Hailey's Novel Diary – 5/14/17

I have started writing about the Civil War. This is where all that research pays off. You can say whatever you want about grocery stores. If I write that there is a Ralphs on the corner of Devonshire Street and Mason Avenue, a handful of people will know that it's a Vons. Most people will neither know nor care. Maybe one person will say, “Hey, by the way...”

If I write that the Battle of Gettysburg took place in the winter of 1864 when General Grant moved his Confederate forces from Texas into New Mexico, where he fought General Stonewall Jackson's Union army, I would get reams of angry letters and death threats. More than a few people have studied the Civil War.

This story is pure fiction, and not at all about the Civil War, but it does get mentioned. You can't wing it with a popular war that has been so thoroughly documented.

The Patriot
Directed by Roland Emmerich
© 2000 Columbia Pictures