PecanSpringsJournal

Research 1: site visits

Research. On this huge topic, I hardly know where to start.

Okay, focus, get systematic. With this book, Wormwood, I began the research with a couple of site visits, always (almost) fun. So I'll start there. One of the visits was maybe 25 years ago, to the Canterbury NH Shaker community--although maybe that was so long ago, it doesn't count. Or maybe it does, since it was probably the impressions I recalled from that visit that came to mind when I began thinking about setting a China Bayles novel in a Shaker village--impressions of peacefulness, order, cleanliness, serenity.

The most recent visit was in April 2006, when I was on book tour in Kentucky. I planned a day off (not an easy thing on a book tour!) and drove from Louisville to the Pleasant Hill village. I had my camera and a notebook and came away with photos, notes, and lots of ideas--there would have been lots more, too, if I could have stayed all afternoon. I left, not because I wanted to, but because there were tornados in the neighborhood (honestly!), which made me just a little nervous. I drove back to Louisville--and there was a tornado there, too, that night, just a couple of miles from my hotel. Not a good day for site research. Or maybe, in fact, it was a good day, for it reminds me that sometimes order and serenity are disrupted by uncontrollable events (an important reminder for someone who is writing a murder mystery).

If you're a writer (or you want to write), site visits are a good place to start. You'll run into things you'd never encounter otherwise. Who knew, for example, that when Bill and I went to the Royal Duchy Hotel in Princetown, on Dartmoor, in SW England, we would encounter a full-size poster of Conan Doyle--which would remind us that yes, indeed, Doyle had been there, writing The Hound of the Baskervilles. And that became one of our Robin Paige mysteries, Death on Dartmoor. Now, you can take the virtual tour online. (Yes, you can virtually visit the prison where Charles took the fingerprints of the inmates, and the church where he met Doyle, and the hotel where they all stayed--and you can listen to a lecture while you're watching. Pretty nifty!) Back then (way back 1998, before virtual Internet tours), we had to actually go there.

But even though you can take a virtual tour, that won't bring you the feel of the biting wind on your face, or the smell of the heather, or sight of the gray clouds racing across a lowering sky. (Or a tornado, as the case may be.)

So, do a site visit, if you can, with a camera and notebook. Give yourself plenty of time, and don't let your partner/spouse/friend hurry you along. Take the time to make good notes of everything around you: trees, plants, building materials, furnishings, vehicles, sounds, smells. Every place has a history. Get a sense (you can build on this later, in book-based research) of the history of the place, the people. What political/social events shaped it? What's the history of its natural environment? You can never tell when some little thing will turn into something important for your story.

Oh, and be sure to visit a local bookstore and ask to see books about the local area. When I visited Pleasant Hill, I browsed through shelves of books I would never have found elsewhere. I bought a big stack and had them shipped home, where at this moment they are scattered across my desk and the floor, within easy reach. I couldn't write this book without them.

From my log book: 8 writing days, 10,700 words. I finished a pretty solid draft of Chapter 3 today, and did some more work on the plot--both the back story and current story. (Yes, I know today is Saturday, but when I'm writing, I really hate to skip a day, because I forget where I am in the story. And since I know I'm going to have 70-some days invested in the writing part of this project, I'd rather they be as consecutive as possible.

Reading note.

And lo! earth yet shall blossom,
Though the brighter morn delays;
For God perfects the harvest,
Yea, after many days.
--Mother Ann Lee

What time is it?

I didn't get very far today--sidetracked by some Story Circle work (the "secret project" that Paula Yost and Peggy Moody and I, and now Linda Wisnieski, have been working on) and by some other writing-related stuff (talks I'm giving that need descriptions and bios). I'm probably putting off writing, but that's okay. I've been at this long enough to know that something's always cooking on the back burners, and pretty soon it'll boil over and I'll be back in business again.

What's cooking right now is the issue of time. You probably know that I love historical fiction. One of my very favorite mysteries is The Daughter of Time, by Josephine Tey, in which the detective, confined to bed, solves the murder of the princes in the Tower--and Richard III didn't do it. I enjoyed writing as Robin Paige with Bill, doing those Victorian/Edwardian mysteries (some of those historical mysteries had historical back stories!). And I'm having fun with the Cottage Tales, set in 1905-1913 in the Lake District. I've also been playing with historical back stories in the past several China novels. The death of her father, which threads through Hearts, Dagger, and Nightshade, takes place 16 years before the time of the story. China's job, as detective, is to recreate the past, to find out what really happened 16 years ago.

So I love fooling around with narrative time. And when I decided to set Nightshade in a Shaker village, I thought (probably too confidently), that it would be fascinating to set one mystery in Shaker time, a second in China's time, and tie the two plots together--somehow or other. (Don't ask me, because I don't know yet.)

But when in Shaker time? When the village--Zion's Spring--was first established, around 1820 or so? Or when it was flourishing and the herb business was in its prime, in the 1850s? Or I could set it during the Civil War, which in Kentucky was a cataclysm, or after the War, when things were beginning to fall apart, or in the first decades of the 20th century, when the Societies were closing, one after another. Or even in the 1930s, when Deborah Woodruff set her Kentucky Shaker mysteries. I can see a different story in each of these periods, can't you? Any one of these eras would have its own special interest, special appeal.

But I have to choose one. (Yes, I do, since this is only a back story, and can occupy only a third to a quarter of the whole novel.) After letting the question stew for a while, I've chosen the 1890s. There--you see? Just a couple of days ago, I was thinking the 1870s! And when I actually start putting down dates, it may slide into the early 1900s. It's still a bit unclear at this point.

But whether it's 1895 or 1905, my reason is the same: in all of the 19 Shaker villages in the country, this was probably the most conflicted period. It was clear that things were falling apart. There weren't enough strong young people to do the work, there was thievery and embezzlement and worse, and the World's People were encroaching upon the peace of the village. Some people are trying to hold onto the quiet center of their faith, keep everything together, but it's difficult, it's really impossible. Like the very beginning of the Shaker Societies, the ending was a chaotic, unsettled time, the stuff of good fiction. If I can't make a story out of this material, I'm not much of a writer.

So now I have a setting--Zion's Spring--for China's main story and the Shakers' back story, and a time for the back story, more or less. Of all the elements of fiction, I always think that the place and the time are definitive, because they control so many of the other elements: the way people talk and work and live, the way they relate to one another, their issues and concerns, even the clothes they wear, the food they eat, the tools and technologies they use.

While we're talking about this, I want to mention Sue Grafton's S Is For Silence, which I wrote about some time ago. I like the way she brings together two stories: the story of what happens on four days in July, 1953 (told from the point of view of the people involved) and the story of Kinsey's investigation in 1987, told (as usual) from Kinsey's first-person point of view. Her development of the 1953 plot is very strong, and her use of period detail is excellent, A+++. Grafton is very much worth studying, for all kinds of reasons. And if you're writing a first-person mystery, of course, she's the first writer you should turn to.

Enough for tonight. I got a new book today, Gleanings from Old Shaker Journals, and I want to skim through it. In the next entry, I think I'd like to talk about research, resources, that sort of thing.

From my log book: 6 writing days, 7800 words. Some days I've made my 1500-word goal, some days I haven't. But I'm making progress.

Reading note. Why send to Europe's bloody shores/For plants which grow by our own doors?--from the cover of the first Shaker herb catalog, printed in 1830

Setting: Where in the world?

Okay, right down to business here. I've known for maybe 5-6 years that I'd like to do a Shaker book, and settled fairly early on Kentucky, mostly because I had visited Pleasant Hill. In fact, I thought at first (for several years, actually) that I'd set the novel there--thought it would be more interesting for people to be able to read about a place they'd actually visited. And it's a beautiful place, as you can see from the gorgeous photos on the website. China would go to Pleasant Hil to an herb workshop, maybe, or to give a talk, or consult on a garden project, and (as usual) she would run into a mystery.

But then I began thinking about the mechanics of the mystery plot (I know, I know--YOU may not need a mystery in a China novel, but my editor does, and so do at least 50% of the readers). And when I got down to the nasty details--dirty tricks, maybe arson, certainly one dead body, maybe more, dastardly motives, buried secrets--Pleasant Hill seemed less and less like the right setting. Can you see why? The people who have restored the buildings and keep the grounds and staff the services are really nice people. I don't want to "victimize" or "villainize" any of them (even if only fictionally).

Also, when you use an actual site, you are bound by what exists or existed there, more or less. Take the village of Sawrey, for example, which I'm using in the Cottage Tales. It's a real place. You can go there and visit and look around and check the settings in the books against the village itself. But that's hard to do, and in some ways limiting. And I didn't want to do it for China's Shaker book. I wanted more freedom than that.

So I decided some months ago that this was going to be a fictional Shaker village. Yes, in Kentucky, but not at Pleasant Hill or South Union, the only two real Shaker communities in the state. I'd put it somewhere else--beside a mineral spring, say, where people could come for the "healing waters." (I thought first of a hot spring, but then Bill suggested a mineral spring--he didn't think there were any hot springs in Kentucky--and I like that idea better.)

So the book is set at Zion Springs, which is a fictional Shaker village northwest of Lexington, sort of, in an area where there is a rather famous mineral spring, Drennon Springs. I read about it once, and an Internet search turned it up again. Drennon was the site of cabins (1820s) and an hotel (1840s), which failed when an outbreak of cholera occurred there. (That would do it, wouldn't it?) The Shaker village itself, which failed in 1910 (about the same time that Pleasant Hill and South Union failed), is now the site of a "living museum," modeled on the one at Pleasant Hill. Since it's a fictional setting, I have more freedom in constructing it--I can create all the spaces I need for the plot. Since it's based on real-world places, however--Pleasant Hill, Drennon Springs--I have something concrete to start with. It will feel real, at least to me.

Today I finished the introduction (added some stuff about the Shakers' decline and fall), and started writing the first chapter. It's set in Pecan Springs, at a picnic, which gives me a chance to get all the Pecan Springs characters into the book. China doesn't want to go off on this jaunt to Zion Spring, but Ruby and the others are encouraging her to go. Setting this chapter in a familiar place, with familiar characters, will satisfy (at least partially) those readers who hate it when China leaves town on an adventure. And it helps to anchor the story in the context of China's on-going life, which as you know is what the series is really all about.

Word count (I'm going to start putting it here, at the end of the entry, so you can see where I am in the process): 3800. These books are usually around 85,000 words, so you can see I have a way to go.

Getting Started

The next China Bayles (#17, due out in April 2009), is called Wormwood, the old-fashioned name for Artemesia absinthium. This is the third of the "out-of-town" books, set elsewhere than Pecan Springs, TX, China's home base: Rueful Death was the first, then Bloodroot, and now Wormwood. I like writing out-of-town books, not only because it gives me a break from the usual settings and cast of characters, but because it gives me a chance to explore a different setting, different characters, a different plot problem. Some readers don't like this kind of alteration in the "natural order" of things, but I learned long ago that I need to give myself a break, or I won't be able to stay engaged with a long series. My attention span is pretty short, as it is.

You probably know that the authors of your favorite series books are at least one, sometimes two, books ahead of you. In the China series, Spanish Dagger was finished in January 06 and published in April 07, Nightshade was finished in January 07 and will be published in April 08, and Wormwood will be finished (the writing gods willing) in January 08 and published in April 09. If all goes according to plan, that is. According to my plan, and the publisher's contract.

For several years, I've been promising myself to set a book in a Shaker village. The Shakers were the most important growers/marketers of medicinal herbs in America in the 19th century, and the villages I've visited are lovely. I might have done it a couple of books ago, but I got involved with a trilogy within the series that started with Bleeding Hearts and ends with Nightshade, involving China's reluctant investigation (with her half-brother, Miles) into her father's death. Once I started that, the Shaker book had to wait. But Nightshade is done, China can get on with her life, and I can get started on the Shaker book.

Yesterday, I set up the file and put in the standard pages (title page, acknowledgements, etc.--some of which are currently blank). Then, guessing that a great many readers won't know a lot about the Shakers, drafted a brief introduction: 800 words, unedited. This is the sort of thing I usually save for the end of the book, like the historical notes I write for each book in the Cottage Tales series. But in this case I want it at the beginning of the book, to give readers some historical background. Otherwise, I'm afraid they won't be able to figure out some of the backstory references, which might otherwise be too oblique.

I've already done some plot work, mostly in my head, but also in some notes I made a couple of weeks ago, while I was driving back from New Mexico and listening to Bloodroot, which is my favorite of all the Chinas. The contemporary plot of Wormwood involves at least one (maybe more--I'm not sure yet) of the characters in Bloodroot. There'll be multiple plots in the book, as usual: a backstory plot that's set in the 1870s and a plot that focuses on what happens when China visits the reconstructed Shaker village, Zion's Spring.

I've never blogged a WIP before, so I'm not sure exactly what I'm doing here. Let me know what you'd like to hear more about, less about, or whatever, and I'll try to fit it in--maybe not right away, but eventually.

And thanks for reading this, and my other blog, and all your comments. People used to say that writing was a lonely occupation. Not anymore!

Reading note.

Go work with ardent courage,
and sow with willing hand
the seed o'er barren deserts
and o'er the fertile land.

And lo! earth yet shall blossom
though the brighter morn delays
for God perfects the harvest,
yea, after many days.

--The Life and Gospel Experience of Mother Ann Lee
(East Canterbury, NH Shakers, 1901)

What's going on here?

For the next few months, I'll be using this blog to document the writing of Wormwood, the 17th book in the China Bayles series. There'll be entries about the research (the book is set in a fictional Kentucky Shaker village), the writing, and other book-related business. If this is the kind of thing you're looking for, I'll be glad to have you along for the ride. You can join the Feedblitz email list (in the right panel, toward the bottom) to be notified of posts. If you'd rather read about herbs and such, click on over to China's website for recipes, podcasts, book reviews, information about the published books, and lots of other good stuff. Or for a wider view of the writing life and what's going on at our place in the Texas Hill Country, check out my Lifescapes blog. --Susan Albert