When we left off yesterday, we were talking with LDS author Carole Thayne about her novels and the time she spent living in Grouse Creek. If you missed that article, click here.
Carole, how did you get the ideas for your books?
While we lived in Grouse Creek I often thought about the area where we lived, how rich with history it was, and how unique of a place, but it wasn’t until after we moved and I became more serious about writing that I went back a decade to pull out memories. While we lived there one of my dearest friends became single through divorce. She is from Salt Lake and is a photographer. We lined her up with a young local rancher and they got married and she moved to the remote town. I thought, what a great place to start a story. So in “A Question of Trust,” I put my fictional character Stacey on the road to Grouse Creek and let the story unfold from there.
Herman is a delightful character that is nearly everyone’s favorite person and he is loosely based on an older man we knew who died at age 92.
After I finished with AQOT, I didn’t want to say good bye to any of my characters. They’d really become my good friends, as any writer can tell you happens. So I began a new story. It really evolved from my original intent. Herman was to be the main hero to save Kelli from the fanatics, but Sunny Day came on the scene with a burst of energy and took over. Our family had taken a trip to Montana and we kept seeing the white crosses on the sides of the state highway where people died. So I had Kelli fall apart at one of these highway memorials after she fled the Polygamists and Sunny finds her.
We will continue our conversation with Carole Thayne tomorrow. In the meantime, be sure to visit her site.
Related Blogs:
Author Interview — Linda Paulson Adams
Author Interview — Annette Lyon
Author Interview — Rachel Ann Nunes