Writing Lessons from Laura Ingalls Wilder: Cutting What Doesn't Belong

I had planned four Laura Ingalls Wilder lessons for July, and then I was going to move on. However, my plans, like my fiction writing, are flexible.

As I prepared last month’s blog posts, I became interested in Laura’s first book, which was an actual autobiography (not a fictionalized version) written for adults. The manuscript was not published in either Laura’s or Rose’s lifetime, but it is now available as Pioneer Girl: The Annotated Autobiography edited (and annotated) by Pamela Smith Hill. I didn’t have it, so I found it on Amazon and bought a copy.

Laura’s Pioneer Girl manuscript went through several drafts, most of which contained Rose’s edits. To get as close to Laura’s voice as possible, Hill used the original unedited draft and noted where the changes occurred in subsequent versions. This manuscript apparently became the master reference for Laura when writing the Little House books, so Hill also noted the differences between Laura’s recollections of her life and the fictionalized versions.

One issue hinted at in The Selected Letters of Laura Ingalls Wilder and explicitly mentioned in the Pioneer Girl annotations is the choice to cut out some incidents and details that didn’t contribute to the fictional stories. Laura’s reluctance to cut some of these details resonates with me because I have the same problem.

On the Banks of Plum Creek contains a scene where Laura plays on a plank used as a bridge. The creek is swollen from the spring rains, and Laura is almost swept away in the rushing waters. In real life, Ma was very sick and Laura was trying to reach the neighbor on the other side of the stream to ask him to go to town and telegraph for the doctor, who was 40 miles away. Why did the scene get transformed? Here is part of the exchange of letters between Laura and Rose, as quoted in note 66 on page 85 of the annotated Pioneer Girl.

“I am doubtful about Ma’s sickness,” Lane wrote her mother on June 13, 1936. “It is such a wretched miserable time, and in that kind of nasty grasshopper atmosphere, I think the grasshoppers are enough. I believe it would be better to cut out Ma’s sickness altogether.” But, she added, “the part about the creek is a pity to leave out.” Wilder, however, considered the entire episode important. She wrote Lane, “I do think the picture of two little girls doing what they did while Ma was sick and the fact that it was nothing for a Dr to be 40 miles away and no auto, would make a great impression on children who are so carefully doctored in schools and all.” [Internal cites omitted.]

In the end, Laura agreed to cut Ma’s sickness from On the Banks of Plum Creek.

When writing my historical fiction, I often want to include details and events that I believe my audience should learn about. Unfortunately, not all of them add to the story, and some even detract from it. And Laura and I aren’t the only ones who have struggled with this problem. I have read and critiqued other authors dealing with the same issue.

It hurts me to cut educational scenes that don’t add to the story, but I am getting better at it. For the reader, the story comes first, and the writer needs to honor that.

That’s this week’s lesson from Laura Ingalls Wilder.

__________

The photo shows the banks of Plum Creek near Walnut Grove, Minnesota. The sign marks the spot where the Ingalls’ dugout was located. I took the picture in 2010.

Writing Lessons from Laura Ingalls Wilder: Does Age Matter?

No—and yes.

If the question is whether it matters how old you are when you start writing, the answer is “no.” Laura was 43 when she started her professional career writing a column in a local newspaper. She was 63 when she wrote her first book: an autobiography that she couldn’t find a publisher for. Little House in the Big Woods was published when she was 65, and These Happy Golden Years was published when she was 76. As long as you have your health, it’s never too late to start.

Of course, old age can interfere. Laura left a draft manuscript, which was published years after her death and titled The First Four Years. Her later writing was hindered by rheumatism, caring for Almanzo before his death, and her own declining energy level after it. But age itself isn’t an excuse not to write.

If the question is whether it matters how old your audience is, the answer is “yes.” Laura’s first attempt at a book was an autobiography written for adults, but she couldn’t find a publisher. Then Rose met a children’s book editor who liked the idea of a children’s book based on Laura’s frontier memories. Laura envisioned Little House in the Big Woods as a way to preserve Pa’s stories and pass them down to children. It sold well, and she followed with Farmer Boy (about Almanzo’s childhood), Little House on the Prairie, and on through These Happy Golden Years. She found her niche in writing for children.  

That doesn’t mean it was an easy path.

I’ve always been struck by the difference between Little House in the Big Woods and the subsequent books. Little House in the Big Woods is a shorter book that seems to be aimed at early readers and even younger listeners, while the later books are aimed at a slightly older audience of readers from 8 through 12 years old. I personally think that Laura could have continued writing at the Little House in the Big Woods level and attracting new members of that audience, but I don’t think she would have captured the middle grade readers who ended up being her biggest fans. Instead, the books aged as the characters did. Up to a point, anyway.

If you remember the post from two weeks ago, this was a point of contention between Laura and Rose. As Laura said in a January 26, 1938 letter to Rose: “Just a word more about Silver Lake. You fear it is too adult. But adult stuff must begin to be mixed in, for Laura is growing up.” The final does include some of the matters that Rose apparently complained about, such as a riot by the railroad workers, but they may have compromised on the descriptions or changed situations to soften the effect. Unfortunately, I don’t have the original manuscript to compare with the published version.  

In any event, Laura had a point. In that same letter, she mentioned that her readers “all seem wildly interested and want to know how, where, and when Laura met Almanzo and about their getting married. . . . Surely Laura will have to be rather adult then. And I think it will be more reasonable and easier to begin mixing it in, in Silver Lake.”

Whatever compromise Laura and Rose came up with worked. Laura got her way about including more adult matters as the books progressed. But even when Laura and Almanzo were dating, the books remained wholesome and readable for their middle grade audience.

Some people are best when writing for adults, some excel when writing for young children, and others fall somewhere in between. Even children’s writers cover a wide range. I tried writing early chapter books and failed miserably, and I’d probably be even worse at writing picture books. But I’m confident with middle grade fiction.

The age of the writer doesn’t matter, but the age of the audience does.

That’s this week’s lesson from Laura Ingalls Wilder.

__________

The photo shows Rocky Ridge Farm in Mansfield, Missouri, where Laura lived while writing the Little House books. I took the picture in 2010.

Writing Lessons from Laura Ingalls Wilder: Using Theme to Hold the Story Together

Each of Laura’s books had a theme that unified the story. The theme wasn’t the story, however. It was the glue that held the story together.

In a January 25, 1938 letter from Laura to Rose, Laura said that homesteading was the theme of By the Shores of Silver Lake. But the theme wasn’t obvious on the surface of the story. As Laura explained in that same letter: “The book is bound to be mostly about the R.R. and town, for securing the homestead in spite of difficulties is the story, and being at home at last on the homestead, at last is the climax and finish.” (The italics are in the original.)

Then there are those books where the theme overshadowed—or perhaps became—the plot. These passages are from a February 19, 1938 letter from Laura to Rose. The story under discussion became The Long Winter.

            Here is what is bothering me and holding me up. I can’t seem to find a plot or pattern as you call it.

            There seems to be nothing to it, only the struggle to live, through the winter, until spring comes again. This, of course, they all did. But is it strong enough or can it be made strong enough, to supply the necessary thread running through the book?

            I could make a book with the plot being Laura’s struggles to be, and success in becoming a teacher, with the Hard Winter and all being obstacles overcome on the way. Laura taught the next winter you know.

            I could tell of the hard winter, how school closed. Laura studied at home, going to school next summer from the farm. And how she was only well started in school the next winter when she had to quit to go teach. She would never be able to go to school and learn to be a teacher. She just was a teacher without. Get the idea? That would be a plot. It would not make the book too long. But it seems to weaken it. To be sort of anti-climactic after the Hard Winder and it couldn’t have that name. I don’t like it. But where is the plot in Hard Winter?

Laura followed her instincts and didn’t use her quest to become a teacher as the plot. I’m not even sure I can find a discernable plot in The Long Winter, unless it is the fight to survive. But that didn’t ruin the book for me. In fact, it was my favorite Little House book as a child and on my first re-read as an adult.

It works because it has a cohesive theme. The struggle to live is strong enough to supply the necessary thread running throughout the book.

It’s nice to have a strong plot, but it isn’t always necessary when the book has a good theme that holds the story together.

That’s this week’s lesson from Laura Ingalls Wilder.

__________

Nobody knows exactly where the Little House on the Prairie was located, but the picture shows one possible site. I visited this spot in Kansas with my mother in 2010. The cabin was built from the description in the book.

Writing Lessons from Laura Ingalls Wilder: Should you trust your editor or your instincts?

Laura’s daughter, Rose Wilder Lane, provided suggestions on the Little House books, acting much as a substantive editor would. Laura appreciated Rose’s input, but she didn’t always agree with it. And sometimes their differences took a while to work out.

Take a blizzard scene from On the Banks of Plum Creek. Pa is gone when the blizzard comes, and Ma goes to the barn to do the chores. It appears that Rose caught a POV error where Laura was seeing what Ma was doing without being there with her. Rose suggested that Ma take the character Laura along, but Ma would never have risked it, and the author Laura wasn’t willing to write an unrealistic scene. Laura and Rose eventually agreed on a third approach. Instead of going to the barn physically, Laura follows Ma in her mind as she imagines what Ma would be doing each minute she is gone.

Laura and Rose’s biggest disagreements involved By the Shores of Silver Lake. Here is just some of their correspondence:

January 26, 1938 Letter from Laura to Rose

            Just a word more about Silver Lake. You fear it is too adult. But adult stuff must begin to be mixed in, for Laura is growing up.

            * * *

            We can’t spoil this story by making it childish. Not and keep Laura as the heroine. And we can’t change heroines in the middle of the stream and use Carrie in the place of Laura.

January 28, 1938 Letter from Laura to Rose

            I like your idea of the beginning less and less the more I think of it. That was the way I tried to start it but all the objections I have mentioned cropped up as I wrote it. It made too much of Plum Creek. We don’t want to go back there. . . .

            It made an unpleasant beginning, a tale of sickness and failure and death. We don’t want to tell of Jack’s dying. Nor of Mary’s sickness. Nor of Pa’s failure so that it was necessary for him to make a new start because he hadn’t gained anything by all his hard work. The readers must know all that but they should not be made to think about it. The story of Silver Lake is connected with Plum Creek close enough in Laura’s mind and her thoughts are given to the reader, but it is second hand and the knowledge isn’t even sad, as it would be your way. It will be passed over lightly by the reader in the interest of the new adventure which is already begun.

            I’m afraid that I am going to insist that the story starts as I started it.

February 3, 1938 Letter from Rose to Laura

            You certainly are handling the material much better all the time, and if you don’t want this book touched, you’re absolutely right not to have it touched. . . .

            I don’t say that Harper’s won’t take this manuscript as it stands. They’ll take it on your reputation, and publish it; any publisher will. But you’ll lose your audience for future books, and cut your income, unless you work it over, and work it over by concentrating on every word and sentence until you know precisely what its values are, why you use it. . . . There’s a lot of fine stuff in it that doesn’t need to be touched, and there is deadwood, and clumsy spots and a lack of sufficient sharpness of identification with Laura.

            * * *

            It’s your book, and if you want to send it to Harpers as is, that’s all right with me. I’m only telling you what will happen if you do. You can do that, or you can work at the manuscript, till you bring it all up to the level of its best parts now. Unless you want to do that work on it, my advice would be to make it your last book and not do any more. This book as it is will go on your reputation, but it will not add to it, in my opinion.

February 19, 1938 Letter from Laura to Rose

            You don’t know how much good your letter did me and I can’t tell you. You see I know the music but I can’t think of the words.

            * * *

            Anyway your letter picked me up and gave me courage. It is sweet of you to say the nice things you did about my writing and I will try to deserve them more.

In the end, Laura and Rose reached a compromise. Rose basically got her way on how the book began, but Laura got to keep some of the more "adult" material, such as rioting by the workers constructing the railroad. Both may have been toned down, but I can't tell without the original draft for comparison.

The dispute didn’t harm the close relationship between Laura and Rose, and Laura was always gracious about receiving criticism. Here is an earlier letter, this time to her publisher:

March 21, 1933 Letter from Laura to Ida Louise Raymond

            Indeed I am very grateful to you for giving me your frank opinion of Farmer Boy.

            An honest opinion even though not favorable is much more to be desired than one more flattering if insincere.

Sometimes you have to trust your editor, and sometimes you have to trust your instincts. But always accept the editor’s critique with careful thought and good grace.

That’s this week’s lesson from Laura Ingalls Wilder.

__________

The picture shows Rose Wilder Lane and, according to Wikimedia Commons, it was taken sometime before 1921. The photo is in the public domain because of its age.

Writing Lessons from Laura Ingalls Wilder: Fact versus Fiction

This 4^th of July, it is only fitting to write about a quintessentially American author. Actually, I’m dedicating an entire month to writing lessons from Laura Ingalls Wilder.

I’ve always been a fan of the Little House books. I even took my mother on a Laura Ingalls Wilder road trip in 2010, visiting the places where she had lived. So when Roland was looking for a Mothers’ Day gift this year, he bought The Selected Letters of Laura Ingalls Wilder, edited by William Anderson. That’s the main source material for these posts.

The Little House books were mostly true, and Laura often replied to fan letters with statements like this one: “The books are true, you know. All those things happened to me and my parents and sisters, just as I have written them.” In another letter, she described By the Shores of Silver Lake this way: “The book is not a history, but a true story founded on historical fact.”

Laura wrote and marketed her books as children’s stories, not as autobiographies or memoirs. That gave her license to change scenes and even invent them, although she kept the new material consistent with her life at the time. Her letters point out a number of places where she altered the facts for the sake of the story. Some I was able to guess ahead of time or knew from other sources, but some were new information. Read this partial list and see how many you bought into and how many you knew were fiction.

·         In the books, Laura lived in the Big Woods of Wisconsin when she was four and five and moved to Indian Territory when she was six. In reality, Laura was only three when she lived in Indian Territory (the subject of Little House on the Prairie), and what she remembers and tells in Little House in the Big Woods probably occurred after they returned to Wisconsin, not before they moved to Indian Country.

·         The books also leave out the year or two that the Ingalls lived in Burr Oak, Iowa, which occurred between the events in On the Banks of Plum Creek and By the Shores of Silver Lake. Laura thought that including the time at Burr Oak would make the series too long and introduce too many new characters.

·         At the beginning of By the Shores of Silver Lake, most of the Ingalls family is recovering from scarlet fever, which took Mary’s sight. In reality, Mary lost her sight from spinal meningitis, and the scarlet fever itself seems to be made up. Laura didn’t think her readers would understand spinal diseases. She also tried to use the scarlet fever to mask the missing years in her narrative. The family did move back to the Plum Creek area after living in Iowa, though, so the starting location is correct in By the Shores of Silver Lake.

·         Nellie Olesen shows up living in De Smet in Little Town on the Prairie and These Happy Golden Years. In reality, she never did move to De Smet. The scenes involving her did happen, however. Laura just substituted Nellie for the girl who really lived them.

·         In By the Shores of Silver Lake, Mr. Edwards shows up at the land office and saves Pa’s claim. Laura admitted that this scene is entirely fictional. She added it because her readers were begging her for more stories about Mr. Edwards.

Creative fiction such as autobiographies and memoirs must stick close to facts. Minor adjustments that fill in gaps are okay as long as they are consistent with the story, but significant changes are not. So how did Laura get away with it?

Laura’s stories were not exact replicas of her life, but that’s okay because they were not marketed as autobiographies or memoirs. Even as a child I thought of them as stories based on her life, not as unadulterated facts. And Laura referred to the stories together as her life in novel form.

So if you want to write about your life but it needs a few enhancements to make it interesting to readers, no problem. Simply bill it as fiction or as a story “based on” your life.

That’s this week’s lesson from Laura Ingalls Wilder.

__________

The picture of the Ingalls family was taken around 1894 and is in the public domain because of its age. Seated from left to right are Caroline (Ma), Charles (Pa), and Mary. Standing from left to right are Carrie, Laura, and Grace.

On the Road With Laura Ingalls Wilder--Part III

Since Mama and I didn't want to backtrack, we vistited the Indian Territory site (Little House on the Prairie) outside Independence, Kansas near the end of our trip rather than near the beginning. In the books, Laura moved from the big woods in Wisconsin to Indian Territory and then to Plum Creek in Minnesota. In real life, the Ingalls family moved back to Wisconsin and stayed there for several years before moving to Plum Creek.

The place designated as the Kansas site for Laura's cabin contains a replica of the cabin; an old post office and an old one-room schoolhouse that are both original but were moved to this site and have nothing to do with Laura; and a hand-dug well. Mama saw most of it but decided not to walk the few extra steps to see the well.

At the cabin, a string fed through a hole in the door to open the inside latch. In Little House on the Prairie, Laura describes her father fixing up the string so he could pull it through the hole at night to "lock" the door from the inside.

I'm not sure if this is the real site, or if somebody just decided to call it that. Laura describes their homestead as being 40 miles from Independence and this place is only 13 miles away. But Laura did change the facts for drama sometimes, or her young memory may have gotten it wrong.

Our last Laura Ingalls Wilder stop was also her last. Laura and Almanzo moved to Mansfield, Missouri, while their daughter, Rose, was still young (On the Way Home), and they spent the rest of their lives there. Rose moved to California and eventually to Connecticut, but she is buried next to her parents in the Mansfield cemetery. That's the first place we went when we arrived. Unfortunately, the engraving on Laura and Almanzo's grave is almost the same color as the tombstone, so the writing doesn't show up very well in a photo.

From there, we went to Rocky Ridge Farm to see the house and museum. The museum contains lots of original Ingalls and Wilder items, including Pa's fiddle.

Our admission fee included guided tours of two houses. The farm house is still furnished with Laura's furniture and is pretty much as she left it when she died. The picture at the beginning of this post shows the house from the side. Almanzo built the part on the left first, and he added the part on the right later.

Rose had her own fame as an author (before her mother even wrote the Little House books) and as a newspaper correspondent, and she must have done okay financially. She wanted to give her parents a more modern house, so they let her build them a stone house (called "the rock house"). Laura wrote her first four books while living in the rock house.

After settling her parents in the rock house, Rose moved into the farm house. Eight years later, she decided she'd had enough of small town life and left. As soon as she vacated the premises, Laura and Almanzo moved back to the farm house, where they felt more at home. Laura wrote her other books there.

When we first arrived at Rocky Ridge Farm, I noticed that the parking lot was on the other side of the road and was worried that Mama wouldn't be able to walk that far. Then I saw a sign indicating that there was handicapped parking at the museum/farm house, so we went ahead and turned in there. We also drove past the regular parking at the rock house and parked much closer. The walk wouldn't have bothered most people, but we were glad for the handicapped parking (and yes, we did have a permit).

It was a good trip, and I recommend it for any Laura Ingalls Wilder fan. (And if you aren't one yet, get the books and read them.) But I'm grateful I could travel by car instead of covered wagon.

On the Road With Laura Ingalls Wilder--Part II

From Plum Creek, Mama and I traveled to De Smet, South Dakota, where we did our most extensive sightseeing. We started with a tour that took us inside two houses. The first was the Surveyors' House, where the Ingalls lived their first winter in De Smet (By the Shores of Silver Lake). That house (shown in the picture) is the actual house and has been restored to its original condition, although it is no longer in the same location. They don't let anyone upstairs, but they have it set up the way it would have been in Laura's time, and mirrors at the top of the stairs reflect the way the attic would have looked with the girls' beds in it.

The site also contained the school Laura attended (The Long Winter and Little Town on the Prairie) and a replica of the first school where Laura taught (These Happy Golden Years).

We then got in our car and followed the guide (in her car) to the Ingalls' house in town. This is where Pa and Ma and Mary lived until they died. Laura was already married by the time Pa built the town house, so she never lived there.

The town house is about seven blocks from the Surveyors' House, so I'm not sure if driving is the normal procedure or if they usually walk and were just accommodating Mama's 90-year-old legs.

The guide took us through the first floor, and I went upstairs as well. Mama couldn't climb the stairs, so the guide showed her a book with pictures of the second floor.

Next, we drove to the cemetery and saw the family graves (all in a row) for Pa, Ma, Laura's son (who died when he was just a few days old), Mary, and Carrie. We forgot to walk a few feet farther on to see the grave where Grace is buried with her husband, but it is there, too.

After that, we took another road to the site where Laura and Almanzo homesteaded after they got married (The First Four Years). All you can see now is a sign marking the spot. Actually, the sign says more about Rose being born there than it does about Laura and Almanzo. But it was close by and worth the short drive.

Finally, we drove to the Ingalls' homestead, where Laura lived in the summers until she got married. While at the homestead, I walked out to a replica of the Ingall's claim shanty, but Mama went no farther than the gift shop. The walking was easy for me, but it was over a gentle hill, and the claim shanty wasn't close to the parking lot. Then, as we left the homestead, we stopped and saw some cottonwood trees that Pa had planted.

Mama and I spent the next day in the car on our way to Burr Oak, Iowa. That's the one place Laura never wrote about. Her stay in Burr Oak came in the middle of the Ingalls' years at Walnut Grove. If you are interested in learning more about that time, I recommend Laura Ingalls Wilder: The Iowa Story, by William Anderson.

Friends bought the Master's Hotel in Burr Oak and asked Pa and Ma to help them run it. Since the crops had failed again, they agreed, but the Ingalls stayed only a little over a year before returning to Walnut Grove.

We took a tour through the original (restored) hotel and heard about Laura's time there. After seeing the main floor, we went outside and entered the lower level through a back door. (Everyone else on the tour went down the interior stairs, but the outside route allowed Mama to take a path with a gentle slope rather than worrying about stairs.) Mama wasn't able to climb to the top floor but did see pictures of it.

"But," you ask, "didn't Laura live in Indian Territory when she was young? And did she ever settle down for good?"

I'll answer those questions in next week's final installment.

On the Road With Laura Ingalls Wilder--Part I

I just returned from a road trip with my 90-year-old mother. When I decided to take her on a vacation, I looked for somthing that would interest both of us and wouldn't be too taxing for her (or for me).

The trip that fit the bill? Visiting the places where Laura Ingalls Wilder lived.

Most of you know who Laura Ingalls Wilder was, so I won't go into much detail. But for those of you who don't, she wrote the Little House books (Little House in the Big Woods, Little House on the Prairie, and more). She wrote them for children, but many adults like them, too.

Although some parts of the Little House books are fictionalized, Laura based them on her own life. That means our road trip took us to the real places she lived and wrote about.

Laura's family did a lot of backtracking and Mama and I didn't want to, so our trip did not follow the exact sequence of Laura's books (or her life). But it was an interesting way to learn about a beloved children's author. It is also a good trip for the young and the elderly alike. While people who have trouble walking or climbing might have to forgo a couple of items of interest, my mother was able to see most of them.

We started in Pepin, Wisconsin (Little House in the Big Woods), which is the closest town to where Laura was born. Pepin has a small museum, but it doesn't open for the season until May 15, so we didn't get to see it. I'm guessing, though, that much of the information there would have duplicated exhibits we saw at other museums.

From Pepin, we followed the signs to a wayside at the approximate location of the Ingalls' home. The wayside contains a replica of a log cabin that does not match the description in the book but was still interesting. The location is the main thing, anyway.

In her books, Laura traveled next to Indiana Territory, Kansas (Little House on the Prairie), but we left that for later. Instead, we drove to Walnut Grove, Minnesota (On the Banks of Plum Creek). Walnut Grove has a nice museum with exhibits about Laura and the TV show (which was set in Walnut Grove rather than Indian Territory, where the book of the same title took place). The museum also has a replica of a dugout and has several old buildings, most without any connection to Laura. The exhibits took two hours or less.

Next, we drove to the banks of Plum Creek, and I took the trail to the dugout site. This is one place where my mother stayed in the car. It would be an easy hike for most people, but it was a little too much for Mama's 90-year-old legs.

The picture at the head of this post shows Plum Creek, with the dugout site at the top of the bank (where the billboard-size sign is). The dugout is now just a depression in the ground, but you can see from the picture that the bank was high enough for it.

Next week's post will continue the trip with stops at De Smet, South Dakota and Burr Oak, Iowa.

Lies Encouraged Here

I recently listened to a speaker practice for a tall tales contest using a story from her own life. Tall tales (as in Paul Bunyan and Babe the Blue Ox) thrive on exaggeration, but this was an ordinary story with no embellishment. Although the way she told it made it interesting, it was not a tall tale.

Novice writers often write about their own experiences but change the names and call their stories "fiction." Members of my writers' critique group would suggest changing the facts to make the action more compelling. The usual response? "It didn't happen that way."

Calling a story a tall tale or fiction makes it okay to change the facts. So get a little creative, folks.

I'm not suggesting that a writer take a recognizable person and give him or her traits that could hurt the real person's reputation. Just changing someone's name and labeling the story "fiction" isn't enough to protect a writer from a defamation lawsuit. But changing events and adding new characters are all part of what makes fiction fiction.

I've known for years that the Little House books are only loosely based on Laura Ingalls Wilder's life, but I didn't know the first two are out of order. I discovered that only recently while researching a road trip.

The first book, Little House in the Big Woods, is set in the woods of Wisconsin when Laura is about four and her sister Carrie is a baby. That fits. Laura did live in the woods near Pepin, Wisconsin at that age, and Carrie was born when Laura was three.

But the second book, Little House on the Prairie, has a slightly older Laura on her way to and then living in Kansas Territory, and Carrie is with them when they leave Wisconsin. In real life, the Ingalls family made the trip from Pepin to Kansas Territory when Laura was two and moved back to Pepin when she was four, and Carrie was born in Kansas. So these books are not in the same order as Laura's real life.

Laura altered her life's chronology for her first two children's novels, and she probably changed other facts, too. But that's okay, because even though it's common knowledge that Laura based the Little House books on her life (and even used real names for her family), the series is labeled and sold as fiction.

So here's my message to all tall tale tellers and novice fiction writers: if lies make your story better, use them. Because they aren't really lies when it's fiction.