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Victoria Wilcox
Victoria Wilcox is a leading authority on Doc Holliday, the deputy with Wyatt Earp at the legendary gunfight at the O.K. Corral in Tombstone, Arizona.
She will be the Georgia Writers Museum’s “Meet the Author” presenter at 7 p.m. on Tuesday, July 19, (doors open at 6:30 p.m.), discussing her new book, The World of Doc Holliday.
Hors d’oeuvres and Summer Holliday “shooters” will be served at the event. Tickets are $45 per person ($80 per couple). Contact the Georgia Writers Museum for reservations or visit www.georgiawritersmuseum.org. We recently caught up with Wilcox for a short interview.
After writing a trilogy on Holliday, you elected to write The World of Doc Holliday. How is the new book different from the first three?
The Saga of Doc Holliday books is a historically based novel that tells the story of Doc Holliday’s life in a dramatic manner, similar to a TV mini-series about a historical character, while the World of Doc Holliday is a work of narrative nonfiction, like a documentary with facts of his life rather than a story based on the facts. After the novels were published and gained a following, I realized that there are some Doc fans who don’t want to read historical fiction, preferring the undramatized facts with no story at all.
The World of Doc Holliday was originally written for that audience, though it’s also become popular with readers who loved the novels, as they can explore more of the history behind the fiction. And old and new readers alike enjoy the many images of the people, places, and events in Doc Holliday’s life found in the World of Doc Holliday, something you can’t include in a novel.
What is a piece of advice you have gleaned from another author that you consider most helpful in your work as a writer?
From my friend Casey Tefertiller, Pulitzer-prize nominated author of the acclaimed biography, Wyatt Earp: The Life Behind the Legend. When I praised him as being the authority on Earp, he replied that there were lots of other writers with wide knowledge on the subject, but he was the one who finished a book. Point is, it doesn’t matter what you know or how great your story is if you never finish writing it. So, finish it.
What advice can you give new authors to bring their book idea to a finished product?
Writing a book is a three-step process: 1. Tell the story (whether fact or fiction), 2. Fix the story (revise, revise, revise), and 3. Tell the story better (polish your language, grammar, and syntax for clean and powerful prose). Too many beginning authors think they’re done when they reach, “The End” of the story and never go back to revise and polish. And it shows. Write the best book you can. Then revise and polish it to make it better.
If you could live your life over again as a legendary western character, who would you select?
I wouldn’t want to be anyone but myself, in any time period.