Ask the Author: Elizabeth Crook
Answered Questions (3)
Elizabeth Crook
Karen, there are many others, but those were the books I turned to the most. I don't believe I mentioned The Overland Mail by LeRoy R. Hafen, which is informative but deals mostly with earlier dates. A Texas Pioneer: Early Staging and Overland Freighting Days on the Frontiers of Texas And Mexico by August Santleben is a first hand account and has great details of the period--I didn't mention that one. There are several very good books on the Black Seminoles--I don't believe I mentioned them all, but those won't all be specific to the period and probably not to your story. Whenever there were individual books on towns or places that my characters passed through--like the Menger Hotel in San Antonio-- I read those, but they might not be relevant to you. The most general books on reconstruction, the situation on the border during the time the Black Seminoles were defending it from the Mexican side, travel and period detail, as well as the violence in east Texas are mostly mentioned in those notes at the end of the book. However I've learned that with historical fiction it's important to know the period thoroughly but then leave out any facts extraneous to the story, in order to avoid shoe-horning in a bunch of burdensome details and to keep the story rolling at a good pace. I'm sure you know this already! I wish you the very best with your novel. Elizabeth
Elizabeth Crook
Hi Wendy, thank you for your question--it's the perfect first one to answer about this book. The Madstone is a free-standing novel but features the same narrator as The Which Way Tree-- Benjamin Shreve. After I finished writing The Which Way Tree I missed Benjamin as a character, and missed seeing the world through his eyes. So I decided to age him up a couple of years and give him a another adventure and a first love. The books can be read entirely separately; they're in no way dependent on each other, but if you like one of them, you'll probably like the other. Regards! Elizabeth
Elizabeth Crook
Sally, thank you; I'm happy you liked the book. To answer your interesting question about names: most of the characters went through a series of names through a series of drafts before I landed on the names they kept. Shelly was "Julie" for a while before she was Shelly, but my closest friend's sister was named that, so for various reasons the name became confusing and I felt I should change it. Wyatt was "Philip" before he was Wyatt. In a previous book "Sarah" became "Meg"--and so forth. Basically as I write I get to know the characters better and so I think of names that fit them better; in other words I try to come up with names that give a sense of their character--whether it's strength, or softness, or power, or whatever. Sometimes if a character is too soft and I'm trying to ramp up the sense of strength, I'll strengthen the name--which is what I did with Wyatt. "Jack" was easy because he just always naturally seemed like "Jack" to me. Madeline, in the beginning, had a different name, but now I don't remember what it was--there were so many drafts and changes! I hope that answers your question. Thanks for asking, and again, I'm glad you liked the book!
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Dec 08, 2023 06:19AM · flag
Dec 08, 2023 06:55PM · flag