Shaping the Story

Now I knew a lot about William Pender's world. At first I wove two kinds of story together. I wrote about him, and then I wrote about the things around him. I shaped the personal details around the last day in his life. I had him do things I knew a cooper in his situation would do. You can see what these things are when you read the story. But I kept the factual things about his world separate from his story.

For example, I inserted small essays about the poor house, factory working conditions, and hospital conditions, and Gordon Snow's memories, as separate boxes inside the main story.

After awhile I felt this did not work. The reader kept having to jump out of William Pender's story to get at these "side" stories. That works in some writings, but I did not feel that it worked in this piece. I did not know what to do.

One night I asked this question: How would it be if I melted all the side stores into William's main story? If I put everything inside William's head, or made it apply directly to him, how would it flow?

That is what I did. I gave William Pender Gordon Snow's memories. I gave his wife the recipe for curing scarlet fever. I gave his neighbour knowledge about what went on inside the poor house. I melted all my research into his life.

That was a big step. It raised a lot of questions about how you get at the truth of a story.

And that is the main thing the story of William Pender has done to me. It has got me excited about what history is.

When you read the story of William Pender, you can be sure that it is all true. Every detail comes from real life. It comes from old newspapers and diaries, from old men's memories, from poems and songs, and from things I have seen in my own life. It comes from maps, and loneliness, and faces in old photographs. It comes from the tall stones on the South Side Hill. It comes from life and mystery. And I know now that those are the places that all our history comes from.