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QUESTIONS FROM READERS

Elizabeth Crook answers readers' questions about the amount of research that goes into each of her books, the fine line between fiction and creative license, and knowing when and how to end a story.

Bett from St. Petersburg, FL: How do you know when to stop? When is the story finished? As to THE NIGHT JOURNAL, I actually didn't want it to end until Meg and Jim, even Bassie and Hannah and Elliot, found some measure of peace. That's not always possible, but Meg was at last able to make an informed decision based on truth. How do you know it's time to let them go?

Elizabeth Crook: Hello Bett, thanks for reading THE NIGHT JOURNAL. About your question: I've never been able, in the beginning, to plot the route of a story to the end; I usually just feel my way into it, muddle my way through it, and then eventually see the right resting place in the distance. As a reader, as well as a writer, I get the most satisfaction out of narratives that come to a definite end and yet leave me thinking; so that's what I try to write. I don't like to wrap things up too neatly, and I don't like to leave readers hanging. In an earlier draft of THE NIGHT JOURNAL, I had a more final goodbye between Meg and Jim, but then decided I should leave open the slight possibility that they might see each other again and collaborate on writing the preface to the last journal. This seemed like a more realistic ending, as people rarely have solid goodbyes.

As for the characters achieving some kind of peace at the ends of their individual stories, I guess I feel peace is something that's hard to achieve in real life, and I want my stories to reflect reality. The end can be sad, or even tragic, but I don't want it to be depressing. I think readers are willing to travel through some sadness in a book if they feel the narrator has a heart, and while the end might not put their minds exactly at ease, it shouldn't be dark or creepy.

I hope this answers your question; thanks so much for taking the time to ask.

Kris from Houston, TX: I always wonder how much is true in this sort of book. How much did you create, and what was the original germ for the novel? How much of the characters is based on actual people? Did you know the whole story when you began writing, or did it unfold before you? This book was of broader scope than THE RAVEN'S BRIDE, with less known about the characters (unlike Sam Houston) and less known about the time and place.

Elizabeth Crook: Kris, hello. How nice that you've read THE RAVEN'S BRIDE. Thanks. As for your question: when I started writing historical fiction I didn't have any real instruction in how to find the emotional story buried within the factual record, and pluck it out and embellish it without doing any violence to it. Only by trial and error, and with a certain amount of flying by the seat of my pants, was I able to come to a workable method for fictionalizing history. I actually stick very close to the historical record and don't take a lot of liberties. My bottom line rule is this: if my characters are based on real people and I'm using the real names --- as in THE RAVEN'S BRIDE --- then I need be reasonably responsible to the originals. Of course I'll have to fill in a lot of gaps in the record. The record might tell us what a person did and when he did it, but not why he did it --- and it's the "why" that defines his character. In attributing motives to these people, I have to ask myself constantly: Am I getting this right? Am I getting it close to right? Am I doing this person an injustice?

When I was writing THE RAVEN'S BRIDE I could feel the ghosts of my characters looking over my shoulder and hear them correcting me: "I never would have said that….I never would have said that that way….I never split my infinitives!" I felt it was very important to try to be accurate, and while I don't pretend to have told the story exactly as it happened --- (no one really knows the whole truth of why Eliza Allen walked out on her marriage to Sam Houston) --- I did want to be true to the people.

By the time I wrote my second book --- a novel centered on the Goliad massacre in Texas in 1836 --- I had started to feel a little squeamish about fictionalizing historical characters. So, most of my characters in that book are completely my own. A few historical personages appear, but not as main characters. This gave me a little more freedom than I'd had in THE RAVEN'S BRIDE.

THE NIGHT JOURNAL is even one step closer to liberation. All of my characters are fictional; a few are based on historical figures, but only loosely, and the names are changed, so I had complete freedom to orchestrate as I pleased. As for the story, it's made up. Chapter by chapter, I might add! I rarely could see anything past the next page. This was not an efficient way to write the book, but it allowed the plot to develop in unexpected directions. Creating the story was a lot like living my life --- I might have done a more efficient job of it with an outline, but the process wouldn't have been nearly as interesting. As it was, I ended up in some wonderful places I would not, in the beginning, have thought to go.

Lisa from Kansas City, KS: How did you do your research for all the background on the times of the Harvey girls? Are the relationships described among Meg, her mother and grandmother strictly fiction or patterned after someone you know?

Elizabeth Crook: Lisa, hello. Thanks for your question and for reading the book. To answer: my research on the Harvey Girls came mostly from books and library materials. When I started, I didn't know anything about the Harvey Girls --- or the railroad industry for that matter --- or New Mexico, or treatments for tuberculosis. I had stumbled onto the Montezuma only by accident. One discovery just led to another, as it does in a treasure hunt.

As for Meg and Nina and Bassie, they're completely fictional. I've known and dearly loved a couple of great aunts who shared a few of Bassie's better characteristics, if not her rougher qualities. I have a friend who is an expert in dialysis: I essentially gave Meg his job. He was nice enough to take me around to dialysis clinics and teach me enough so that I could write accurately about the machinery. Nina is not anyone I know. In her case I simply tried to invent the kind of daughter that Bassie, with her overbearing personality, might have produced. Both Nina and Meg have problems that stem from Bassie's inadequacies and her inability to nurture. Just as the events of history don't take place in a vacuum but on a continuous strand, my characters' lives are inevitably influenced by the lives of their ancestors. Again, thanks so much for reading. Take care.

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