Two interesting facts about Carnage:
- It is my first stand-alone Romance novel
- It is actually based on a true story
That’s right. . . This book is based on a true story and the events did indeed happen in someone’s life. I knew the main character in this story (Sam). We weren’t friends, but as it often happens, this person decided to tell me their life story one day. I found the whole thing so thrilling and heart felt that I recorded the key facts as soon as we had finished talking and then set about creating a fictional story that included the main elements.
In some ways this made it easier to write because I already knew the beginning, the middle and the end, however it also made it harder because I had to stick to these key happenings and not deviate as my imagination kicked into overdrive, which often happens in the middle of my stories. There were some other challenges also. The lady who shared her story is Indonesian and my stories have a British setting. These societies and cultures have different social constructs that would not make sense to the other, therefore I had to find a believable way to progress the story from one happening to another and that required some creative problem solving (thankfully writers are great at this anyway).
Regardless of the challenges, the story was one that I had to write. It is so tragic, so emotive, so heartfelt; basically, all the ingredients a Romance writer enjoys writing about and a Romance reader enjoys reading.
As a friend, family member, writer I always hear true life tales which leave me amazed, confounded, heartbroken. I always wonder: what if I wrote that story . . .
Even my own life story . . .
I have not asked permission, nor told the person that I have written this story. We know each other in the loosest sense and it was her choice to tell me those things. Regardless, the story would be completely unrecognizable to the person involved. A story set in the UK really does look/read different to a story set in the Indonesia.
It always amazes me how truth is stranger than fiction, I have heard many gossipy tales of people’s life stories, often people that I do not even know, told to me by friends and I always wonder: could I write a story about this . . .
Well now I know! However, this will be the last one based on facts for a long while!
Carnage will be live on 14th Feb 2020. Preorder now!