What I Saw

Where others might see only rusty train tracks atop old asbestos-soaked wood and iron spikes, I see history. And a whole lot more.

This train trestle was once active, carrying copper from Arizona’s mines to the smelters. After a gargantuan reclamation effort by the mine (completed in 2007), the operation was closed and the tailings contoured to match the natural hillsides. Only the tracks remain. Click to enlarge.

This train trestle, located just beyond the border of our property and used for the once-active copper mining in the area, was part of the charm that drew us to the place we now call home. My hubby, a train buff, loves the architecture of the “train bridge,” and I’m always fascinated by the spectacular effect of pink and coral sunsets as they peek out from the structure.

I’m not sure the first time I realized that I was jogging under a piece of Arizona history each morning. As I looked overhead, I saw the once-bustling train trestle in its former glory, the cars gliding along the tracks, ghosts of the past.

Just as quickly, I realized that this structure is still very much alive, as it moans and creaks while the early morning sun warms its stiff joints from the night’s cooler temperatures.

For Writers: You don’t have to be writing a historical novel to take advantage of the great lessons history can provide for your fiction. A general understanding of the time period’s history helps make your fiction believable.

It can also reveal interesting plot turns and twists for your story that you might not have considered. Take the 30 minutes to do a Google search of your story’s time period, looking at current events, pop culture, world events and local news stories. Or spend a little extra time interviewing locals, reviewing history books and visiting museums. The additional effort will pay off with a three-dimensional, believable tale. And you might just learn something along the way.

I took a great trip to Virden, New Mexico last week with a friend – partly a leisure trip to learn about processing fresh, farm-grown green chilis, and partly a “field research” trip for my novel.

Along the way, on Rt. 70 – somewhere between Duncan and Safford – I began to notice what looked like debris all over the highway. As we continued, the debris became even more heavily concentrated, like scattered cigars all along the road.

To my chagrin, I realized we were crunching over a mass exodus of grasshoppers as they passed from one creosote-studded plain to another. There was literally no way to avoid running them over.

This grasshopper, just like the ones on the road, was encountered at the final destination point (Kathy’s mom’s). These grasshoppers-on-steroids are about five times bigger than the PA grasshopper of my youth. Seeing them up close somehow made them much more intimate to me. Click to enlarge.

Once in Virden, we took a convertible ride through the small farming town. This exposure to the open air was spectacular, drawing us closer to beautiful rock outcroppings, the Gila River and blue skies. But it also added a new element to my grasshopper experience. Unfortunately, now I could hear the sound of their hard-shelled bodies and wings pinging off the underside of the car as we hit a stray one here and there (they were much less abundant in this area). For someone who likes to rescue and admire bugs, the entire ‘grasshopper event,’ was disturbing… even despite being quickly reassured by the locals that the grasshoppers are destructive, evil pests to the farmer.

For Writers: Never underestimate the power of using sensory detail in your novel – especially sound. As gory as it is, I can still “hear” the click and snap of those poor grasshoppers as they crunched under the tires, and clanged under the wheel wells of the car. If I were going for a macabre description that left an impression in my readers’ minds, this would surely work.

Earlier this week when I was interviewing a funeral home director as part of my research, I was reminded again of how vital ‘sound’ descriptions are to the novel. This gentleman shared a defining moment in his career that was intensified by the sound of metal instruments dropping on a porcelain embalming table.

Sensory description that includes sound is just one more way to reach your reader and leave a lasting impression … disturbing or melodic.