Why Private Passions Aren't Merely Writing Distractions!
By Vicki Weisfeld
The most frequent lament I hear from people who write (or
want to) is “not enough time,” and I get that. A chronic time shortage has forced
me into becoming a miner and a recycler. Whatever else I’m doing besides
writing has to contribute in some way to my creative output. My interest in
family history may seem too particular for this purpose, but it’s helped me in
at least three ways.
Research
Any topic you delve into deeply can improve your research skills.
Perhaps you’re interested in botany or in the behavior of sharks. Whatever you
know about them lurks somewhere in your brain, ready to be laid on the page
when your fiction requires it. Meanwhile, the techniques of factual, photo, and geographic research, such as
those I’ve developed working on my family history, have made the research I do
for fiction both more creative and efficient.
Empathy
The kind of family history I create is not merely a “tree of
facts.” It tries to answer the question, What were their lives like? This is great
practice for writing about fictional characters whose worlds I haven’t directly
experienced. I’m a middle-class white broad. I won’t ever know exactly what it’s like to be a rural
deputy sheriff, a small-town police detective, a big city architect. But my
practice in imagining the lives of past family members has helped me isolate
the conflicts and choices people in other situations face. These recreations
can contribute to deeply imagined, authentic backgrounds for my characters if I
absorb their power and make them mine.
Stories From My
Family
What a lode of human stories I’ve uncovered! On my mother’s
side of the family are ancestors who settled in Massachusetts when only a few
hundred Europeans were there, some who stole Indian lands, brothers who served on
different sides in the Civil War, a preacher who died on an Oklahoma Indian
reservation. Smithville, Texas, is named for my great-great grandfather, who
won the right to name the town in a coin toss.
My father’s family includes Hungarian immigrants who came to
America in the early 20th century to settle in the industrial heartland, an
uncle who “had a different father” from the other children, and rumors of the
violence that resulted.
Mining Others’ Family
Stories
But, you say, you don’t have the time or inclination to
delve into your family’s past. The minutiae of family history may still help
you.
What
makes a set of old records useful to researchers? Digitization. Before the
typewriter (1860), all records were written completely by hand. Nearly a
hundred years later, the key information on many public records was still hand-written on printed forms.
To speed
the massive task of digitizing these records, the free online resource FamilySearch encourages volunteers from around the world to help. Last
year, in one weekend, some 116,475 people, including me, indexed more than 10
million records in multiple languages.
I
entered data from hundreds of Kentucky marriage records from the 1930s and
1940s, as well as some from the 1880s—before clerks even used consistent forms.
I also worked on English probate records for hundreds of people named Cox.
This
work was a goldmine of plot ideas. Reading between the lines of the marriage
records were some real heart-breakers. Many Ohio couples were married in the
border counties of Kentucky, which had no waiting period from license to
ceremony. Need for speed. Some were married by Justices of the Peace, and some
in “police court.” Eyebrows raised. Notes on some records said “Please Do Not
Publish.” Juicy conjecture.
On
one day, a rural Ohio man divested himself of two daughters, ages 17 and 19, to
U.S. Air Force men from California. You can’t help but wonder whether these
fellows turned out to be as glamorous as their new wives probably believed. A
few brides were only 16 and one was 15—the groom an Air Force man, age 24—with
the ceremony witnessed by “John Smith (the bride’s father) and James Smith,” in
my mind’s eye, holding the shotgun. In the 1880 records, many men signed their
marriage licenses with an x (“his mark”); by 1950, I encountered only one
record where the groom could not write his name.
The
English probate records were equally tantalizing. One told how Arnold Cox,
dentist, left his estate of £54 to Maude Cox, spinster (his sister?). To spend
your life as a village dentist and die with only £54 to show for it seems more
than a little sad. How’d that happen?
I was intrigued by the number of Coxes from northern England who left bequests
to Archie Cox, chemist. You’ll recall that in England a chemist is a
pharmacist, and I wondered whether our Archie might have helped some of his ancient
and ailing relatives along a bit.
So—research skills, empathy development, and story ideas—invaluable
resources for fiction writing. Best of all, I need never feel guilty for the
time I spend on family history.
Vicki Weisfeld is an award-winning short story writer with
an active website (http://www.vweisfeld.com)
that includes book, theater, and movie reviews, travel tips, and posts about
both the creative and business side of writing. She’s also a reviewer for CrimeFictionLover.com, a UK
website.
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