The annual Sweet Water, Georgia, Christmas parade is nearing but relationships are fractured on Wild Rose Lane. Antique dealer Cheryl Calloway's holiday spirit has tanked. It's been a horrible year with her divorce, her ex marrying younger and perkier Miriam across the street, and Mama moving into Cheryl's Victorian cottage with her Amazon parrot right before Thanksgiving. A party girl in her eighties, Mama smokes up a storm, likes her nightly vodka, has a hankering for men, and now a wingman named Nigel. If that isn't enough, the Historical Society wants Cheryl to clean up all the projects on her porch waiting to go to Spivey's Antique Mall for their Christmas Open House. Her desire to work her booth is as dead as her marriage. Miriam, President of the Historical Society, chastises her, "If it ain't pretty don't put it on the porch." Then there's Alice, her strange neighbor with the six-foot fluorescent light bulb cross nailed to the huge magnolia tree in the middle of her rose garden. Alice watches all the neighbors too closely. Just when Cheryl thinks things can't get worse, an incident shakes her to the core, and a mystery follows revealing family secrets long forgotten. Cheryl wants to believe in miracles and love again, and Dr. James may just be the man of her dreams as he helps her and Mama sort things out. Filled with quirky characters, mystery, family secrets, and sweet love, all set in a hot Georgia small town.
Researching Time and Place
When writing fiction, you still need to be sure your details are correct, especially if you use real life towns and places to anchor your story. Writing A Wingman for Christmas was challenging on several levels. The back story takes place forty years ago. I wanted to place my characters in Walmart and Kentucky Fried Chicken. It came as a shock that neither was in the small town of Apalachicola, Florida back then. Luckily, a light bulb went off in my head that I should check that out. My best pal Google showed me how wrong I was. It is amazing what you can learn if you dig deep. Going back in time on Google, I found what the maritime town had to offer forty years ago and adjusted my story for accuracy.
I thought gator attacks were common and a gator attack is part of my plot. My sister (who lives in Florida) kidded me that everyone thinks that. Imagine my surprise when I discovered that attacks are rare compared to the number of gators in Florida. To quote from Google: The Florida Fish and Wildlife Commission notes that even though the state averages about seven unprovoked alligator attacks per year – a rate that has been increasing about 3% a year – the likelihood of being seriously injured in a random attack is roughly one in 2.4 million. I had to adjust the gator attack on Papa to something that made sense. He disturbed an alligator nest.
Sweet Water, Georgia, is a fictional town, but placed outside the real town of Thomasville, Georgia. My characters made trips to other real towns in Georgia and Alabama. I needed to be sure they could make these trips in the time allotted in my story. Could you go to a flea market and back on a day trip? How about a buying trip to Alabama? I originally had Cheryl take Interstate 20 to go to a farm sale and then realized it would take longer to get to I-20 than to take surface roads to Alabama. Roses play an important part for one of the characters. Thomasville, Georgia is known as the City of Roses in Georgia. Once I found that out, the reasons for moving to Sweet Water became clear.
I am a stickler for details, and nothing disturbs me more than to read fiction where there are glaring errors. Writing is a learning experience every time you start a story. Don’t take anything for granted (as I did at the start of this novella). The most important thing to make your story believable is to get your facts right. No one may notice a discrepancy, but if they do, you lose all credibility.
About the Author: Barbara Barth turned to writing and adopting dogs to heal after her husband died fourteen years ago. Known as ‘Writer With Dogs’, Barth currently lives with four Chihuahuas in a charming town forty miles outside of Atlanta. She is Literary Arts Chair at a small art center where she promotes writing activities, author events, book launches, and hosts an online group, Walton Writers. Inspired by the wonderful artists around her, Barth started painting and has won several awards with her whimsical art. Her books are available on Amazon. Visit her Instagram page Barbara Barth Studio. You can also check out her website.
No comments:
Post a Comment