TRUTH TO FICTION

By Jerry D. Pate

I have written an historical-fiction account of a cotton mill based on the inspiration of my late mother-in-law. She had to work in a cotton mill near Joanna, SC, when she was 8-years old during the Great Depression. While the plot is complete, the story is not.

My experience as a broadcast news reporter was very helpful for researching the process of turning raw cotton into cloth. Clemson University provided great information.

But writing fiction was hampered by my default setting of writing everything as if it were a newscast, or narrative, in passive voice, i.e. no flora or fauna, sounds or smells and certainly no descriptions of people.

My story is based upon SC history of the Civil War, the myth of the Lost Cause, the 1876 elections that restored the old blue-bloods to power who enacted Jim Crow laws, and the murder of seven striking textile workers at Chiquola Mill in Honea Path, SC, in 1934.

I’ve used information about these but translated the events into fictional accounts featuring characters I’ve created.

Thanks to suggestions from our writing workshop I’ve been able to turn my original, documentary-like, draft into a story of living, breathing characters with colors and strife. Not done yet. More work is needed.

Again with a nod to the writing group, I’ve also realized that writing is a process…not an event.