How True Stories Inspire My Characters
When readers ask me what I write, I often smile and say, “faction.” It’s my own blend of fact and fiction, true stories, real people, and actual historical events, all reimagined through the lens of storytelling.
While my novels may be shelved under “fiction,” many of the moments and characters are pulled straight from history’s pages or, occasionally, from the lives of my own readers.
Truth is stranger (and often more fascinating) than fiction, and I’ve always believed the line between the two is where the most interesting stories live.
From Real Life to the Page
When I began writing, I didn’t set out to blend history with imagination so deliberately. But the more I researched, the more I found that real events spark the most creative “what if” questions.
A historical document might give me a single sentence about an unsolved mystery, a lost letter, or a forgotten hero and suddenly, I’m off and running. What if that person had made a different choice? What if the event we think we understand was only half the story?
That’s how many of my characters are born: through curiosity.
In The Family Rakúsko, nearly every incident has its roots in actual history, although the 400 years and 10 generations of the family of grifters is purely fictional. The appendix in that book details each reference and how it connects to real-world events. Readers tell me they enjoy flipping back and forth between the story and the notes, it gives them a chance to feel like co-conspirators, discovering the truth behind the fiction.
It’s also my way of honoring the real people and events that inspired me. If someone lived a remarkable moment, I want to make sure readers know it really happened.
PS… the Family Rakusko is available as an Audiobook Greeting Card, a new way to send a lasting gift.
The Will James Mystery Series: Past Meets Present
In my Will James Mystery series, I’ve had the pleasure of writing stories that straddle two timelines at once. Will James and his crew live in the present day, but his investigations often take him deep into the past unearthing crimes, connections, and consequences that span generations.
Each case is grounded in something real: a newspaper clipping, a photograph, or a historical record. Will’s journey becomes a bridge between then and now, showing how history is never really over; history echoes, it influences, and sometimes, it solves today’s mysteries.
Writing these books feels like being both historian and storyteller. One moment I’m combing through old archives, the next I’m letting my imagination fill in the blanks. The thrill is in finding where those two meet naturally.
Real People, Real Connections
One of my favorite traditions as an author is involving readers directly in my stories. From time to time, I hold character drawings and the winners are written into one of my upcoming books.
It’s my way of saying thank you to those who make this journey possible. But more than that, it brings new energy to my writing. When I learn about someone’s personality, quirks, or life story, it sparks all kinds of ideas.
A reader might become a detective’s friend, a witness in a key scene, or even a character who changes everything with a single line.
That mix of imagination and real life keeps my writing grounded and fresh. After all, fiction should feel alive and what’s more alive than people who are actually out there reading the book?
ten generations of charlatans, cheaters, swindlers, grifters, con-men and con-women, rogues and scoundrels who skillfully and repeatedly cheated the rich, the famous, and the infamous; seemingly unstoppable for almost 400 years, until … you will never guess by whom and how they were brought crashing down
Why Facts Make Fiction Stronger
I’m often asked why I don’t just write historical nonfiction. The truth is, fiction allows us to explore truths that facts alone can’t capture.
By blending real events with imagined ones, I can give readers something deeper, an emotional understanding of history, not just a chronological one. Facts tell us what happened. Fiction helps us feel what it must have been like.
Every writer brings their own tools to the page. Mine just happen to include a historian’s curiosity and a storyteller’s heart. When those two get together, that’s when the magic happens.
A Nod to the Past, A Story for Today
Whether I’m writing about a family surviving through their crimes in The Family Rakúsko or following Will James through a tangled modern mystery that reaches back centuries, I’m always aware that the past is never as far away as it seems.
The choices people made long ago ripple forward into our lives today.
Writing “faction” is my way of tracing those ripples, of connecting yesterday’s courage, loss, and discovery to the moments we’re living right now.
And maybe that’s why readers tell me my stories feel both real and timeless. Because they are!
At the end of the day, my goal as an author is simple: to make readers wonder, “Did that really happen?” and then discover that, yes, in some form, it probably did.
History gives us endless stories. Fiction gives us the freedom to live them all over again.
So if you ever find yourself in one of my books, whether as a character, a reader, or a fellow explorer of truth and imagination, know that you’re part of something I like to call faction: where the facts inspire the fiction, and the fiction keeps the facts alive.
