How Adopting a 3-yr-old at 19 Formed the Basis for a Thriller: Making It Real
Main characters have to feel real or you, the reader, will abandon them. I write thrillers and I’m forever striving to write that perfect visceral character. Hemingway’s advice: “From all things that you know and all those you cannot know, you make something through your invention that is not a representation but a whole new thing truer than anything true and alive.”
I wanted to make a thriller heroine who was a whole new thing from a unique experience in my life that I felt perfect for a heroine’s backstory. The part I cannot know, the elements that my character keeps hidden, presented a challenge.
The true story is stranger than fiction.
James Rollins once said, “You can write a story about telepathic marsupials in Antarctica as long as you have the Starbucks in Kansas City on exactly the same corner as the real one. Put it on the wrong side of the road, and telepathic marsupials cease to exist in the reader’s mind.”
Thrillers tend to avoid family members for that reason.* If we get the family relationships wrong, we lose you. Did Sherlock Holmes’ mother hound him about marriage? Did James Bond ever drive his daughter to soccer practice? Would Hercule Poirot take cooking tips from his sister? Writers leave out the one thing we all have in common, family, to avoid complications.
Cowards.
I wanted my heroine to have an involved father. And not a wise, calm and patient father from central casting either. I wanted an accidental father. One who was not even the biological father but was tossed into the role by fate.
When I was nineteen, an acquaintance told me that daycare costs were killing her. She had been sixteen when she conceived her daughter and three years later was working a night shift. She asked if I could help by watching her child from the time I got off work until she came home at midnight. Without realizing how that would change my life, I said, “Sure!”
The next day, I stopped at the daycare facility and announced that I was there to pick up a child. I didn’t know the mother’s last name, and didn’t know the child’s name. And they looked at me blankly. (This was before people worried about child abduction.)
I’d seen the girl once at a distance and described her to the daycare workers: she’s about so high, three years old, blonde hair. They took me to a room filled with three-year olds about so high with blonde hair. It struck me that I might have been a bit unprepared for the responsibility I’d agreed to shoulder.
The workers looked at me. I looked at them.
A little girl came running out of the crowd, her arms outstretched, shouting, Daddy, Daddy Daddy, and leapt into my arms. She squeezed me tight with unconditional love and never let go—for the next thirty-seven years and counting.**
As so often happens in unplanned teenaged parenthood, her biological mother had every intention of being a good mother, but jumped at the chance to start over when I offered to raise the child.
I had no idea what was involved.
I only knew that for the first time in my life I was desperately important to someone. We all want to be important to someone. It is the primary motivator in human life.
Experiencing the dynamics of an inextricable relationship was something I felt you wanted in a thriller. The trick was to make it fascinating. The real story would never work in fiction; it would come off as manipulative or melodramatic. It needed a better, more believable catalyst.
I experimented with short stories, piecing together the things I know and the things I cannot know, and came up with a back story. When my editor read it, he said, No one will believe it in one big chunk. Dole it out over the course of three books or so. I took his advice.
After all, my first priority was making sure the Starbucks was on the right corner.
Peace, Seeley
NOTE – Comment and Win! I will give away three ebooks (chosen at random) to commentors. So don’t be shy, add a comment.
* Yes, I know there are exceptions like Zoe Sharp’s Charlie Fox and James Rollins’ Gray Pierce, can you just bear with me a minute?
** There was a small gap in that love-fest when she was a teenager, but we survived. She just turned forty and lives in Seattle with her husband and children. We talk regularly.
Category: Heroine of the Month, Publishing
It is funny that telling a story of personal experience can somehow come out sounding less real than outrageous fiction. We can write something about wildly unrealistic circumstances and people are willing to go with it. But throw in a bunch of details that you know to be true from first hand experience and, somehow, those will be the parts readers trip over!
That’s a great story, Seeley. Was her mother involved in her life at all?
Yes … and no. She loves her daughter to this day and wants the best for her but was not equipped to provide for her at many crucial stages. That created a difficult relationship for both with many disappointments. At this stage in life, they’ve moved past that and have an amicable relationship.
A fine story. I know what you’re saying about featuring a family in a thriller. The hardest thing about writing my book was creating the relationship between the hero, his six-year-old daughter, and the non-related heroine. I’ve never had kids, which upped the degree of difficulty.
Now I understand why there are so many singles and orphans in mysteries and thrillers.
Wow, only something like this we might see in a movie, sounds great. I will have to read no matter what. Thanks for sharing!
I hope you like it! Let me know either way.
I found this link through my timeline on Twitter. Right now I’m going through the same thing except the child is my already adopted brother. I’m a 19 year old college student supporting myself because my parents only help their children when we do wrong. My younger brother is in middle school right now, struggling through puberty and bullying & I’m the only one who is here for him. Financially I know I can’t support him & myself so I do what I can emotionally. I wouldnt consider myself his hero but I do want to keep him safe and secure as possible. I know what its like to be alone but I can’t imagine being alone in his situation at his age. This excerpt gives me hope. Thank you Mr James & i look forward to reading more.
Octavia, A minister once told me that when people are near death and want to talk to him, no matter how rich or poor they are, it’s never about how much money they’ve made, or their accomplishments. The only thing they want to talk about are the relationships they’ve built or lost. At the end of life, the only thing we really care about is how much love we’ve given others.
Peace, Seeley
I have two children, a wonderful and handsome son (5..almost 6) and a wonderful and beautiful girl (7…almost 8) adopted when just before their first birthdays almost 1 year ago (Son Feb 2008, Daughter 2006). I’d include them in anything and everything I can in some way as long as it’s possible.
Hugh, that’s great! I had no idea your children were blessed with adoptive parents. They are wonderful. Word of caution: there is a period between 13-23 in which patience and forgiveness become invaluable parenting skills, but that’s a long way off :)
Peace, Seeley
I have not read any of your books, yet, but your blog intrigues me. It would seem, to me, quite emotionally draining to write a thriller using an experience so close to your heart. But, I’m not a writer, I’m a reader. I also think this emotional connectedness that you, the author, have to the characters’ experiences would grab me and suck me into the thriller at an emotional level that would make for an intense connection for me, the reader. Hmmmm I must make time. If it overpowers me, I’ll let you know.
Diana, just to be clear, the book is not autobiographical. I’ve always said, If I wrote an autobiography, I’d have to sue the author for slander and defamation. :)
Witnessing the resilience with which mother nature arms children, I wrote the heroine to exhibit that same desire to succeed. And, because it is fiction, I created a very highly level of success. (Why not?)
I hope you enjoy the book. If not, I’ll give you your money back!
Peace, Seeley
Ahh, Thank you.
I doubt you will have to give me my money back.
Your book and concept sound interestesting. I love a good thriller in fact they are my favorite reads. I will have to check you out amazon! I would like to receive a free read of yours as well. Tish :-)
Tis, I don’t have anything free at the moment, but I am looking for beta readers for my upcoming serialized novel. Interested?
Loved your response about the only thing that matters at the end of your life is the relationships you’ve built and the love you have given. You must have been a very mature and wise 19 year old to take on the responsibility of a child at 19!
“Wise and Mature” is not something you could call even the best 19 yr-old :) I was ignorant and full of myself. Parenting? no prob! Three weeks later she’d outgrown everything she had and I went to the store with about $6… reality check. I learned to sew and started thinking in terms of ‘career path’. Saved me.
I think it takes a very courageous person (maybe you were too young at the time to realize the commitment) but you certainly have made a huge difference in this beautiful blonde three year old and in yours and her life together. That is a true blessing and like a Cinderella type story only the mother was young and made a mistake but did you turn this little girls life around you are truly a prince.