My dad died when I was 16 years old. I’ve found out what I could about him and wrote that in a memoir I called Threshold. But, unsatisfied, I wanted to write more to honor him–as I have for my mother.

I followed Dad as far as I could. I know he served with the 158th Regimental Combat Team during World War II in the Pacific. I know his rank—Staff Sergeant— and that all but one of the men in his squad died in the battle for an airfield in Dutch New Guinea. But I had no details, the kind of things that made a story come alive. So—I made up a shadow platoon and placed it in George Company, Second Battalion 158th RCT and followed along during all of their service time.

I made up a bunch of guys and put them in the Arizona National Guard, which made up the core of the 158th. They’re Navajo and Apache, Acoma and Pima. They’re Hispanics and cowboys and I really came to like them. If fact, I liked them and they way they worked together so much that after I killed them in that battle for the airfield, I forgot they were dead and wrote them into the next battle.

In a way, that may have been fortuitous because, when I realized my mistake and write in new guys, I didn’t know as well or love the same way, I didn’t get as attached to them. I suspect, if I’m trying to understand my dad’s experience, the distance may be revealing. When Dad lost his buddies, he may have kept a little distance between himself and the new soldiers.

I accidentally developed a subplot involving his sister. Since she played a central role in my life, I think about her often. I know she and dad were very close, so I decided to write her into the story. I made up an entirely new life for her, making her the catalyst for his decisions. I hope she would have liked that.

My point here is that memoirs aren’t the only to use those family stories and all the familiar characters who inhabit them.