Research Can Change the Story

Last week I went to Ellis Island to research my next book, and what I learned changed the tale I intended to tell. It didn’t alter the theme, but it did modify the plot.

Some background. Many people were held in limbo on Ellis Island for days or weeks or even months. Although many middle-grade readers have heard about Ellis Island, few know that it became a temporary home to some immigrants, so that is the story I wanted to tell. And it’s the story I will tell. Just not the way I had originally considered doing it.

My original plot idea was to have my protagonist’s younger sister fail the medical test for entry into the U.S. because of red eyes. Trachoma was a guaranteed basis for deportation, but they couldn’t always confirm the diagnosis immediately and would hold people temporarily to see if their eye conditions cleared up. I was going to have my protagonist stay with her sister during this observation period since I assumed that would give the protagonist the ability to roam the island.

I paid for a hard-hat tour of the hospital area, and our tour guide was very helpful. But one of the first things I learned was that family members weren’t allowed to stay no matter how old the child was. So that idea was out. (Apparently young children could stay if parents were detained, but not the other way around.) But I also learned that measles was the most common contagious disease treated there. So now my protagonist will be the person who is denied entry until she recovers (or dies, which was another possibility at the time) from the measles. She will be isolated from her family, which creates its own tension.

Fortunately, I hadn’t fleshed out my plot or started writing the story, so the change is easy enough to make at this point. In fact, the ideas are flowing, and I think this plot will be better than my original one.

But it highlights the perils of devising a plot before doing the research.

Nothing Goes as Planned

We just returned from a seventeen-day vacation to Italy. It was a good trip, but it got off to a bad start. No, I didn’t get arrested, but an Italian police car was one of my first photos from the trip.

Our flight landed in Milan on time, and a van hired by Go Ahead Tours picked us and some of our fellow travelers up at the airport for the one-hour drive to our hotel in Lecco. We were probably about halfway there when the van lost all power and coasted to the side of the road. After waiting in the hot sun for over a half-hour, we were finally rescued by a bus from the same company and taken the rest of the way.

Not a good start, but tomorrow was another day. That morning was set up with an optional excursion (which we didn’t take) and free time for the rest of us. Then we were to join up for a visit to Villa Carlotta and a brief tour of the town of Como. Villa Carlotta (a castle on the other side of Lake Como that had been built for a princess) was part of the package, and we were looking forward to it.

The group that went on the morning excursion made it to their destination and then took a boat ride on the lake before being dropped off at Villa Carlotta, as planned. At noon, the tour bus driver picked us and the others who had opted out of the morning excursion up, again according to plan. But after driving at least an hour along Lake Como through gorgeous mountain scenery, the bus was stopped by a police barricade and the driver was told that the road was closed.

The other group got to see Villa Carlotta but had to find another way back and returned via an excursion boat that took 2 ½ hours. They told us later that Villa Carlotta was overrun with a hundred school children whose teachers exercised no control whatsoever, and the same school children shared the excursion boat with them. That group didn’t see anything of Como.

For the rest of us, the driver took us to Como and said he would pick us up at 7:30 p.m. That gave us over six hours to entertain ourselves in a town with one or two hours of sights. We would have preferred to go back to the hotel but weren’t given that option. To be fair, it would have put a lot of extra miles on the bus and might have put the driver over his legal driving time limit.

After the first two days everything went pretty much as planned and we had a great tour. I highly recommend Go Ahead Tours and we will probably use them again.

Writing can also have unexpected detours. I thought I had my next few books planned. After my current two works in progress, I was going to write about life on the Erie Canal followed by a book on a lighthouse keeper’s daughter. Those are still in the plans, but another idea may take precedence. I don’t remember how I discovered it, but when I heard that many immigrants were stranded on Ellis Island for weeks or even months, I couldn’t get the thought out of my head. And even though I’m not ready to write it yet, I’ve already made lots of notes on a potential plot. I’m much farther ahead on it than on the other two, so it looks as if Ellis Island will be next.

Whether it’s travel or writing, we should be prepared for unexpected detours.

And they aren’t always bad.