Story Ideas That Are Out-of-Sync with Travel

 

In 2014, I dragged Roland along on a trip to Utah and California to do research for my first middle-grade book, Desert Jewels. Since Roland had never seen the Grand Canyon, we took a side trip to visit it. I had no plans to set a story there, so we spent our time at the tourist sites.

Now I wish I could have seen into the future. I am currently working on the first draft of a book that begins in the Oklahoma dust bowl in 1934 but then moves to the Grand Canyon for the rest of the story. The many photos I took as a tourist have been helpful for the setting, but I‘m missing some I would have taken if I had known. In particular, my online research tells me that the school building my main character would have attended is still there (although not in use as a school), but we didn’t visit it.

The limited knowledge I have of the school as it was in 1934 comes from a history page on the school district’s website. Although the page was quite helpful, it didn’t answer all of my questions, such as how many classrooms there were. Given that it was the third location and the second building actually constructed for the purpose, it seems logical that the attendance had outgrown the previous building. The enrollment listed in the article also supports that, with 29 students in 1914 and 250 currently. This makes it likely that there were at least two classrooms.

The website didn’t include contact information for the school or the person who put the history page together, but I did find an email address for the school librarian. Unfortunately, she hasn’t responded to my inquiry, so my conclusion that there must have been more than one classroom is simply an educated guess. An onsite visit would probably have answered the question, but I didn’t know enough to check it out a decade ago.

I also tried searching online for photos of the old school and found one labeled that way. There are two problems, though. First, I have no way of confirming that the caption identifies the correct building. Second, the front-end view isn’t enough to determine how many rooms were inside.

That’s what happens when I can’t foresee what my future novels will be about. It can also work the other way around, however.

Over a year ago I wrote a story about a girl who traveled around the Horn in 1850 on her way to the California gold fields. That manuscript is currently circulating among agents and hasn’t found one yet, but the lack of success may be a good thing.

When I wrote Around the Horn, I relied on journals written by people who had taken that trip in the mid-1800s. They were clearly the best resources, although it would have been nice to have supplemented them by taking the same route myself. I assumed, however, that it was a trip I would never take.

Wrong. Or maybe not, since we never know what the future holds. But after I started circulating the manuscript, Roland and I booked a cruise around the Horn for early 2026. We didn’t plan it as a research trip, and we aren’t stopping in the same ports as my characters did, but I’ll get whatever information I can out of it. Obviously, many things will have changed in 175 years, but much of the landscape will probably be the same.

I don’t really expect that what I see on my own trip around the Horn will change anything in the manuscript, but you never know. That’s why I’ve decided not to make another round of submissions until after I return. In this case, unlike for the book about the Grand Canyon, I may actually have a chance to do the research I didn’t expect.

But it sure would be nice if story ideas always coordinated with my travel plans.