Lori Stanley Roeleveld | When a Novel is Homegrown

Writers often find the best stories lurking as close as the person sitting across from us at the dinner table. I found this to be true in both the inspiration and the research for my historical novella, Red Pen Redemption.

I wasn’t close to my father in my youth but he mellowed with age. Since he
turned eighty, he’s begun sharing stories from his past and I’ve enjoyed seeing
a new side to him. It’s been fascinating to observe that he’s now asking as many
questions about life as I did in my college years. So many parallels between
these stages of life – entering young adulthood and then entering senior
adulthood. It made me wonder what would occur if something happened to make a
woman in her eighties question everything she’d believed. From that question, I
created Helen Bancroft and the adventure she encountered one Christmas Eve.

The true time lapse of the book is just a few hours but readers travel back
through every decade of Helen’s eighty-one years and experience her fiery
personality, her quirky family, and her eventful history against the backdrop of
American history from the 1930’s to the present day. Helen was a journalist for
most of her career so that allowed me to explore everything from the ‘38
hurricane to the assassination of JFK to Woodstock and the March on Selma. Of
course, I did hours of historical research but I also asked countless questions
of my parents. Their stories added a texture, depth, and detail to Helen’s life
that has resonated with readers. Even my own recollections make an appearance.
The pivotal event for most of us in 2001 occurred on 9/11. For this portion of
the story, I was able to tap into my own vivid memories as well as those of my
children who were Helen’s grandchildren’s ages when it happened.

There are also portions of the story where I drew on my relationship with my parents growing up in the sixties and seventies. Life was changing on so many levels and parents were mystified by the choices their children were making. Helen raises three children and each of them makes choices that leave her feeling set aside and sometimes entirely lost. One of the taglines of Red Pen Redemption is “Helen is not a sweet woman and this is not a sweet story.” Helen’s spitfire, overly confident personality was also a homegrown inspiration. My great-grandmother was a salty woman with a sharp tongue and strong nature. I thought she was a hoot and it was delicious to incorporate her into Helen’s character. Often, strong personalities are best appreciated from a distance and this is reflected in Helen’s relationship with her grandson as compared to that with her own children.

No story or person from my own family’s history made it into the book without
undergoing transformations of details that make them unique to the characters.
This was important so that the novella is truly Helen’s story and not at all
mine. Still, the emotional truth of these tales remained so clear I have to
imagine that’s why I’ve had readers let me know they laughed aloud and then
cried, sometimes on the next page.

I’m happy I was able to recognize the treasure of living research as close as my dad’s recliner. It not only made Red Pen Redemption a better story, for me, it’s made it especially meaningful and my father is proud of his contribution. I now pay close attention at family events to everyone’s stories and jot them down for my next homegrown novel.