My favorite stories are the ones that masterfully blend fact and fiction. The stories that are “loosely based” on true events that blend in a thrilling story suck me in like no other. I love it when they provide a new or underlying narrative, even a made-up one, that is neatly tied to events we know or have heard of before. My hope is that someday I’ll be able to do that with my writing.
A story my cousin told me about our grandfather sparked the idea for the prequel I am writing for PIPs GAMBIT. Keep in mind that my grandfather was one of the most upstanding men in the community they lived in. God fearing, well-respected, and a success story of a simple man who made his mark in the world through kindness and a brilliant mind that I pray I have a fraction of. To say I admired the man is a gross understatement.
But the story my cousin shared sparked a “What if–“ thought in my mind. A thought that maybe sometimes, to ultimately do good, you first have to do something entirely outside of your character to jump-start it. That duality and moral conflict of that idea has been stuck in my brain for months. The nagging question was always, “Could you find enough coincidental evidence of real-life events to make this hair-brained idea plausible?”
I woke up this morning and started researching. As fate would have it, finding that evidence was easier to discover than I had anticipated. To my utter shock and excitement, I found an interesting, plausible connection that I’m beyond excited to write about. To go a bit further, the connection I found is so good and so believable that I’m almost hesitant to write it. Because what if, on the off chance, by some alternate reality . . . I’m right?
So why am I writing this blog instead of writing the story? Relax, okay! I can do both – and have done a lot of writing regarding the story. Of course, it is all research notes, storyline ideas, concepts to flesh out, etc. But it still counts in my book. Writing is writing. But I needed an address to check a possible link to the story, so I had to text a couple of family members to get it, promising to explain later.
So thank you to a different cousin for the quick response to my inquiry that lead me down one of the most fascinating, and quite frankly the most fun, research rabbit holes I have gone down in a long time. I absolutely love the fact that anytime I ping you, no matter how long it has been, you’re there. You’re always there and I love you for it.
Oh . . . and that address paid off big time.
-B
BRANDON KELLER.NET 