Behind the Stories: Why I Write

By Lloyd W. Alexander

Some of my stories have lived with me for more than twenty years. For a long time, they were ideas, memories, questions, and characters I carried around in my head. Getting them onto the page has been satisfying. Letting them go into the world is another matter.

When you write a book, you spend a great deal of time with people who, in one way or another, become important to you. You build their lives, learn their habits, and decide what matters to them. Then comes editing. You have to ask whether every scene serves the story—even scenes you love.

That was especially difficult with Let Her Choose. I wrote it believing that everything matters: a small detail today might become important many chapters later. But sometimes ten clues are too many when three or five will allow readers to make discoveries for themselves. Editing is not simply cutting words. It's deciding how much to reveal, how much to trust the reader, and how to preserve the people you've created.

Molly was particularly hard to trim. She was inspired by my own dog, Molly, and removing moments with her sometimes felt like losing little pieces of her life all over again. Eventually I came to see it differently. I wasn't taking Molly away. I was helping readers reach the heart of who she was.

The same care guides The Bug Light Boys, although that project comes from a different place. Through those stories, I get to spend more time with men who taught me about humor, acceptance, kindness, and belonging. I want readers to feel as though they're sitting there with Charlie, laughing with Big Donnie and Slim Donnie, and noticing the wildlife that wanders into their world. The stories are a way to share what those men gave me.

History is another part of the journey. In Three Women in Red and other fiction, I enjoy starting with a real place, a genuine mystery, or an overlooked detail and imagining a story around it. I don't believe we should reshape history to suit fiction. We can shape fiction around what history tells us, and be clear about where the record ends and imagination begins. I hope readers will follow the references, visit the places, and make discoveries of their own.

Sometimes those discoveries begin on a walk with Belle. Her curiosity makes me look again at old stonework, forgotten foundations, and places where something once stood. While exploring the Limington area for a future story, I found myself asking who had walked those paths before us and what their lives had been like. On one walk, I stood quietly watching a deer that watched me in return. Belle eventually sat beside me, unaware of the exchange. Moments like that remind me why I spent so many years photographing wildlife.

My goal with photography was never merely to show an animal. I wanted you to feel as though you were standing there with me. I tried to capture what was truly in front of the camera, not create something different afterward. I want my writing to do the same thing: put you in the place, let you feel the moment, and give you room to discover its meaning.

And then comes publication. You can announce a book in seconds, but reading it takes time. The quiet afterward can be difficult. Numbers may tell me how many people visited a page or opened a book, but they can't tell me whether someone laughed with the Boys, cared about Molly, or felt curious enough to explore a piece of history. I'm less interested in counting people than in connecting with them.

So I keep writing. I try to make each story as true as I can—to its characters, its setting, its emotional heart, and, when history is involved, to the historical record. I know I can't control what every reader will take away. But I can give the work my care, and then trust it to find its way.

If one of these stories makes you smile, remember someone who mattered to you, look a little closer at the world around you, or ask who walked here before us, then sharing it has been worthwhile.

— Lloyd W. Alexander

© 2026 Lloyd W. Alexander. All rights reserved.