A standard disclaimer in many works of fiction assures the reader that the book's characters and plot are not substantially based on real people or events. Setting aside many obvious exceptions, it is true that most characters are invented and have no real world counterpart. It is also true, however, that certain elements of each character originate from the author's own experience, from people they know or have known. Usually this is subtle, a certain aspect of their appearance or a behavioral tic. In Imprints of the Past, Rosalind, the British middle-aged schoolteacher who becomes my main character's mentor, has a habit of leaving her purse unzipped, its contents always on the brink of spilling everywhere but never do: she shares this trait with my wife (sorry, babe!) Characters are a melange of fiction sprinkled with facts.
Events are a little different. Almost anything you can imagine happening has happened somewhere, sometime, to someone. If they haven't happened in real life, they've been told as tales in some shape or form. The trick is imagining the right event happening to the right character(s) at the right moment for your plot. This is, in essence, the process of writing fiction. Often we fabricate these events from the raw material of our life experience, a piece from here, another from there, molding the final product over the course of several drafts. Sometimes, inspiration hands us the entire thing gift-wrapped.
I had one such gift this weekend, and it could not have come at a better time. I'm reaching a major milestone in Book 2, a long foreseen (at least by me) point at which the plot doesn't so much twist as splinter into messy pieces for me to reassemble. I was struggling to build the right stage for that milestone. I couldn't follow the same approach I've used before. I needed something grander, a Hyde Park and not just another indoor concert venue. And then, while sifting through piles of laundry, a memory popped into my head: a story my father-in-law had told me many years ago of an incident from his high school days in the late 1950s. It was perfect! It was my Hyde Park! I could use my recollection of his recounting of his memory with only a tweak or two. How much it resembles the original event, most of whose participants are likely no longer alive, is debatable. It's the kind of event that passes into urban legend, quite apt for an urban fantasy novel.
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