Perils of Research

I've been writing up a storm. Hit 5,000 words this weekend. And that was with gutting several scenes and doing them differently.

But I'm writing well in front of my outline and I've hit a point where I can't discovery-writing my way out of it. I actually have to do a little planning.

The first draft of the current scene was a conversation. Okay, it was about the personalities of the two lead archaeologists on the dig (which is inappropriate for that time and place -- save it for the bar after work). And about Pre-Clovis.

But the problem was -- it was a discussion. Once again, I've got someone lecturing at Penny.

In re-writes my "Penny looks at footprints and makes her own conclusions" worked great. And I stopped and rewrote/padded out the start of the dig for more scene-setting and for more of a focus on the physical part of digging, and less on laying out a unit. That's for different reasons.

Clovis, though. This is why I end up having lectures, because there are so few good ways to get the info out. The best thing to do is, of course, not having the info there at all. And, yeah, since basically all the paleoindian stuff in this one is just background and theme, I don't have to get it in there in time for the climax. Penny's mental Bat-Computer can spit out the whodunnit without needing to know the arguments for and against the Coastal Route.

Of course, right here when she is actually digging on a potential pre-Clovis site, would be the time to do this stuff. It matters to her at this moment. And if I've done my job right, I've intrigued the reader. That's the other thing about that info stuff; you want to be dropping questions on the reader, letting them worry about them for a while, and answering them -- after you've given them two or three new ones to chew on.

Again, if I've set things up right, the reader is wondering what the deal is with Doctor Bell. And is wondering why two of the diggers are name-dropping something called the "Gault Assemblage." And wondering what the big deal is about something being Pre-Clovis. I'm not sure I want to kick that can 50,000 words down the road, to the point where Penny returns to Alamogordo to close the chase.

Anyhow, Clovis. Here's today's brilliant idea; demonstrate it through knapping. That was on my original short list anyhow, that I wanted her to do it. That does put a slight delay on things, though, because that means I really need to find the time to get my box of rocks and my antler out and learn a bit of that stuff myself. I've finally figured out where to do it so nobody is stepping on bits of broken glass (out by the garbage cans. No bare feet there, and the gravel will grind it fine over time.)

I of course have no idea what character to do this with. What questions, what relationships have I built up to the point where this is meaningful? Dylan has his own arc and I'm cutting him out of the picture as soon as I can manage it. Doctors Bell and Bleekman have theirs...I already jumped the gun on Bell, showing that while he may be a dinosaur, he's aware of it and willing to try and do better. Which was within a fifty words of Penny realizing there was anything he needed to do better.

(There was just the perfect dialogue opening. Such is writing.)

So I stopped to look at my largely empty mind-mapper doc for this book. And watch some of Dark Wind, the AMC-Whatever series based on Tony Hillerman's Navajo mysteries. Which is all in Northern New Mexico but I've known that for a while.

Whatever else happens in that lunch-time conversation (I may just cut it entirely), there's an Air Force check-up from Holloman during it. So just to make it quicker work when I got there, I looked up what kind of civilian-origin truck it would be, and what colors it would be painted.

Tried to look up. Frustrating. According to sources, there are so many options from Strata Blue to OG to NATO camo to Desert camo to that cute blue Air MP paint job. And a few options in vehicles, too.

Penny isn't even a car person. This thing is gonna do six words of description at the very outside. Could be, when I get to the one sentence, it will be "A truck drove up." I am kinda hoping for "A Chevy pickup painted dark blue" but here's the catch; it could be anything. But anyone who had been stationed at Holloman in 2019 would know exactly what it would have been.

As errors in research goes, it is something probably no reader will ever catch. But it bothers me. Yeah, it bothers me. There's a reason I've been shying away from outright historical fiction.

(Says the guy who is intending to write four more vignettes; Egtved Girl, the Pueblo Revolt, Valentina pissing on a tire...and of course Lucy.

(The reason I agonize over this damn truck is that Penny is slowly realizing the depth and extent of the military-industrial complex in New Mexico, especially around the Tularosa Basin. Which is significant setting as she will be sneaking in and out of the White Sands military reservation. And significant to the underlying plot as well.)

(I am trying to time this stuff out, but my first plan -- to drive through some fancy well-guarded gate in the prior scene -- fell apart when I got a good look at the actual entrance at the civvie-facing and largely residential end of the base. Stallion Gate, from what I could see from my parking spot and what I could remember without taking pictures, was a lot more impressive.)