Real-Life Inspiration for a Debut Novel

My childhood home was just west of Minneapolis, Minnesota, where the city’s suburbs dissolved into the farmlands of the Midwest. The same area Laura Ingalls Wilder called home in the 1800s, living with her Ma and Pa in a sod-house on the banks of Plum Creek. But it was Christmas Eve in 2005, on a silver snow covered country road that the first seeds of the Dovetails story were planted in my heart. I was a high schooler—cozy, riding in my parents’ Suburban, making the final turn to my grandparents’ home, when I spotted something new. Headlights illuminated unusual shapes moving across the darkening horizon. A group of men on horseback. Curious, I asked my parents why people were riding in the cold. My mother explained: “They’re Dakota who are marching to show they haven’t forgotten what happened here long ago.”

I felt compelled to learn what they hadn’t forgotten. And quickly I found out that the riders I crossed paths were the Dakota 38+2 Riders—a group that still rides every December from Lower Brule South Dakota to Mankato, Minnesota (330 miles)—riding to commemorate the war that resulted in the largest mass execution in United States history. The war was also the largest mass civilian casualty event until the events of September 11th, 2001. How did I not remember this from my history classes? From that Christmas on, I picked up any book I could about the US-Dakota War. I knew before my family arrived, the Ingalls and other settlers called Minnesota home. But before them? I hadn’t thought much about any others who’d been here. So, I educated myself. I learned about the Dakota-Sioux people, about proud warriors, and hunters. Years passed and my interest never waned. During graduate school I dug into the scholarly articles. I learned about the violence of westward expansion that ended many lives and changed so many others. The war that sparked the next three decades of warfare, massacre, and genocide of the Indigenous people of the plains.

Research, Writing and Publishing

Eventually I started to see the history, especially the injustices, through the lenses of two young women… over a decade of research and writing later, those lenses are now “Emma” and “Oenikika” and the history plays out through a fictional tale of Dovetails in Tall Grass. This was my approach to the research, writing and publishing process:

  • Research
    • Reading scholarly articles couldn’t take the place of walking the bluffs along the river, touching the stone of old buildings that would have echoed the gunshots of battle, or standing on the ground where 38 men lost their lives at once. Every summer, my grandmother, mother, and I visited the historical markers scattered through the countryside. These markers were almost unnoticeable along a random gravel road next to a soybean field. The three of us would stand around quiet stone statues with dandelions sprouting around the bottom. Most of the monuments featured the names of the settlers—over 600 men, women, and children—killed. Other markers listed the 38 names of Dakota men hanged after revenge-fueled trials. These peaceful rolls of prairie and sleepy country towns held so much history that mattered then and now.
    • I went to historical society meetings and listened to presentations by the Lower Sioux community.
    • Primary and secondary sources galore: I watched documentaries, read trial transcripts, listened to podcasts, scrolled the pages of comments on old history message boards.
    • I sought research recommendations from people in the Dakota-Sioux community. They pointed me in the right direction for the most useful and accurate Dakota accounts of the war.
  • Writing and Publishing
    • In the fictional story, I chose to include real people from history and draw dialogue from actual historical transcripts. I wanted readers to get close to the real events and people.
    • Capturing the factual events of the US-Dakota War on the page was extremely important and initially, I wanted to work in every single detail and follow the exact timeline of all battles in the war, etc. But once I started working with an editor, I learned how I could stay true to the history but not get locked down in chronicling every event that occurred. I dug into my protagonists’ emotional journey—and that’s where the magic happened! (Although, I still managed to sneak in historical details like the actual weather conditions for my characters to encounter).
    • I sought advice and feedback. A lot of advice and feedback. From multiple editors and beta readers. I submitted my work for webinars where it was picked apart on live virtual lessons in front of hundreds of other authors. Excruciating but very helpful.
    • After a first draft of the manuscript was complete, I worked with a Dakota writer, Diane Wilson (she’s brilliant, read her latest The Seed Keeper). She offered feedback on cultural components related to writing from a Native person’s perspective.
    • After reviewing my options and talking with a few agents out of NYC, I decided the best and most authentic fit for this type of story was to work with an indie publisher. Many of the issues of representation of diverse voices point to the systemic power differentials in the traditional publishing industry. My indie publisher was very supportive in protecting what I felt like was a feminist and authentic interpretation of the history.
    • As I’ve talked with the media and with readers about Dovetails, I root for and try to amplify Native writers and their work, as well.

Asking the “right” question

I am non-Native. One of my protagonists, Oenikika, is a Dakota-Sioux woman living in 1862. I struggled… questioning not only the “am I good enough?” and “am I an imposter” type questions that writers often wrestle—but also the question of “should I write this at all?” Should I, a non-Native, white lady write this story and include a native character?

And one of my protagonists, Emma, is a German immigrant settler. She’s white like me but I’m not a German immigrant. Did the accuracy of her lens matter less than the native one?

These are big messy questions.

This story was in my heart and on my mind all the time. When it grew within me it was always a dual narrative across both sides of the war. If I dropped the Native character that seemed like perpetuating the problem of the Native perspective missing in accounts of US History. Including Oenikika in the storytelling felt important. A power imbalance shaped the way the war was viewed. The US-Dakota war resulted in the deaths of many settlers and native people, 38 executions by the US military without fair trial, and the Dakota Expulsion act. At the end of it, the United States government retained power and the Native people did not. Although I’m not a German immigrant, white settlers were not banned from the state of Minnesota like the Dakota, a fact I likely benefited from in the course of history. Ethically, to me, a priority did exist to take extra care and evaluation of writing the Native lens (the more “other” other to me) well. And I chose to write through the first-person lens of two women in history. Across cultures, women’s experience in war is largely underrepresented. My goal in Dovetails was to move toward a sense of balance and restore a bit of what was lost (albeit only in a fiction narrative). Though questions of “right” and “should” went unanswered, and I still had worries and fears, it seemed there were many “good” reasons to try writing the story that was in my heart.

During the research, I was lucky enough to ride on horseback with a leader in the Native community. He not only liked my dual-narrative premise for Dovetails, but he implored me to include Native voices in my writing. He said it mattered so much to him that this time in history lived on for readers. It was the same way I felt. Someone literally telling me, “YES, YOU SHOULD WRITE THIS!” The clarity of a “yes” to my question and the enthusiasm of his support fueled my hope and sense of purpose. Another good reason to try.

Even with his blessing, I know not everyone in the Native or non-Native community will feel the same way about my novel. Some people, more sympathetic to the settler side of the war, may think my interpretation of the history doesn’t focus enough on the hundreds of local families killed by the Dakota warriors. Some people, more sympathetic to the Native experience during the war, may feel I failed to capture Native culture accurately or shouldn’t have at all. I’m open to feedback on both points.

As a writer, I wanted to get it right on the page. As a person, I tried to get it right off the page, as well. In my actions. This war is a past shared with the Dakota people, I wanted to do something to promote reconciliation, just like the Dakota 38+2 riders did on a Winter’s eve, many Christmases ago. I wanted to do something outside of my American colonialist/capitalistic/individualistic societal lens in which I live and participate. Part of understanding Oenikika was absorbing the importance of her values and worldview. I have supported Dakota Wichohan, a Dakota language, arts, and culture revitalization program. Writing the novel and standing behind an amazing program promoted healing in my way and in the Dakota way.

There is great power in bringing a reader into the experience of another person, especially of an other person. I listen to others in the writing community speak on the topic of writing from a different cultural perspective, and I’m learning part of this work is accepting the responsibility of writing fiction well. Fiction knows no borders. Fiction is subjective. It’s the job of the artist/creator/writer to be brave, wise, and humble as he or she stands before that blank canvas or that blank word document and blinking cursor. And maybe that’s one of the great unifying elements of the human experience—we are all on this earth for a brief time: what will you choose to create while you’re here?

So, I come to the end, still asking: did I get it right? I’m not 100% certain. I am hopeful that I did. But sometimes I’m scared that my good intentions and hard work won’t protect me from getting it wrong. I think the open-endedness of that question, and of those messy feelings, is a sign getting it right isn’t a static thing. Getting it right won’t be something I got to “check off” my to do list as a writer. I need to live with that open-endedness as a person, continuing to ask the question, continuing to learn, continuing get feedback and keep searching for “right” on the page, and in life.