I'm a young writer who has been off and on this site for a few years now. I haven't been to hatrack in a couple years--when I was last posting, I was in the under 18 section.

My name is Sean and I live in Albuquerque, NM.

So here's my question.

I am currently writing a story that's essentially about my grandfather, though it is 3rd person and all the names and places are a little different (didn't want to write a biography). I have an essay that I wrote about the real person, from my POV. What do you think about including that essay (very short) as a sort of intro into the story?

First 13 lines from the essay:

"I have a very old New Mexican grandfather. He lives in the south of the state, one of the hottest, driest parts of the world. It is a tough place, but vivid and individual. Frederico Torrez was born in a town called San Patricio that sits in the Hondo river valley. The valley is a flash of green in the rocky desert around. It is full of grassy fields with small, fat, colorful cattle and apple orchards full of twisted, dwarfed trees that give ugly, delicious apples. There are well-used American cars that sit and rot under trees or in sheds; collectors would pay well for some of them. This little valley with all of its points of character, the valley that is partially my own little corner of the world, quite unknown, hard to get to, is dear to me. I love the connection I feel with the land when I am there and the laziness that catches me when I arrive, and I feel this connection because I know the stories of the land, told to me chiefly by my great grandfather. He is my great grandfather, even though I don't think of him or call him like that. To me, he is just 'granpo,' a word I have never before seen written."

Just to avoid any possible breach of etiquette, I'll post the first 13 from the story in a another thread.

1. It makes for a weird blend of the fictional and the real – one that I think would hamper the reader from sinking into your story as a picture of life. How can they do that when the real life has already been described?

2. The fragment of essay posted mostly creates a setting and tone – What is it like where your grandfather lives? How do you feel about the land, and your grandfather? All of that can be integrated into the fictional account, assuming that is the tone/setting you are trying to recreate in the story, and should be integrated to give your fiction life. You’ve already started doing that in the fictional fragment in the other thread, which makes the essay segment redundant.

3. As a reader, the essay it didn’t immediately engage my attention. The fiction fragment does a better job of that of the two. The character Joseph is in the land, feeling the wind, watching the heat-dazzled sun, not telling me about it. It makes for a more immediate immersion for the reader into the events of the story that will unfold.

I like the imagery your essay describes, and I like how it appears you are incorporating all those real-life elements into your fictional account. You could probably work the essay into a great stand-alone piece – I’ve not investigated too much into this myself, but I do think there is a market for true, slice of life, pieces like that, if that is of interest to you.

My reasoning is that the section you posted is more directed at the land and area that he lives. So I got the impression you were more in love with the place he lived than in him or anything he did. He could be the most wonderfull person in history, but you convinced me that he lived in a beutiful place.

But your description of it was quite vivid. Use that passion in your story, it will bring out the feel of the setting quite well.