Well before the lockdown, social distancing, and masks (which make it hard to hear conversations at other tables in a restaurant), I listened to two women talk about a circumstance that seemed ordinary until one said, "Can you imagine if . . . " With those simple words, she flipped over the situation and I saw a story.
This is how stories come to me, when I'm listening to someone else talk, or reading an article that holds a twist that isn't meant to be one. The Boston Globe regularly revisits the theft of art at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, a stain on our Yankee preserve that shows no sign of being removed. The story included a note on the brief interview some years earlier with one of the guards who lived very modestly in another state. Pressed with the old news that some wondered if he'd been involved, he replied, "Would I be living like this if I had been?"
Once in a while a reader will ask a question that opens up a possibility I hadn't thought of. At a mystery conference in England a fan of the Mellingham series featuring Chief of Police Joe Silva wanted to know about Joe's family. She asked about what I was holding back from readers. She was convinced there was a secret in Joe's life because I never said much about his family. The details were scant--a Portuguese son in a large family who had fished with his father and brothers during his earlier years. His parents were alive, and he spoke to his mother regularly (as did his landlady). That was about it.
Unlike many other writers, I never did a full backstory on the main character of my series. I knew who I wanted him to be but I didn't flesh out a lot of detail about his life before he became a cop and was hired by the town of Mellingham. But her question startled me. She had read closely, she had questions, she wanted answers. I thought about her for years until an idea came to me. The result was Last Call for Justice, when Joe drives south of Boston for a family reunion that his elderly father has insisted on. The old man is convinced he has one last chance to see all his children before death comes for him, and he draws them all home. It is a story of old fears and grudges, a settling of scores, and a discovery no one wants to make.
My new series features Felicity O'Brien, a farmer who has inherited the ability to heal with her hands, a gift passed down from mother to daughter through several generations. Her gift is on display in the first book, Below the Tree Line, but plays only a small role. One editor wanted more of that part of Felicity's life, and another wanted less. In the second book in the series (now under consideration), the healing plays an important role, but in the third book, which is now taking shape, Felicity's ability to read through her hands a person's state of health plays a pivotal role.
The difference between an acquaintance offering a story line they just know would make a good novel and a question from a reader is obvious to me. The engagement with the series means the reader is thinking about who these characters are and what they would do, how they would engage the world. They can see what I've left out, and are curious about the missing backstory, or they catch on to an inkling I've had but haven't wanted to develop just yet. I'm grateful for these kinds of reactions from readers, and look forward to them. They always lead to a good idea.
No comments:
Post a Comment