What You DON'T See

HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN: What you do see, every Tuesday at 4 PM on CRIME TIME on A Mighty Blaze on Facebook, is my face, and an author's face, and you get to hear an interview with someone who just wrote a terrific new book. You get to ask questions, and spin the wheel of fun, and someone always wins a book.

And it all looks very seamless and fun. 

But what you don’t see is the brains of the operation.

Behind the scenes is a brilliant genius of a woman named Margaret Pinard. She and I have worked together for what – – five years almost now? She is the producer of CRIME TIME, and honestly Reds and Readers, without her the whole thing would fall apart. More than fall apart..be nonexistent. And I am astonishingly grateful to her every moment of every day.

But here’s the other part of Margaret. She is a brilliant, brilliant author! Her brand new book is called Orla Rafferty Seeks Her Fortune, which is about the best title I’ve ever heard. And you can find more about it  on Instagram @Margaret Pinard.

And like so many of us here at Jungle Red, she adores her research. And can come up with all kinds of reasons to do it! See if you agree – – and I will award a copy of Orla Rafferty, to one lucky commenter!

A Research Trip Is as Good as a Rest

By Margaret Pinard

Who here loves a novel that drops you into another place and time?

Yes, yes—you need story, character, pacing, and all that, but I love escaping into the tactile feel of Somewhere Else, be it fantasy, mystery, historical, or what-have-you.

So I suppose it’s no surprise that if readers enjoy this… writers might too! And this is how I, a writer in a slump and at a standstill with a draft, turned to a research trip to find my bearings.

These bearings appear to be permanently installed in Scotland. Having written six books with Scottish locations and/or people, my heart knows what it wants. And I needed to make my latest soul-refresher of a trip as useful to the draft as possible, which meant assessing, planning, and capturing.

I’m sure you all know how to plan a trip. But let me show you what I did to assess, plan, and capture, in case you ever need to use my excuse.

ASSESS

Where are we in the drafting or editing process? What do we need?

In my case, I had a sort of franken-draft. Started out with one idea, grafted another onto it, plotted a trilogy! But then I needed to reconcile all the backstories and motivations, which meant a lot of revisions. (I do not recommend this method; it landed me in the previously mentioned slump.)

So I was looking for supporting cast members and sensory details that would help ground the reader and reveal the main character. I had surfed through history books and bibliographies to narrow down the location and set my sights on ‘The Three Touns’ of Saltcoats, Ardrossan, and Stevenston (all in Ayrshire) for my founding myth of Irish rebels fleeing imprisonment.

The biographical sketches I’d read for people (men) of interest pointed me to Ayrshire, and I thought a small, seaside town would provide a good contrast to the industrial bustle of Glasgow (note: we’re talking about the 1830s!). Then I went to Google Maps to look for local museums and their hours (and possible closures).

Bingo!

A converted church in Saltcoats was open Monday through Wednesday and the last Saturday of the month—well, now I had my dates! (I opted for off-season for better airfare—February in the Lowlands!)

Since I had a few key letters in my story, I wanted to see some representative samples of those, or at least some on which I could model mine for authenticity’s sake. For that, I would need to seek out the Glasgow City Archives collections, in the Mitchell Library, which were available by appointment, Tuesday through Thursday and the first Saturday of the month.

Well, I could just make both of those schedules work!

Here were the two strongest leads to help me balance out my story. Now I just needed to plan the itinerary to make them possible.

PLAN

I sent the first email to the archives on October 25th, 2023. This is when I started requesting the airfare alerts, also. I had to find the right contact, confirm procedures, narrow down the materials I wanted to view for the short time I would have (six items only!), provide consent forms, etc.

(And yes! This was my idea of a relaxing good time!)

There was no one to contact at the North Ayrshire Museum, so that was left up to fate, which you’ll see wanted to have a laugh at my expense later. I arranged the plane, train, and room (because why would the airline fly me to Glasgow when it could just dump me in London?), and crossed my fingers.

CAPTURE

Then came the magical part.

It was ‘stotting down’ in London when I arrived, and the complete drenching I got on the walk to the hotel had to be remedied by a browse at the iconic Waterstone’s across the way. Suddenly, the woolens were not quite so sodden…

It was the darndest thing. Late February, I got on the dreary London train and zoomed north to Glasgow, and the skies cleared. The sun (sun! In February!) stayed out in Ayrshire for the entire four days I was there.

OK, OK, enough about the miraculous mental health bath, I hear you saying—how did I capture my details?

First to the countryside with its converted church. This part of Ayrshire has a lot of commemorated history, and so the exhibits that they’d arranged were not all relevant to my story’s class (middle), trade (newspapers), or era (1830s). But there was still a vibe.

The wooden marquis, polished to a dark shine, displaying names in gold of each year’s Best Boy and Girl of the local school: pride. The silver tea urn presented as a prize for a bowling tournament: wealth. The set of three dishes given to a servant when the Earl of Eglinton’s castle was to be abandoned: a complicated web of emotional connections between classes. 

With this museum, I was getting the material culture experience: what was important enough to save over the centuries?

I also perused the museum’s specialized library and chatted with the knowledgeable curators. 

And here’s the fate-laughing-at-me part. 

When I arrived, I was exactly on time for opening. But I walked the perimeter twice, stepping among gravestones, and couldn’t find an entrance. So I walked away, checked the website on my phone again, and returned, perhaps ten minutes after the hour. I was staring at the likely front door, wondering what I would do if it didn’t open—when it did! And I just about gave the poor woman a heart attack when she saw me standing 10 feet away.

She ushered me into the foyer, and as I took off my obligatory pack and coat quietly, the other woman in the library area turned around and I nearly scared her to death too! Apparently they aren’t used to folks being both eager and quiet? At any rate, they were great fun to chat with about local history and gave me several very helpful local walking tour maps.

At the City Archives, I again arrived right on time, but this time there were other researchers queueing with me outside in the cold. No heart attacks. I was ahead of my appointment time, so I browsed among the city collections and fell headlong into several histories of Glasgow’s banking sector—a fascinating evolution—or perhaps that’s my Shiny Object Syndrome speaking. Saving for later.

I did find representative samples of letters and records, though some of the records I saw were not those I’d requested. They were short-staffed, and trying to be accommodating, so I just rolled with it. What could I capture from:

An 1830s ‘letter book’?

An 1826 letter from a ward to his guardian?

An 1850 letter about a woman starting a lending library?

A letter from a group of men supporting the local laird in an election?

And this is when the magic of research obliterated my slump. When I arrived back home, I shuffled all my notes together, sat down, and actually made progress.

I had new names, new positions that made that society work, a desultory tone of voice for a woman, a tone to use when speaking to a superior and trying to stay in his good graces. These sent me swimming back into the whitewater of my political awakening story, with many personalities to choose from.

Margaret, 1; Slump, 0.

What’s the most powerful place you’ve visited for research, or incorporated into a story?


HANK: Slump, zero! LOVE this!

What do you think, Redsa and readers? Tell us one pivotal place–and a copy of ORLA RAFFERTY SEEKS HER FORTUNE to one very lucky commenter!

Margaret Pinard is a free-wheeling soul from the 19th century who finds it easiest to disguise herself by drinking tea, writing historical fiction, and popping off to the British Isles 'for research.' She has published seven novels and one collection of short stories. Her latest historical fiction work dives into 1830s Glasgow to highlight one woman’s political awakening to an age of revolutions--the first of a planned trilogy. Margaret hosts an active Youtube channel and blogs on the Patreon platform.

www.margaretpinard.com

Youtube: bit.ly/booktubemp

Patreon: bit.ly/patreon_mp4

Shop: bit.ly/shop_margaret