By Velda Brotherton
Most of us have good
reasons for writing each and every book. But have you ever wondered where those
‘good reasons’ are born? Is it really voices that won’t leave you alone, or
does it go deeper?
When I began the
Victorian series, a story of an English settlement in Kansas, it didn’t occur
to me why I was so interested. I thought it was only because my husband and I
visited Victoria, Kansas after a couple of book signings in Holton and
Circleville.
My great-grandmother
was a Victorian. She traveled to Kansas in a covered wagon when she was 13. Not
to Victoria, but still there was the real connection. I sat at her feet many times
and listened to her tales about that trip. This was the answer to why I was so
interested in this subject. Why I had to write, not one book but a series about
Victorians in Kansas.
It has occurred to me
over the years in the researching and writing of 25 published and uncounted
unpublished books, that we write about the curiosities that reside in our brain.
Those that ask us who, what, where, when, why and how. Much like the reporter
who must answer those questions in each story, we as fiction and nonfiction writers
are plagued by them each time we sit down to write.
When I was a child my
father went on a hunting trip each fall to Montana or Wyoming. I looked up the
states, saw photos of majestic mountains, glorious valleys cut by ribbons of
shimmering rivers, read about the historic battles between American Indians and
soldiers. Even then I was hooked by an avid curiosity.
When I wrote my first
western historical romances, I set them in Montana and spent months on research
to make sure I had everything correct from the animals, trees, flowers, to the
locales and dates of battles. All this because my mind had held on to that
childhood curiosity. It became my way of going there.
While visiting my
brother, the one in Circleville, he mentioned a gold mine there, the only one
in Kansas. He took me out to look at it from a distance because it was on
private property. It was a couple of years before those memories stored in the
file cabinet in my mind hopped out and said it was time to learn more about
this. Time to write a book about it.
Ask yourself why you
wrote your last book. What inquiries kept bothering you until you had to find
the answers? I think you’ll find each and every book you wrote began with those
niggling desires to learn the who or why or how of something. We’re told
writers begin by saying what if? Others claim it’s the character. But it goes
deeper than that. We are so thirsty for knowledge that we cannot resist that
frantic dig into a subject that has haunted us. We’re hooked by our own need to
know more.
Velda Brotherton writes
of romance in the old west with an authenticity that makes her many historical
characters ring true. A knowledge of the rich history of our country comes
through in both her fiction and nonfiction books, as well as in her writing
workshops and speaking engagements. She
just as easily steps out of the past into contemporary settings to create
novels about women with the ability to conquer life’s difficult challenges.
Tough heroines, strong and gentle heroes, villains to die for, all live in the
pages of her novels and books.
