The Disappearance of Trudy Solomon by Marcy McCreary Spotlight Book Tour, Guest Post & Giveaway! {Ends Oct 28}

Ch Ch Ch Changes by Marcy McCreary

A lot of readers have asked me if I ever make “big” changes after writing the first draft. The answer is yes. For example, when I finished the first draft of The Disappearance of Trudy Solomon, I wasn’t totally satisfied with how I treated the Trudy Solomon “mini-chapters.” In that first draft, Trudy’s vignettes were flashbacks to her earlier life interspersed between the main chapters (in an attempt to give Trudy a POV in her own story). But, that approach didn’t feel quite right. I wanted the reader to experience Trudy in her current state, with Alzheimers, thinking back to moments in her life in the befuddled way that dementia patients do.

After doing research on “validation therapy,” (a technique for communicating with people who have dementia in a way that acknowledges their words, even if what they are saying is not their current reality) I decided to use this technique as the basis for the Trudy scenes. After a couple of rewrites, I was finally satisfied with how I spun this aspect of the story. I think it makes for a much richer and more interesting way to learn what happened to Trudy and show how much of her life she remembers . . . or thinks she remembers. And by writing Trudy’s vignettes in this manner, the reader has to discern what is fact . . . and what is fiction. Which, in my opinion, is the essence of a good mystery—the exploration of a person’s unique capacity for deceit (or self deception) whether the person is aware of it, or not.