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Blogs by Holly Weiss
Meeting My Characters in Real Life 7/1/2010 12:36:33 PM
What are the chances of meeting the descendents of a key character in my novel, Crestmont? Evidentally, fairly high! How ironic! I called The Crestmont Inn, setting of my novel, CRESTMONT, about a room booking. The owners told me the daughter and grandchildren of my character, Peg Woods (age 15 in the novel during the 1920s), were sitting on the porch at that moment thumbing through my novel.
I had the opportunity to talk with them over the telephone. Peg Woods married Tingle Dickerson and, together, they ran The Crestmont Inn from around 1950 until his death in 1981. Peg's granddaughter-in-law, Ruth, spoke graciously to me over the phone, wishing me much success. She also expressed how difficult it was to read my fictionalized characterizations of her family through description and dialogue. "I remember how they talked and that's not how you wrote them."
I can well understand how bizarre it must seem to a family to read fictionalized characters based on their real life grandmother. Hats off to the Dickersons for being such gracious people. I tried to write their family with respect and feel I treated the characters well. I wonder how I would feel if I were in their position?
