Time and Place

Some books I write in a linear fashion. Others come together in what seems to be a patchwork of scenes and ideas. Some places I can make up. Others are real, and must be accurate. Sometimes I can reorder events. Other times I must adhere to a timetable.

A case in point: my recent historical mystery, Death Rides the Zephyr. For the most part, I wrote the book in order, as the events occurred. The novel takes place in December 1952, immediately before and during an eastbound run of the old streamliner, the California Zephyr, as that train travels from Oakland, California to Denver, Colorado, a period of less than two days.

The time structure was very important, as the train moved from place to place according to the railroad timetables I had tacked up around my computer. The order of events in the book was influenced by when the train stopped at various stations along the way, how long the train was there, the train crew schedules, the amount of time it took for the train to travel from Oroville to Portola, California, for example, or from Glenwood Springs to Bond, Colorado, both stops deep in the Rocky Mountains.

A California Zephyr Timetable

And if that wasn’t enough, I found myself looking at charts to see if I could figure out what time the sun rose and set in late December. Why? Because I wanted certain things to take place after dark – and in a certain location.

With the place, as well as the timetable, I wanted to be accurate – about the train and the place it stopped.  Railfans, the people love trains, know when something is wrong, and I wanted to get it right. The feedback I’ve received from railfans, and people who rode the old California Zephyr, indicates that I did get it right. All that time poring over car diagrams and climbing around on the existing rolling stock paid off.

The book I’m working on now has a working title of Cold Trail. It’s a Jeri Howard novel and much of the book takes place in Sonoma County, which is north of San Francisco. I’ve been writing scenes that need to be in the book, just getting them into the computer as they occur to me. But until now I haven’t been sure where some of those scenes fit. I am now going through the book’s timeline, revising the order of things, moving some scenes up and others back.

I’ve also been doing location research. I have visited Sonoma County many times, but now I need to look at places with different eyes.

Several scenes occur at a fictional marina in an actual place, called Lakeville, southeast of Petaluma, on the banks of the Petaluma River. As I wrote those scenes, I envisioned trees and vegetation. Google maps didn’t tell the whole story, though, even in satellite view.

I drove up to Lakeville earlier in the week. The town itself is much smaller than I thought. There is a real marina there, but it’s configured much differently than what I had in mind. At that point, the Petaluma River is very wide, not far from the mouth where it runs into San Pablo Bay. There aren’t many trees on either side of the river. Instead, on the approach to Lakeville, I saw hay fields. On the side of the river opposite Lakeville, there is high marsh, vast open expanse of pickleweed.

The Petaluma River at Lakeville

Now I’m revising those scenes. Even though the book is fiction, I want my readers to think that marina could be there, on the Lakeville Highway just east of the river.

Getting It Right

In August I traveled to Portola, California, site of the Western Pacific Railroad Museum, to do a signing at the museum during the town’s annual celebration, called Railroad Days. It was a great launch for Death Rides the Zephyr, my historical mystery set onboard the train called the California Zephyr. The streamliner’s route went through the Feather River Canyon, so Portola was a daily stop for the train. The protagonist of Death Rides the Zephyr is a Zephyrette, the hostess who was the only female member of the onboard crew.

My friend Julia and I stayed at the Pullman House, an inn that was, according to the manager, a bordello during the railroad heyday, when Commercial Street in Portola had nearly a dozen saloons catering to the railroad workers. The inn’s rooms are decorated with railroad memorabilia, including a Pullman step I coveted. I could look for one on eBay, I suppose. But where would I put it?

My booksigning at the museum was great fun, with a steady stream of visitors in town for Railroad Days and an opportunity to ride a train or climb on some rolling stock. I talked with people about the history of the train called the California Zephyr.

Directly across from my table in the museum was the Silver Hostel, one of few remaining dome lounge cars that traveled on the CZ. It contained a coffee shop, bar and lounge in the front part of the car, and in the rear, crew quarters, including a dormitory for the dining car staff and roomettes for the dining car steward and the Zephyrette. The museum is in the process of restoring the Silver Hostel. Most of the car is torn up, but the Zephyrette’s room at the rear of the car is still fairly intact.

During the signing, one of the museum volunteers came up to talk with me. He was buying a book, which I signed for him, but he’d already read the advance reading copy that my publisher, Perseverance Press, sent to the museum.

You got it right, he told me. Both the railroad stuff and the history.

As a writer, I love to hear that, and I told him so.

In the three-plus years it took to write Death Rides the Zephyr, I took pains to make sure I got it right. I read books, everything from the history of the California Zephyr to a book about Pullman porters and another book about the Korean War. I sifted through information available on the Internet, not only train information, but history, getting a sense for the fashion, music, books, movies, and headlines of December 1952, the time the book takes place. I leafed through files available in the libraries at the California and Colorado railroad museums, including the trip reports written by Zephyrettes at the end of each run.

I went up to Portola last year to drive a locomotive, just to see what it would be like. I took two special trips, traveling aboard a Pullman car, to see what it was like to travel in a roomette. I climbed around on railroad cars, like the Silver Plate, a dining car, and the Silver Solarium, a dome observation car. That’s the car on the book cover, folks.

I picked the brains of fellow railfans, including Glenn Stocki and Roger Morris (Roger created that wonderful cover). I interviewed two former Zephyrettes, Rodna Walls Taylor and Cathy Moran von Ibsch, about their experiences riding the rails.

A Zephyrette makes dining car reservations.

As I wrote the book, I had photographs, rail car diagrams and timetables tacked up around my workspace, and I consulted menus so I could write about what my Zephyrette and the passengers were having for dinner.

I want to get it right. I knew if I didn’t, I’d hear from every railfan in the country. I’m proud of the book I wrote and I hope readers enjoy it, and get a sense for what it was like to travel aboard the sleek streamliner people called the Silver Lady.

Up a Tree, Ducking Stones

As a confirmed and rabid Downton Abbey fan, let me say I am really upset about a recent episode. I was really hoping that Lady Sybil and Tom would live happily ever after. But it’s not to be.

Bummer!

The writer in me understands. If everyone lived happily ever after there wouldn’t be any conflict or drama. We need complications, or the story thuds like a dropped stone.

Someone, I forget who, once said that a writer should put her characters up in trees and throw stones at them. Those stones are more interesting when they are in the air, lobbed at the protagonist or her sidekicks.

That got me to thinking about the obstacles I’ve put in my characters’ paths over the years.

Take What You Wish For, my most recent published book. In the first chapter, we meet protagonist Lindsey Page, who is having lunch with friends. Lindsey has had a serious falling-out with her daughter Nina and she hasn’t spoken to Nina in months.

When Lindsey arrives home after her lunch date, guess who is on her doorstep? Her daughter. Who is out of work and has nowhere else to stay. The already prickly mother-daughter relationship is going to complicate Lindsey’s life for the rest of the book.

Looking back at the Jeri Howard series, in Kindred Crimes, Jeri’s first case, Jeri is hired to find a missing wife. Then, just as she gets started on her investigation, her client changes his mind and fires her. What’s a tenacious PI to do? Of course she keeps investigating.

My fourth Jeri Howard mystery, Don’t Turn Your Back on the Ocean, was a great exercise in throwing stones. In three earlier books, I allude to Jeri’s own prickly relationship with her mother, Marie. So of course I knew that at some point I had to send Jeri to visit her mother, who lives in Monterey on the California coast. Fireworks most definitely ensue.

And if that wasn’t enough, I gave Jeri, who was supposed to be on vacation, several other problems – pelican mutilations, sabotage at Marie’s restaurant, and then cousin Bobby becomes a murder suspect.

While writing the book, I reached a lull in the action. Then I remembered that dictum about the character up a tree, dodging stones. Hey, let’s see what happens if Bobby gets hauled in for questioning. It worked.

Just as it did when Jeri’s client died in the first chapter of Where the Bodies are Buried.

I just finished my train book, Death Rides the Zephyr, and it’s out in September. So I’m not going to tell you what happens. But there are complications aplenty in this mystery set aboard a train. After all, it’s winter and there are lots of interesting characters aboard, some of them not as nice as they could be.

You’ll just have to wait and see what kind of complications can happen on a cross-county train. Suffice to say that my protagonist spends the whole trip ducking stones.