Guest Blogger Jennifer AlLee: Fact in Fiction!

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When I first started writing, I believed the best thing to do was toset my stories in a town I made up. That way, I could control everything, fromthe businesses lining Main Street right down to the weather patterns. Sometimes,this really is the best way to go. But with my last two novels, I found somefabulous benefits to using honest-to-goodness, real life locations.
They come with a built-inemotional connection. Have you ever read a book or watched a movie set in a place you werefamiliar with? Or even better, in your hometown? Didn’t it give you a littlezing when you realized you knew exactly what the author was describing? You’ddriven down that street, or eaten in the same coffee shop as the maincharacter. That kind of instant emotional connection is priceless.
Even if it’s a location the reader has never been, you can achieve thesame results. In my novel, The Mother Road, about a third of the book takesplace on Route 66. Most folks in North America are at least familiar with theiconic stretch of highway, even if they’ve never driven it themselves, and havean idyllic image of what that road trip might be like.
The details have already beenworked out for you.While creating a town from scratch has its perks, it can also beexhausting. How big is the town? What kind of plant life is indigenous to thearea? What style is the architecture? The questions are endless. When you use areal, already-on-the-map location, it’s been decided for you. Of course, youneed to have that information at the ready so you can weave it into your story.Which brings us to the next point…
Research is easier than ever.Once upon a time, you really needed to visit a location to be able toget a feel for it. While there’s no substitute for the hands-on approach, it’sno longer the only way. The Internet has opened up the world. When I wasresearching Route 66, the web was my best friend. Blog posts, websites, andarticles all provided valuable information. In one scene, Natalie and hersister order a meal in The Road Kill Café. I knew they had some colorful namesfor the food options and I wanted to make sure I got them right. So I did animage search on Google for “Road Kill Café Menu” and found several menupictures that were clear enough for me to read. Now, instead of merely orderinga petit steak and fried chicken, my characters dine on Long Gone Fawn and TheChicken that Almost Crossed the Road. Much more fun.
Another oft ignored research tool is YouTube. People love to postvacation videos, and while they may not be exciting from a Travel Channelstandpoint, they are incredibly useful when you want to see what a locationlooks like. The same goes for Google Earth. In most cases, you can get a streetview of exactly where your character might be standing at any given moment.
So once you know everything there is to know about the location of yournovel, how closely do you need to stick to the facts? Must every stop light,mailbox, and gas station actually exist in real life? Or are you able to fudgeit a little? Honestly… that depends on the story. With a location like Route66, that is so beloved and documented, it was important to me to keep it 100%real. There isn’t a spot that I took my characters to along that road thatdoesn’t exist: the Oatman Hotel, Granny’s Closet, the Blue Swallow Hotel, WigwamVillage… you can visit any one of them right now.
When you’re dealing with less iconic venues, you have more leeway. Iset my latest novel, A Wild Goose Chase Christmas, in Monrovia, California. WhyMonrovia? Initially, it was for the sake of expediency. I had a very shortdeadline with AWGCC, and I didn’t have time to create a town from scratch. Foryears, I lived in and around Monrovia, so I’m very familiar with it. As itturned out, Monrovia was the perfect place to set my story. The more I wrote, themore it all fell into place, and the happier I got.
Even though I was able to use a lot of real life local color – Izzy’scraftsman style home, the Old Towne Street Fair, the YMCA – there were somethings I needed to make up. For example, Max Logan, my hunky museum curator,needed a museum to curate. Now, there are museums in Monrovia, but not wantingto step on any cultural toes, I decided to create one of my own. So I let Maxwork at the California Pioneer Museum in nearby Pasadena. Another real town,but a made up museum.
It’s an awful lot of fun weaving fact into fiction. And if you do itright, no one will even stop to wonder which is which.



 About the book - Upon her grandmother's death, Izzy Fontaine findsherself in possession of a Wild Goose Chase quilt that supposedly leads to agreat treasure. Of course, once the rest of the family finds out about it,they're determined to have a go at the treasure themselves. And, if thatweren't enough, local museum curator Max Logan claims that Grandma Isabellapromised the quilt to him. What is it about this quilt that makes everyone wantit? Is Izzy on a wild goose chase of her own, or a journey that will lead herto the treasure Gran intended?
Bio – Jennifer AlLee believes the most important thing a woman can dois find her identity in God – a theme that carries throughout her novels. Theseinclude The Love of His Brother (Five Star, 11/07), The Pastor’s Wife (AbingdonPress, 2/10), The Mother Road (Abingdon Press, 4/12) and A Wild Goose ChaseChristmas (Abingdon Press, 11/12). She's thrilled to be working on her firsthistorical series with the amazing Lisa Karon Richardson. Diamond in the Roughis the first book in the Charm and Deceit series, to be released in 2013 byWhitaker House. And, as if that's not enough, her novella Comfort & Joywill appear in the Christmas anthology, Mistletoe Memories (Barbour, 9/13).She's a member of American Christian Fiction Writers, Romance Writers ofAmerica, Christian Authors Network, and the Christian Fiction Blog Alliance.Visit Jennifer's website at www.jenniferallee.com
Ruthy here! Jennifer has graciously offered to give away 3 copies of A Wild Goose Chase Christmas today! Leave a comment to be entered and we'll announce winners in the Weekend Edition...  Also, fresh coffee inside... A selection of creamers for your discriminating palate... And donuts which we should not be eating because we should be STARVING ourselves to get slightly thinner before Christmas: A pre-emptive strike, very Seal Team 6-friendly, right????  Come on in, grab virtual food and bless you for being here today!