Half a Dog Won't Hunt: Writing in a 50% World

Two years ago, I had bilateral knee-replacement surgery. The left knee is nearly perfect. It works fine. The right? That's another story. It's nearly as bad as it was before surgery. I got 50% of what I expected.

Yesterday, my air-conditioning went out. Zilch. Nada. The fan wasn't even blowing warm air. I called the office of the apartment complex where I live, and within a half hour, maintenance had yanked the old unit and wrestled a different one into place. (Notice I didn't say a "new" one.) The fan worked on that one, but it didn't cool. I got 50% of what I expected. After another call to the office, I actually got a new one that cools. Huzzah! 100% at last!

Years ago, I worked in advertising for Sears, Roebuck, and Co. (Yes, it went by its full name before they truncated it, hacking off more than 50%.) I loved my work. I laid out the ads, designed and built floor and window displays, and wrote ad copy. When floor managers would go to lunch, guess who got to cover for them. Yep. Me! I loved that, too, because if it was a slow day, I hauled out the hefty books from which the department managers ordered their stock, and I studied, so I knew why this sofa's construction was better than that lower priced one, how muslin differed from percale, how to determine which tire tread would best suite a customer's needs, and how to tie a four-in-hand knot. I also loved those times when business was bustling. The problem-solving element of sales I found exhilarating.

Times have changed. In this 50% world, the part that has been lopped off is service. Seldom can sales clerks tell customers where to find items, especially if it's something outside their department. (In days of old, we had to memorize department names and numbers before we were let loose to help customers.)

Our writers' craft requires 100%. We can't get by with a 50% approach to research, for example. I'm not sure how writers of yore avoided anachronisms, since I'm constantly chasing down internet rabbit trails to verify some fact such as when certain words entered the common lexicon. My work in progress is set in 1935, so Tillie, my ten-year-old protagonist, can't use a bobby pin to hold her hair back, nor can she say to her best friend, "Hey, toots, wha'cha reading?" Neither term was recorded as in use prior to 1936.

As I was writing novel MS #2, partially set in 1860, I had to toss away a beautiful handgun. I loved that weapon. As guns go, it looked good. It was a revolver that had some shotgun features, too--a gun the southern-Indiana deputy in the story would cherish. Problem was, I learned the following:

1. it wasn't invented until mid-Civil War; 
2.  it was a Southern weapon
3. only a few hundred were manufactured
4. for the most part, it was a favorite of Confederate officers

A pre-Civil War sheriff's deputy wouldn't have had one. What if I had done only 50% of the research necessary to discover the truth?

Consider the many genres of fiction--Regency romance, Amish, bonnet, biblical, historical, thriller. The list is endless. Writers who excel in their genre possess an amazing abundance of esoteric knowledge about that genre. Recently I asked an Amish friend if she reads Amish fiction. "Yes," she said, "but only by the writers who get it right." To get it right, Vanessa Chapman, Wanda Brunstetter, Beverly Lewis, Cindy Woodsmall, Beth Wiseman, Amy Clipston, etc., can't settle for less than 100%. Even if they've lived among Plain communities, they constantly check with contacts for accuracy's sake.

The same dogged determination that drives us to get the facts right should propel us through the other aspects of our writing, as we thoroughly get to know our characters (I like to interview mine, as I've written about before), our setting (sometimes I draw up house plans or layouts of a town or farm to use as reference), and the plot.

The world around us may settle for "50% off," but we dare not. Neither publishers nor readers will tolerate it.

"Whatever you do, work heartily, as for the Lord. . . " ~Colossians 3:23

Write on!
Because of Christ,
Sharon

Searching for a Dead Man

I know he lived. His tombstone stands among others of his family near the landfill. The report of his brutal murder appears in old newspapers. His corpse was found naked, with one sock on and one off. He had been bludgeoned on both sides of his head. The man inflicted violence on others all his life and died by violence. And he was supposedly the county sheriff in the mid-1800s.

Though the spelling of his name was a mystery to me for a long time, I finally managed to interview the right person who provided that: Robert Right Rae Sr.--not Wright Ray or Wray. But as for his holding the office of sheriff, I can find no evidence. I called the public library, the historical society, the Sheriff Department where he supposedly served more than a 150 years ago, and a local historical site, but to no avail. The Sheriff's office has on the wall a large poster that lists all sheriffs and their term years, but Rae is not listed, nor are there gaps in that record, according to the office staffer who looked. While he doesn't figure prominently in my work-in-progress, he is mentioned, so of course I want to be accurate.

What does a writer do when your research trail lands you flat up against a stone wall--a jail wall, at that? As I see it, I have two choices. I can keep searching for answers, squeezing in some time to travel to the location and pore over old newspapers for hours, or I can accept what I've gleaned from reliable sources and create a fictional character based on the elusive reality.

Brother and sister scribes, what would you do when faced with such a conundrum? Please leave a "Comment."

All in the Name of Research

Wednesday was an ordinary day down on the banks of the Ohio in southeastern Indiana. The sky over Madison was a brilliant cyan punctuated with puffs of cloud. A gentle breeze carried the fragrance of southern magnolias down the historic streets, through secluded courtyards, and around early nineteenth-century homes.

It would have been a perfect day to stay home and clean the bathroom, catch up on the laundry, brush up on my transformational grammar, and dust doodads, indeed, but I felt compelled to leave all that behind. After all, I'm a hard-working writer with research begging to be done. So I collected a couple companions and we headed off for the river town to visit the library, locate a good site for a second-hand bookstore for the aunt of my protagonist, get a feel for the neighborhood, and take some reference photos.

Enjoy some of the photos that will hopefully enrich the sense of "place" in The Second Cellar, my middle-grade historical fantasy in progress. (If you've followed this blog for long, you've already seen several reference photos for both of my manuscripts.)

I selected this cream brick home across from the library to be the site of the used-book store.

Kristi Rice, Photographer

Oh, the Places You Will Go!

A beehive oven like the one in my story's summer kitchen

Today is a great day. As I start this entry, it is 8:30 a.m. and already so much has happened. The day began with a request from an editor for a full of a manuscript. Hooray! Then I got started on some research into Federal-style architecture and furniture, hoping to find some good photos to help in the development of my setting of place (see earlier post). Whereas I have the lovely home I can visit, it's nearly an hour's drive, and I wanted references I could keep handy. I found online exactly what I needed, including a video of Bob Villa's tour through "my house." I bookmarked it so I can walk through with Bob any time I wish.

The cellar door to "my house," though mine has a latch

Last night, or rather, very early this morning, I found some old Civil War correspondence online. What a great way to familiarize oneself with the language, phrases, idioms, events, and customs of the day!

Research is a wonderful thing. One never knows in what diverse directions it will go.

Never Let Good Research Languish

I have been a professional storyteller for nearly a quarter of a century. My most popular programs are historical, and each one was funded in part through a grant or a commission. In order to develop a reputation for historical accuracy and an authentic persona, I do all I can to thoroughly research the time periods, just as I do for my writing, poring over original documents and books, interviewing others who have expertise on the subject, visiting some sites where the events happened, studying the clothing and other everyday details of the period, sewing the attire from authentic fabrics, and purchasing any necessary accoutrements.

I say all of that, not to impress the reader with my dedication and research skills, but to emphasize that much goes into developing a new historical program. What a shame it would be to allow all of that effort to languish, once the performance script is written. By the time the show premieres, I have gained a certain expertise on my subject and have acquired a small library, to boot.

The logical extension for this writer is to write a middle-grade fiction book that uses the body of research already gathered. (Of course, questions arise that send me off on new trails, so the research never really ends until the manuscript is finished.) For example, my first storytelling persona was "Jack's Mama," still a favorite among clients. As JM, I portray a pioneer mountain woman and tell stories from the oral tradition of the southern Appalachians. Through a Lilly Teacher Creativity Fellowship, I was able to spend a month wandering through the mountains, gathering stories, studying the dialect, and talking with the people about their lives. I used that knowledge and experience in the writing of Up the Rutted Road, my first book manuscript, currently undergoing a revision.

Four years ago, Storytelling Arts of Indiana awarded me the Frank Basile Emerging Stories Fellowship to develop Abigail Gray: Living under the Drinking Gourd, a program about the Underground Railroad. My second novel manuscript, The Second Cellar, this one for upper middle graders, is a historical fantasy that involves the Underground Railroad. I have written just over 100 pages on it. Here I go, recycling research again!

Recognizing that every perfect gift comes from the Lord, I thank Him for these opportunities. He allowed me to receive an Individual Artist's Project fellowship from the Indiana Arts Commission/National Endowment for the Arts to begin this second manuscript. They liked the idea, as did an editor who critiqued the proposal at a writers' conference.

Even as I revise one manuscript and write a second, I am thinking about how I can recycle the research I did for a storytelling performance about the U.S. Sanitary Commission during the Civil War and another about the Great Depression because one should never, ever let good research languish.