Spying, Eavesdropping and Other Techniques for Location Research

Last year, I met an interesting writer named Jeff Posey. At the time, he was the chief organizer of the Dallas Fort Worth Writers' Conference. I soon found out he's familiar with Southwest Colorado, and even plans to move to Pagosa Springs one day, a community just 45 minutes from where I live in Durango.

Because we both recently conducted location research for our novels in progress, we thought we'd have an online 'chat' and then share our insights with other writers (and anyone else interested in our writing journeys). Below is an excerpt and then a link to the full 'chat.' Please forward to any writers you think would be interested!

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JEFF

Don’t you wonder sometimes whether we’re truly the writers — or whether there’s a secret galactic box somewhere that just uses us to tell stories?

I know what you mean by stories latching on to us. I’d doggedly hiked nearly every trail in the Weminuche Wilderness in Southern Colorado (near you in Durango), but I’d avoided all the ancient Anasazi ruins in that part of the world because I thought they’d be boring.

Then on a trip with my son to the Chimney Rock Archaeological Area between Durango and Pagosa Springs, this boy ran across our path. I put my hand out to keep my son from running into him. The boy was a figment of my imagination, of course. A figment I couldn’t shake. Hence my surrender to the grip of the galactic box that wanted me to write Anasazi historical fiction.

I just returned from Pagosa Springs on a book research trip. I took a class in making authentic Anasazi pottery (see more here: Ancient Arts Chimney Rock Workshop). I find myself looking mostly for experiences, sensual input I guess. Do you do that as well? Do you intentionally seek out a place, perhaps at a certain time or date, just to see what it feels like?

MANDY
I absolutely believe in something like that secret galactic box 'choosing' us to be the vessel for the story that needs to be told. I had titles for all three books come to me in a very out-of-body woo-woo way, and I just had to say, "Okay. I'll get started..."

I love the idea of 'sensual input' in regards to research. That's exactly how it felt in Opelika. The story takes place in July and I visited in July so I experienced first-hand how very uncomfortable the heat and humidity are -- for me and my characters. I ate the food -- Southern, deep-fried, comforting, artery-clogging, digestion-challenging. I drank sweet tea and sat in neighborhoods, looking at houses where I thought my characters might live. I made sure I noted when the sun set, when the mosquitoes and crickets came out, how hot it was at 9 p.m. or 6 a.m., the driving distance between different places. I listened to that lilting, captivating accent of the region.

By the end I was exhausted from being so hyper-vigilant. I might have tried to absorb too much in a three-day trip. But the book will be different, better because of this trip.

I'm wondering if anything surprising came from your research? Something that stopped you short, something you knew had to be part of your book.

JEFF
Oh, yeah. Slapped me into a dead stop for a few seconds: Shining White Greathouse at Chimney Rock. I’ve been on the tours maybe a dozen times, but somehow the mental image escaped me until this trip. You know that beautiful stonework we associate with the Anasazi? Those stones the sizes of loaves of bread with smaller stones shoved between them in courses? The Anasazi covered that up with white plaster. Imagine walking from Chaco Canyon (90 miles as a crow flies) to Chimney Rock and seeing that shining white building high on the tilted mesa.

I know exactly what you mean by the exhaustion of hyper-vigilance in doing site reconnaissance. I climbed Pagosa Peak’s southwestern face to see if a bunch of boys in my novel could build and light a bonfire there that could be seen from Chimney Rock. It’s a rugged place. Building a bonfire wouldn’t be easy, but could definitely be done. Imagining my characters there wore me out as much as the hike and climb.

I love the details you describe and that you captured. I tried taking notes, but that seemed to fail me. I took lots of snapshots. Otherwise, I just rely on memory to tell me the things I need to remember.

READ THE FULL CONVERSATION, including the Top Three Pieces of Advice for Location Research!

Reading, Writing and Guilt

After the AROHO writers’ retreat I attended in August, I was gung-ho about signing up for writer’s blogs and subscribing to writing magazines. I bought works by short story writers I hoped to emulate.

I work at a national nonprofit as a marketing/communications specialist three days a week (Tuesday-Thursday). I envisioned Mondays and Fridays as days to devote to reading and writing. Instead, I’ve been in a quagmire of guilt because I haven’t done much of either lately. The stack of books and magazines sits on my nightstand and mocks me. “Look at the money you spent on us!” “Stop being such a cry baby and get to work!”

I’ve always been such a motivated ‘employee.’ Yet, I’ve found it difficult to stay energized about my craft when I’m only accountable to me, myself and I. I suppose self doubt fuels apathy, which then translates to procrastination.

Yikes. What a pity party I’m having today. Writers – how much do you read and how do you make time for it?

The POV Smorgasbord

I’m reading a fascinating book called "Writing in General and the Short Story in Particular" by Rust Hills.

There’s a lot of great stuff in the book but the chapter on point of view is especially compelling. He goes into the whole list of types (omniscient, first person, third person, scenic, central intelligence) but then goes on to say “It seems to me that the proper attitude for the writer is to leave the systematizing to someone else and just rejoice that there are so many methods.”

I liked that he outlined some of the limitations of certain POVs but encouraged writers to not be bound by certain rules and conventions. BUT BE SMART ABOUT IT. He describes the work of some authors who intentionally and thoughtfully break POV rules which can be mesmerizing and brilliant. But when beginning writers “break the rules unwittingly, with nothing accomplished by it, it harms the story foolishly.”

Part of the chapter discusses how authors ‘choose’ which POV to use. He proposes that most times, this decision is unconscious. The technique is second to the story that’s within you aching to be told.

The characters in my novels have pretty strong first-person voices and I wouldn’t go against their wishes to try out third-person limited or omniscient. But I think it’s worthwhile to practice other POVs. I’m considering writing a short story based on the true story of an elderly woman who was eaten by a bear because she refused warnings not to feed dog food to the bears in her neighborhood. Does her husband tell the story? Does the kid living next door? Or do I serve as a omniscient narrative of this tragic tale?

So many juicy choices. Hills is right -- let’s rejoice that we have so many methods at our disposable.

Which POV are you most comfortable using? Have you stretched outside that POV yet?

Real Writers Kill Dogs

I want to recommend a book for anyone who is serious about fiction writing. It’s called “What If? Writing Exercises for Fiction Writers” (Bernays/Painter).

One of the authors, Pam Painter, taught the weeklong fiction workshop I attended at Ghost Ranch in August. I’ve been a writer for 30 years and the exercises gave me completely different insight into writing techniques and revitalized all aspects of my writing.

There are too many brilliant exercises to mention but the one that’s on my mind is called Kill the Dog.

The authors write: “If you want to write serious fiction, you have to kill the neighbor’s dog. In fiction there is no avoiding the malevolent. In fact, there are very few states of mind or motivation that lie beyond your reach. You should be able to describe a tree, cooking a gourmet meal or slaughtering an animal, for one reason or another, you want to get rid of. Just as an actor assumes the role of a killer and makes him plausible, dispatch the animal convincingly and without flinching.”

YIKES! The emotional and physical reactions I had to reading that chapter were many: revulsion, horror, fear, anxiety, anger.

I still haven’t attempted this exercise. But I completely understand the need to stretch beyond the limits of what is comfortable.

In my novel, God Doesn’t Like Sweet Cornbread, the protagonist has been sexually assaulted by her father for 10 years. It’s not a pretty subject. In fact, some days I’m emotionally spent after spending time in Cissy’s head.

What do you think of this exercise? Have you written on difficult subjects, even put yourself in the shoes of a killer, villain or sleaze ball?