HEADS UP! There’s a spoiler in this newsletter, indicated by a row of pound symbols/hashtags. If you don’t want any of the story in my upcoming novel spoiled, when you see this (#######), skip to the next section.
Is the truth stranger than fiction? In Lottie’s life – yes!
In last month’s newsletter, I shared with you about how some pretty disappointing discoveries led me to rewrite part of Uncle James’ storyline. If you missed it, you can read that newsletter here, under the section titled, “Searching for the truth about Uncle James.”
In summary:
I felt excited to write about Uncle James in a way that would impact his niece, Lottie Moon, in a really positive way. But the more I researched, the more I learned the truth, and the truth wasn’t a positive impact on Lottie at all. Still, I’m thankful to have learned the truth, as sad as it was to learn.
Research vs. my imagination in writing historical fiction
I take liberties with writing this book as I connect the dots on Lottie’s timeline, but at the end of the day, I want to tell a story that’s as true as I can possibly write it. That’s been an important guidepost to me as I work on this book. There’s a few questions I ask myself when I’d like to write something that’s not a documented fact of Lottie’s life:
Does it make sense in the scope of this story?
Based on my and others’ research, is it plausible?
Is it likely?
(These are based on what I’ve learned from watching Dallas Jenkins talk about writing The Chosen. Are you a The Chosen fan yet?)
Below is about another time that I felt compelled to rewrite an even bigger storyline after I discovered the truth of what really happened – and it was amazing!
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I invented an enslaved girl named Abby, who was born and raised at Viewmont, working for the Moons. She’s the daughter of Fannie (also invented) and George (a real enslaved man at Viewmont).
Based on some research, I learned that wealthy students from slaveowning families sometimes took a slave with them when they went away to school. Originally, I wrote that Lottie took Abby with her when she went to Hollins Institute (when she was 14-16 years old). I incorporated Abby into the April Fool’s Day bell tower prank. The story of that prank has been told and retold in books and articles about Lottie, but none that I’ve read mention the enslaved people who worked at Hollins. I felt that a slave must have been involved in the real story, so I imagined ways it might have happened, keeping in mind the whole scene at the school – slaves, teachers, students, and Lottie.
It worked perfectly! It made sense in the scope of the story, and it seemed plausible. But it was still based in my imagination. I couldn’t find a real story to base it on, and I couldn’t find any evidence that any students brought slaves with them to Hollins. The idea was based on only a small amount of research that said it was a common thing, and I began to feel not quite right about it in my spirit. I asked God to show me what to do about this. God provided two books that, when combined, showed me a true story about real people that was more amazing than the one I imagined!
From Whence Cometh My Help
This book was published in 2017 and written by a black historian who attended Hollins College. The book is based on interviews with people who currently live in Hollins Community, which was called Oldfield when enslaved workers at the school lived there. It was a fascinating and helpful resource as I wrote the chapters in my novel when Lottie was a Hollins student.
While reading From Whence Cometh My Help, I learned about Claiborne, a slave of the superintendent, Charles Cocke. The book said that Claiborne married Ann who was another slave at the school, and that they left Hollins during the Civil War. They escaped to Missouri. It was a story of triumph, I thought. They were no longer slaves!
Institutional Slavery: Slaveholding Churches, Schools, Colleges, and Businesses in Virginia, 1680-1860
A history professor published this book in 2016, and I simply had to read it because there were chapters about Hollins. The book was so helpful in illuminating school life in Virginia during that time. Evidence that enslaved people worked at Hollins had been documented and examined by historians, but I still couldn’t find in the book an answer to my question about if students brought their own slaves there. The fact that it mentioned student’s personal slaves at other schools but not at Hollins made me even more hesitant about keeping my story about Abby as I originally wrote it.
While reading Institutional Slavery, I learned that Claiborne and Ann had a daughter, Betty. The book highlighted the horrifying fact that the man who owned this enslaved family gave Betty as a gift to his newly married daughter who moved to Missouri with her new husband. Since Charles Cocke, the superintendent at Hollins, had hired the family from their owner, he had no recourse to stop the family from being separated like that. The book goes on to tell that students at the school often helped Ann write letters to her daughter in Missouri.
Learning that Claiborne and Ann had a daughter who was sent away to Missouri helped me understand why that’s where they escaped to during the chaos of the Civil War. They went to Missouri to reunite their family!
I was over-the-moon thrilled to learn this. I was sitting on my couch one weekend, holding these two books, one in each hand, my eyes shifting from one to the other, making sure I got the names right and this was indeed the story. When I realized that this was what happened at Hollins all those years ago, I set the books down and literally raised my hands in the air and said, “The Lord provides!” My husband on the other end of the couch looked up smiling, and said something like, “Well, now you gotta tell what happened.” So here, I am, telling you what happened. The Lord did it, and I’m grateful.
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Is it worth it to learn the truth if it means rewriting the story?
That realization required even more rewriting than when I learned the truth about Uncle James. But isn’t that what real life is like?
Since we were children, we’ve been living our lives each day, telling ourselves a story of who we are, who God is, and how the world works. As we grow older and remain humble to learn, that story gains nuance. It’s no longer as black and white as it was when we were children. Sometimes we learn that a part of the story that we tell ourselves is actually false. Then we have a choice:
Continue on with what we believe the story is as we’ve always believed it. Or…
Adapt the story we tell ourselves to match the truth.
Adapting the story is a brave and daunting task. It takes time and effort to rewrite. But it’s worth it if we get to live a more truthful life, isn’t it?
These are some of my favorite verses in the Bible. Combine those verses with the ones below, and you’ve got one of the themes in the book I’m writing about Lottie Moon.
“For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the LORD. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.” (Isaiah 55:8-9 ESV)
“Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us, to him be the glory…” (Ephesians 3:20-21a ESV).
I can confidently say that each rewrite has been worth the effort to ensure that my book will be as truthful as I can possibly make it. Piecing together historical fiction has been thrilling! I’m already looking forward to doing this again once Lottie Moon’s book is finished.
Bless you for reading all the way to the end. Til next time!
Emily