The Camera in Your Mind

By Elaine L. Orr

Or is it a digital player? 

I see images very clearly. Probably most writers do. But there is something about visiting a place in which you've set a book that makes it so much easier to write the next book in a series. Well, not easy, but at least more visually appealing as you write.

My family history series set in Garrett County, Maryland, takes place in the vicinity of Deep Creek Lake. For the first four books, the sleuth would occasionally drive across the lake. Her focus was more on the task at hand than the lake itself.

In the fifth book, Sleuth Digger Browning still lives in a mountain town, but more of the story is centered on the lake itself. I've done a lot of reading about the lake's creation and its role in the economy.

After driving over and all around the lake at the end of May, I have 200 pictures in my brain. The visit also led me to sign up for the Deep Creek Times, a free newsletter about the area, which has beautiful photos. I just saved one so I can refer to it as I write a scene about a sunset over the lake.

Deep Creek Lake at Fort McHenry, MD

The photo of a dock at Fort McHenry, Maryland (at left) was one of the few I took of the lake itself. I have a (stupid) knee injury that is sufficiently annoying that I didn't walk by the water much. I did take a short video of the scene so I can listen to the water lap at the boats.

I can vividly picture the lake from an overlook, and took many photos of the mountains among which the lake nestles.

Just as important as how a place looks is the people who populate it. Deep Creek Lake is a resort area, more so in the summer, but with skiing options in the winter. It might be the Appalachians rather than the Rockies, but you can still take a fast slide down a mountain.

To get a sense of the pople who live there, I spent time in the towns, such as Oakland (the county seat) and Accident, which is just off the Interstate. Tourist guides are great, but visits to the historical society, libraries, and small eateries give a better sense than watching sailboats on the lake.

Tentatively titled Long-Held Lake Secrets, the story today relates back to actions at about the time the lake was formed in the 1920s. Some secrets just can't stay buried.

                                                                     * * * * *

To learn more about Elaine L. Orr, visit her website or sign up for her newsletter.

A Picture Can Lead to 1,000 Words

 I often take pictures of scenery similar to that in my fiction. Grain elevators feature in Demise of a Devious Suspect, and I have dozens of single and multiple silos.

Because I could not travel to Garrett County, Maryland as I wrote the Family History Mystery Series, I'm especially thankful to have photos of that area. Even more so to have captured images from the trains, since they traverse areas I can't travel by car.

Some of these are in Maryland, others may be in West Virginia. There are no state line signposts among the trees.

Early spring in the Appalachian Mountains.

Note the Dogwood trees.

You can't jump out of a train for close-up photos of flowers. My guess would be this is a form of clover or perhaps sulfur cinquefoil, a perennial almost considered a weed.

This gives you a sense of how close the railroad tracks are to the rivers.

I'm still hopeful that 2022 will let me travel to Maryland as I write book four of the series.

                                                             *                 *                 *

To learn more about Elaine, go to elaineorr.com or sign up for her newsletter. 

History and Mystery Intertwined

When I decided to merge my love of writing with  that of digging into family and local history, I wanted to be sure I didn't delve too deeply into the "how to" aspect of exploring family history. 

It didn't take long to figure out there is only so much license to take when exploring the history of a real place, in my case Garrett County, Maryland. I love riding through the Appalachian Mountains in a train. Or the Allegheny Mountains, if you prefer. While the town of Mountain Grove is fictional any references to the county's history has to be largely accurate. If not, why set it there?

With the Family History Mystery Series, I also faced the challenge of learning more during the COVID pandemic. A planned trip to tour some towns and conduct research fizzled, and I felt fortunate to find publications through the Garrett County Historical Society.

As always, the characters made their preferences known. I had planned for the protagonist, Digger -- you'll never guess how she got her name -- to spend more time plowing through old records and such, but she decided that would be boring. 

She also wanted more friends, so the Unscheduled Murder Trip gives them a bigger role. Book Three, tentatively titled Mountain Rails of Old, will feature the family of Digger's business partner, Holly. She's descended from one of the first free Black families in Garrett County, which will give me a chance to explore more aspects of the county's history.

In my wildest dreams, I never planned to insert a ghost, but one of the key characters was too good to let rest in peace. Writing does take authors down unexpected paths. 

Today marks the releas of the Unscheduled Murder Trip, which was fun to write and let me stretch my writing wings, probably an odd term, given that it relates to the ghost.

I do need that research trip, if only to take a walk around Deep Creek Lake.

                                                                *             *            *            *

To learn more about Elaine, go to www.elaineorr.com or subscribe to her newsletter.