’re going for, right?

Or–what?

HALLIE EPHRON: The trick is knowing what you can make up and doing enough research to make it believable. I think people ask the question because they are fascinated by the answer to: Where did you get your idea. For me, at least, there’s *always* an answer that involves some experience I had or a friend had or something I read about that piqued my interest (or horror) or made me laugh.

Sometimes I have to do a ton of research to be sure that I get the details right. Some books require it more than others. Writing a mystery set in Hollywood in the 60s, I drew a lot on experience, growing up with screenwriters as parents. A murder in a present-day MRI lab required much more research. 

And woe be to the mystery writer who gets her ballistics/gun details wrong. 

But to beg the question, I think all of our books grow out of some kind of personal experience, if only emotionally. Which is pretty glorious.

HANK: Oh, sure, research is different from experience. SO agree. But I keep finding that people want a one-on-one on-the-nose THING that happened to you or someone, and then that we took that incident and fictionalized it. 

RHYS BOWEN: I’m always bemused that a person wants to read fiction but wants it all to be true. That’s why you read true crime.  Having said that I am meticulous in research for my historical novels. If they are set in a real time and place then everything has to be correct  apart from fictional characters I have planted there. I can’t tell you how much time I spend staring at Google Earth, old maps, old newspapers etc. But the reward is when someone says I grew up in Greenwich Village, so did my mother and grandmother and you have taken me back to my childhood. Then I know I have done it right. 

Sometimes I have to create a fictitious place because bad things happen in my story that didn’t happen in the real place.  So Cassis becomes St Benet in Mrs Endicott. 

But the actual plots? Sometimes there is a seed of inspiration based on something I heard, read or observed but the story has to come out of my head! We are creators not reproducers!

DEBORAH CROMBIE: This is a really curious thing, readers’ desire for a  novel to be “true.” In which case it wouldn’t be fiction, would it? My agent has been known to say, “Just because something really happened doesn’t make it good fiction,” and I’ve tried to adopt that as my motto. That doesn’t mean I don’t sometimes use things that really happened as a jumping off point, the beginning of many rounds of “what ifs.” I’m sure we all do that–something has to jumpstart that creative spark, and maybe that’s where the fascination comes from, people wanting to know where ideas come from. I do try to be meticulous in my research and details, however, as that’s what makes stories feel real.

LUCY BURDETTE: I too find it curious that a reader would be disappointed if a book isn’t based on something real. I agree, Hank, that making something up completely is the hardest! That said, most of my book ideas come from a little snippet of life. In my upcoming A DELICIOUS DECEPTION, the idea was sparked for me by a newspaper article talking about a place for safe custody exchange now required for all Sheriff’s departments. That got my writer brain whirling…

JULIA SPENCER-FLEMING: I suspect the “is it true” folks have fallen down the True Crime book/ podcast/documentary hole and now expect every mystery to be based in fact. My motto is “Never let the truth get in the way of a good story.” With a story, you can shape events and characters to embody truths you sometimes can’t get to when you stick to facts. The greatest thing about fiction is that, when done well, the reader is emotionally transported into someone else’s experience. Walking the proverbial mile in another’s shoes. You certainly can’t get that with true crime, because half the pleasure of reading those stories is assuring yourself you NEVER would have done a, b, or c and thus gotten scammed or murdered.

JENN McKINLAY: This reminds me of the years I dated an artist and he would tell me how people only thought he was talented when he did drawings or paintings that looked “real” or “like a photograph” and he would sigh. Because, of course, art like writing takes what we see or feel or think and turns it into so much more, giving us new and different ways to process and navigate this journey called life. 

HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN:  Yes Jenn, exactly.

And I do think this is all so interesting because  research is a different thing, and of course we want to get it right.

And being inspired by our own  lives or a random thing we read or see–sure,that’s devoutly to be wished. And that’s why our books are so different from anyone else’s.

But it’s a totally different thing to take an event that has already happened and change the names and potentially the outcome. It's a different thing to say: oh, is this based on the –what, the murder of x person on their honeymoon in the Alps? Or Natalee Holloway or the Louvre robbery or –you pick a true crime. Those would be terrific books. And I am sure they already are.

(And sure, Casey Anthony and my book Trust Me? Are definitely sisters in crime.)  

But what about something that never really happened? Something we have to think of out of nothing but our own imaginations?

Because some things are just imagined.  MOTHER DAUGHTER SISTER STRANGER?  Yup. Fiction. (Far as I know there are not two sisters who survived the suspicious small plane crash that killed their parents. Let me know if you’ve heard of that.)

What do you think, Reds and Readers? Do you need your fiction to be connected to a true story?

RATS! By Jerry Touger

HALLIE EPHRON: As most of you who've hung around this blog any amount of time know, my sweet husband, Jerry Touger, was a brilliant cartoonist.

He was never without a pencil or his weapon of choice: a BIC pen. And in a life filled with boring academic meetings, after completing the day's crossword puzzles in record (and recorded) time, he had ample opportunity to doodle. 

As far as I can tell, he never threw any of his doodles away. I love them all, and this leaves me with the onerous task of trying to figure out what to do with all of them.

I've scanned ALL the Christmas, New Years, Thanksgiving, birthday, Valentines Day, and Mother's Day cards he made for me and copied them onto flash drives for my daughters. 

Add to that a gazillion printed meeting agendas with doodles all around the edges, some are recognizable colleagues.

My favorites are the many miscellaneous drawings of highly opinionated rats. 

Why rats, you ask. Beats me. 

Today I'll share some of them with you... Largely his rats were dyspeptic, as this pair...

But they could also be graceful.

And affectionately parental, as in this Mother's Day card.

(One of his pet names for me was SMEDLEY. Why? Again I have no idea.)

He even illustrated his INTRODUCTORY PHYSICS text with cartoon rats 

Do you doodle? Have a loved one who does? I'm sure you agree those drawings are not only a precious legacy but a window to the soul. 

Jerry's was a goofy, sweet place. 

CROISSANTS are to Paris as....

 HALLIE EPHRON: I’m just back from Paris where I spent a wondrous week teaching a class on writing mystery and suspense for WICE Paris (Where Internationals Connect in English.) My daughters came along and we filled our free time with (pause… suspense… what would we have spent our free time doing?) EATING.

I had forgotten what a croissant is supposed to taste like. The aroma. The tissue-thin layers of yummy. And available freshly baked every morning at any of the half-dozen cafes and bakeries within walking distance of our AIRBNB. 

Paris is to croissants what New York City is to bagels. What Los Angeles is to... What Chicago is to...

What’s your favorite (and at its best only truly available in one place) goody, what makes it so special, and where’s the one place you’re guaranteed to get it perfectly prepared?

RHYS BOWEN: The one thing you should add about croissants in France is that they only cost a Euro, not five as they do here.

In September I’ll be going to John’s sister in Cornwall, something we have done every year. It’s a different world, slower pace, lovely people.

Oh, and I stay in a manor house! And eat.., cream teas with the best clotted cream ever, fish and chips and Cornish Pasties.

The first thing we do when we arrive is to eat a pastie.

We have our favorite bakeries in several villages. And for those who don’t know pasties are pie crust around meat and vegetables. They were made originally for the miners to take their lunch down the mine. Thus they have a rim of pastry around one side so the miners could hold them with dirty hands and not spoil their meal.

Simple but delicious served hot!

LUCY BURDETTE: I know I can be a food snob, but I won’t eat a croissant unless it’s in France. I went to La Maison d’Isabelle a couple of years ago in Paris–they won best croissant in France in 2018–and I still dream about those flaky, buttery layers.

But if I have to move on from pastry, I would say Key West pink shrimp. They are caught near the islands so are perfectly fresh and gorgeous. They are heads and tails more delicious than frozen or imported. Yes, more expensive too, but a good treat once in a while!

HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN: I think part of the answer has to do with pizza.

I can’t really quite articulate it, but there’s a certain kind of pizza that tastes like real pizza, and then there are a whole raft of different categories that are not necessarily terrible, but not real pizza.

There’s like, yuppie pizza, with things like prosciutto and balsamic vinegar, which is delicious! But it’s not really pizza. Real pizza has thin crust, and tangy tomato sauce, and chewy cheese that strings out when you try to cut pizza and oregano.

And oil on the top? Somehow? It just tastes like good old street pizza. It probably has pepperoni. I also think it has to do with the brick ovens.

I don’t really connect with New York, although I bet that’s what it is. Anyone have any ideas?

And if you have a Margarita made in Mexico, it’s beyond wonderful.

JENN McKINLAY: Hallie, I love the scene in Hacks when Deborah tells Ava that you haven’t eaten bread until you’ve visited a boulangerie in France. So true.

I ate my body weight in bread while I was there!

And, Rhys, I love pasties. Of course, I haven’t been to Cornwall (yet) and have only the local Cornish Pasty Co in Old Town Scottsdale to judge by – although, I did have a pasty in Victoria Station once that was very tasty.

Anyway, all that to say, there is no pizza like New Haven, CT pizza – which I’ve mentioned before and Roberta will back me up. I’ll be there this weekend and am already anticipating a white clam pie!

As for home, in AZ there is nothing like a Sonoran hot dog (it beats the Chicago dog, sorry not sorry). It’s wrapped in bacon, served on a bolillo roll and loaded with pinto beans, jalapenos, tomatoes, onions, and mayo. Best dog ever!

DEBORAH CROMBIE: You are all killing me! Jenn, I want that hot dog! And so many other things!

I do love pasties. I remember the revelation of first eating one in Cornwall on my first solo trip to England years ago.

Hallie, you've reminded me that our bakery just down the street makes fabulous croissants, but I don't usually buy them. (Probably a good thing, especially as I like to slather them with butter and orange marmalade…)

But what I would really love is a PROPER scone, loaded with strawberry jam and then clotted cream. (Yes, jam first, so that you can get on more cream.) What are usually called scones in the US are sometimes good (see local bakery, above) but they bear no relation to a real English scone. Even in places–sometimes even chef-y places) that claim to offer a real afternoon tea, the scones are not the same. Maybe Rhys can tell us why.

 JULIA SPENCER-FLEMING: I live in Maine, on of those places where we do have our own, iconic, it'll never taste as good as when you have it here food, and of course, it's lobster. Part of the reason is because you'll never get it as fresh as you can when you're near the coast of Maine - the crustacean you're enjoying for dinner will have been landed that morning.

Lobsters are kept alive until they reach their ultimate destination, but the other seafood you can pick up at the fishmongers or order at one of our award-winning restaurants is also, if local, fresh out of the ocean, so do try some!

The other reason lobster never tastes quite as good as it does when you're visiting my state is because of where you're eating it. An overstuffed lobster roll at a clam shack, sitting outside on a weather-beaten picnic table watching the water and the blue sky overhead. A perfectly steamed whole lobster on the deck of an ocean-side restaurant, with boats coming in and out of the harbor and the seagulls wheeling overhead.    

Hey, tourist season has barely begun, and we're a lot closer than France and England. We also have 180 independent breweries and four James Beard Award restaurants to tempt you...

 

 

 

HALLIE: So, if we were coming to YOUR neighborhood, what would be the A-1 MOST FABULOUS LOCAL AND FOUND NOWHERE ELSE THIS GOOD thing the rest of us should seek out to savor?? Fried chicken?? Cherry pie?? Barbecued ribs??? I'm getting very hungry...