The Truthful
Story
1. What inspired you to write your book?
Like the character in the book, when I was nine
years old, my grandmother, with whom I had an incredibly special relationship, drowned
off the wharf of her Lowcountry home while fishing. It was a very traumatic
experience for my mother, our family and me. The people and places during that
time had a profound impact on my view of the world and inspired me to write at
an early age. When my mother died a few years ago, I knew the time had come,
and my childhood memories of family and friends and the hauntingly beautiful
landscape of the South Carolina Lowcountry provided me with everything I needed
to craft my first novel.
2. What is it about?
The Truthful Story is a literary novel set in the South Carolina
Lowcountry in the 1960s, centered around a young girl's relationship with her
grandmother. When ten-year-old Genevieve Donovan’s Nannie dies mysteriously in
the Lowcountry river she’s loved and lived near all her life, Genny and her
family are heartbroken. During this time, new industry is encroaching on old
country, and Genny fears her grandmother may have gotten in the way of
so-called progress. What’s more, ever since Nannie passed, Genny has been
hearing and seeing things she’s not sure she can share with anyone except her
mother, whose own grief is making it harder and harder to get through to
her. The Truthful Story traces a family’s journey through the
pain of loss and the survival of love.
3. What do you hope will be the everlasting thoughts for
readers who finish your book?
Long after readers finish The
Truthful Story and leave Genevieve’s world, I hope that their lasting
thoughts will focus on the courage to believe in what they cannot see and the
gifts that come from that belief. We know there are differences between all of
us, and in The Truthful Story those become evident—the gaps between
generations, between races, between people and nature, and even between life and
death. But it’s not the obvious, visible differences that really matter. In
Genevieve’s world, the message is about that beautiful, invisible space where
we can go and which is defined by the ease of generosity that flows between
those differences—a place or a moment where nothing matters except what you can
give to each other that contributes to good and hope and that lifts each other
up. It is where you see, with great clarity and no matter the differences, the
gift the other has to give, and in turn, it is where you discover your own gift
and how to to share it. In The Truthful Story, Genevieve asks her father
what this quote means from The Little Prince by Antoine de
Saint-Exupery: “Here is my secret. It is very simple: It is only with the heart
one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye.” Her father
then tells her it like how he loves her. “You can’t see love…but you can feel
it, and you can’t live without it.”
4. What advice do you have for writers?
Make time to write as often as you can about what
matters to you. Get your thoughts out of your head onto paper. As writers, we
have thousands of thought and ideas, and they’re not always cohesive ones, but
that’s okay. Like journaling, the process of transferring those may start out
as deliberate or even forced but end up spiraling into something you never saw
coming. And that something you never saw coming is very likely the story that
needs to be told. Don’t wait for that big idea, the big reveal, or the big
message to come before you start writing. Sometimes, it’s helpful to start with
a trigger or special memory point. For example, when I was writing The
Truthful Story, I knew the general direction in which I wanted to go, but I
started with one singular memory and wrote just that sentence down. It
described me, as a child, with my hand on the dark wood bannister of the
stairway in my grandmother’s old house. That bannister led me to or from all
kinds of events and conversations occurring around me as a child. And each
event around me was a story waiting to be told. So, then, I placed the
character of Genevieve there, and I let her take me the rest of the way.
5. Where do you think the book publishing industry is
heading?
I hope it is heading
toward a healthy balance between the independent and traditional publishing
worlds. As an independent film producer and now independent author, the goal is
to have an opportunity to tell your story the way only you can, choose partners
and build a team that brings both traditional and independent expertise and
experience, and benefit from the lessons learned across the entire industry. In
the end, we want our readers to get the best experience we can possibly give
them.
6. What challenges did you have in writing your book?
Because I was working a
full-time job (and a job that was the opposite of writing a novel), it was
challenging to find the time to write. But, I knew what I wanted to do, and I
committed to a schedule the best I could. I often wrote from 2am to 6am on weekdays, and I locked down many
weekends and holidays. It was hard on my family, but they were tolerant and
forgiving. The hardest part of all was leaving the story and that creative
zone, knowing that I couldn’t get to it when I wanted to. It took a
long time to finish, but it ended up being the most joyful experience I’ve ever
had.
7. If people can only buy one book this month, why should
it be yours?
In The Truthful Story,
readers will meet Genevieve, a young girl who will take them into her world
where everything is personified and where the land, the trees and the waters
literally breathe alongside a diverse cast of characters who help her navigate
a painful journey. Readers can settle in and escape and experience life through
her eyes. Genevieve takes them to the darkest times and then shows them the
light. She acknowledges despair and sadness and then lets them feel hope and
comfort. She reminds the reader about the many gifts that surround us all—to
include what her Nannie called “truthful stories.” In Genevieve’s words,
“Truthful stories are gifts—like special powers. The storytellers give the
gifts to anyone who accepts them. My grandmother taught me when someone tells
you a truthful story, it’s not like any other story. You’ll recognize it
because it has a special message inside of it, and if you listen close, you’ll
find out what it really means. If you use its special powers, the words will
jump out from the story and land inside of you and live there forever. They
change you…”
For more information, please consult: www.helenstine.com
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