Thursday, April 2, 2015

Making it Real ... by Sara Sue Hoklotubbe

I didn’t grow up wanting to be a writer. Instead, I had lofty goals of being a lawyer or a politician, or someone who could change the world. It wasn’t until I got married in midlife, moved to Maui and couldn’t get a job, that the idea of writing came out of nowhere. My husband encouraged me to pursue writing and that’s all I needed. I took a writing course to remind me of all those things I’d learned years earlier in college, and when the instructor told me my name would look good on the front of a book, there was no turning back.

I decided to write the kind of books I like to read – fiction, yet real enough that the characters walk right off the page and into the reader’s life. I had always loved reading Tony Hillerman books. He was a master at weaving a mystery into Navajo culture, and when I closed the book I always felt like I’d learned something. If he could do that for the Navajo, why couldn’t I do something similar for my people – the Cherokee?

The concept was in place. My protagonist would be an amateur sleuth, a mixed-blood Cherokee, a thirty-something, single woman who was savvy and smart. All I had to do now was create believable characters and stories. There would be no generic Indians, no bare-back riding braves in breech cloths stealing blonde, blue-eyed girls. I would stick with current-day life in the Cherokee Nation where I grew up.

But how would I make it real? The first advice beginning writers get is to write what they know and that’s what I did. If I didn’t know it, I relied on research and personal interviews.

Before I ran off to paradise and became a writer, I spent twenty-one years as a banker. While I never had to stare down the barrel of a bank robber’s gun, one of my coworkers wasn’t so lucky. One morning she entered her branch without a security officer and ended up on the floor, bound with telephone cords, not sure if she was going to live or die. I used her story and the fear in her eyes to recreate a believable bank robbery in Deception on All Accounts. I relied not only on what I knew, but what I learned from my friend.

In The American Café, childhood memories of my aunt’s café in a small rural town brought my setting to life. All I had to do was add the murder plot which turned out to be much easier because of the comfortable surroundings I’d created.

Sinking Suspicions features a Cherokee man, a World War II veteran who was stationed on Maui with the Fourth Marine Division and fought in some of the bloodiest battles in the Pacific. Writing about Maui was easy; writing about the war took a lot of research. I spent hours in the local library reading history books and old newspapers, but my best information came from more than a dozen old-timers who were more than happy to share their personal experiences about what it was like to live on Maui during the war.

My philosophy of writing what I know and dedication to research paid off for me when I submitted my first manuscript. In a letter from the University of Arizona Press, the acquiring editor said she liked my writing because it didn’t have any mythical, stereotypical Indians that are so prevalent in books and movies today. My characters, she said, were real.

As a fiction writer, most of the scenes come straight from my imagination, but I always strive to make them real. I have received letters from readers all over the country thanking me for touching their lives with my stories. I guess I didn’t need to be a lawyer or a politician to make a difference, after all. I like being a writer much better.

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Sara Sue Hoklotubbe is the author of the award-winning Sadie Walela Mystery Series set in the Cherokee Nation where she grew up. She is the winner of the WILLA Literary Award for Original Softcover Fiction, the New Mexico-Arizona Book Award for Best Mystery, and the Mystery of the Year Award given by Wordcraft Circle of Native Writers and Storytellers.

Sara’s latest release, Sinking Suspicions, (University of Arizona Press, 2014) debuted at the 2014 National Book Festival in Washington, D.C. where she was one of nine fiction authors invited to speak.

Sara and her husband live in southwestern Colorado. You may contact her through her website or on Facebook.

Sinking Suspicions has been named a finalist for two awards: The 2014 Foreword IndieFab Book of the Year and the 2015 Oklahoma Book Awards (winners will be announced on Saturday, April 11. Keep your fingers crossed). The book was also chosen as the March Book of the Month by Native America Calling, a nationwide live radio show broadcast from Albuquerque. The March 25 interview is available now for listening at www.nativeamericacalling.com.

7 comments:

Alex J. Cavanaugh said...

Wow, scary your co-worker had to go through that. Glad she lived.

Anonymous said...

Pat - Thanks very much for hosting Sara Sue.

Sara Sue - Thanks for sharing your journey with us. I'm sorry that your co-worker had to live through such a frightening event though! I completely agree that that the more real characters and stories are, the better the books are. And we do that by allowing our inspiration to 'mine' what we've experienced and heard. Wishing you much continued success.

Susan Gourley/Kelley said...

An interesting path to becoming a writer. It takes special talent to make fictional characters seem real.

John Paul McKinney said...

I've always liked Tony Hillerman, too. Now I want to read a Cherokee novel, Sounds like good entertainment and education at the same time. Thank you for the interesting post.

Hilary Melton-Butcher said...

Hi Pat and Sara Sue - what an interesting journey ... and obviously you've got it right with your story telling and have been savvy enough to know the ins and outs .. glad you were able to use Maui too as a setting ..

Congratulations - and I'm just glad I haven't been held up ever .. Happy Easter to you both - Hilary

Sara Hoklotubbe said...

Thank you, Patricia, for having me as your guest today. My apologies for not being able to respond earlier, but I'm home now and delighted to read these nice comments!

Wado (Thank you) from the bottom of my heart.

Sara

Sara Hoklotubbe said...

I can't seem to figure out how to reply to each comment, so I'm going to lump them together here.

Alex -- Yes, it was very scary. I don't think she ever got over it.

Margot -- Thank you for your comment. "Mining" what we've experienced is an excellent way to put it.

Susan -- It has indeed been an interesting journey, but I'm glad I've made it this far. I believe it takes a little talent and a lot of hard work.

John -- If you like Tony Hillerman, I think you'll enjoy my books. When Tony wrote a blurb for my first book my toes didn't touch the ground for a week!

Hilary -- Thank you for stopping by. I'm glad I was able to use Maui, too. Maui is in my blood now, and may remain there forever! I'm glad we've never been held up, as well. Happy Easter to you, too!

Sara