Scenes from childhood weave into unique novel
Joe Welch poses with the cover of his new novel, featuring the Mississippi River bluffs, with an image of a Catholic priest. The cover was designed by his son and son-in-law. The book is now available on amazon.com
MARY LOU MONTGOMERY
Joe Welch’s first foray into fiction came to life along with the new year, in the form of a novel based upon memories of his boyhood in Hannibal.
A retired attorney, the father of five and grandfather of 18, Welch sought out the opportunity to preserve memories of his childhood in Hannibal in book form, while at the same time offering a mystery component for his wife of 50 years, Sharon.
The result is “The Mayfly Boys: Summer of ’63,” newly released on Amazon.
“There are so many things from my childhood I wanted to share with my grandchildren,” Welch said. “And I wanted to entertain my wife, who loves a good mystery book. I made (the mystery) my primary plot and then worked in a little adolescent love interest, a story about a really good dog, and some great basketball.
“I wanted to bring to life the amazing thing that a Catholic grade school was in the 1960s. How ardently we prayed for the conversion of Russians, and to save pagan babies. We wanted them to go to heaven too.
“There was an awareness of the different kinds of sin, as we took catechisms year after year, knowing our sins were going to send us to purgatory if we were lucky and hell if we weren’t.
“It’s amazing to me that we weren’t better boys. We played for these really high stakes, but we were still boys.”
Welch, one of six sons born to Robert J. and Mary V. Welch, feels blessed to have grown up along the banks of the Mississippi River, in the town where - more than a century prior - Sam Clemens traipsed the same tapestry.
“The Mississippi River bluffs and the river. I take photos of those bluffs and the trees; I walk down those bluffs, I’m in love with them. Those bluffs have caves in them. I talk about other caves that exist within the river” bottoms.
“Almost every scene is set in an exact geographic location, within a half mile of Hannibal,” he said.
“Over and over, there are places people will recognize. The river road, traipsing up and down those bluffs.”
Craft of writing
Welch took advantage of online resources when learning how to write a novel.
“I had never written a novel, never taken any courses. I subscribed to a couple of novel support class groups and I took lectures on character development and plot arcs. Then I designed my main plot arc. I wanted it to be more of a tapestry than a liner progression.
“It has to be a linear progress, but I didn’t want it to be a two-dimension read. There are new characters appearing here and there, interesting characters.
“I had 68 chapters conceived, then I started putting them into rainbow-shaped arcs, developing a timeline for how I would put all this together.
“I had all these scenes. When I read how you write a novel, there are certain marks in the progression of the story. The first few chapters are setting the scene. Catholic school and homelife. That went about 10 chapters.
“An inciting incident, brought into the story, triggered many chapters of what the instructors call fun and games, playing off that inciting incident, finding ways to solve it.”
Many of the scenes involved his brothers. “I laughed for hours as I wrote these scenes,” he said. As he shared the scenes with his brothers, he discovered, “They remembered these things a bit differently.”
When putting the novel together, “I just followed the recommendations for setting the scene: inciting incident, resolve, then start moving toward a conclusion. I did have five solid arcs that had to move to a conclusion at the same time, which was challenging for me. Weaving that tapestry through the book; resolve all those areas of tension developing during the book.”
He brought Mark Twain echoes into the novel, he said. “I have a great graveyard scene, which is somewhat riveting. Mine is completely different from Twain’s.”
While Welch and his children grew up in Hannibal, the grandchildren only experience Hannibal via visits.
“A big impetus was to show them how my childhood was so different from their’s. Hannibal had its own unique blend of opportunities for childhood. Gosh we enjoyed it.
“I feel so blessed that my children experienced it,” he said.
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