Post date: Aug 19, 2017 6:01:40 PM
This is the story of two couples who were friends.
The names have been changed to protect the identities. The story below is in her words told to her daughter.
HL learned to drive when she was 19. She took her driver’s test in a brand new car, a Nash. The instructor was more interested in the car then how well she was doing!
HL met her first husband, G, through friends and together they had a child, RM, born in 1950. After she divorced, she met DH at a weekly dance at a Park. She was with her friends Dot and Hud when DH came walking over to their car to talk to them. DH and HL married at the Presbyterian Church in Decatur in 1955. Earl and Peg stood up and witnessed the union.
This is the real true story.
The car HL was driving for her driver’s test belonged to her husband or boyfriend, G. She may have met DH at a weekly dance at a park; however, DH was married to MH. They had a child, DA (born in 1951).
HL and G went on a vacation trip to the Smokey Mountains. They took RM, their child with them.
DH and MH went on the trip with them. They took DA, their child with them.
[I have the pictures to prove the above paragraph.]
[Therefore, if HL and G went on a trip together with DH and MG; it is impossible for HL to have been divorced and meeting DH for the first time at a dance.]
Both couples end up getting a divorce due to various reasons. Their union brought together the two children, who became step-siblings.
Why would HL tell the story in such a different way from what actually happened?
The answer is to protect someone from knowing the real truth. [Possibly to hide an affair?]
DA has the pictures from the vacation because his mother MH kept those pictures and the pictures were found after MH’s death.
After HL passed away DA was talking with RM and asked if he knew about the vacation the two families took together. RM did not know about it, he had never seen the pictures.
For RM’s whole life, he never knew the truth about his family and how his mother and step-father met.
Perspective and paradigm give your characters depth and dimension and help to establish what they know and didn’t know and how they took that knowledge and made their history match that knowledge. That knowledge can be based upon truths or lies.
It is up to you, Dear Writer and Dear Reader, to take those truths or lies and how it impacts your characters.