Monday, February 5, 2018

About a Diary Snob



When I started writing, I didn’t want to include diaries in my stories about old crimes. It seemed too cliché to use them. Instead, I used things like old letters, photographs and word-of-mouth. I have those things. My grandmother was a pen pal to a few soldiers during World War I. She kept all the letters. She also left me a huge trunk filled with old photographs. We had several conversations about what things were like for her as a child and the things that changed her life. When she was fourteen or fifteen, she was in an industrial accident and lost her arm below the elbow. That was definitely life-changing, but she dealt with it. The letters and our conversations were quite revealing. We talked about what things were like in Old Los Angeles. I won’t bore you with more, but you get the idea.

I figured I could get by without the use of diaries and journals for information in my mysteries.

How wrong I was. Well, using things other than diaries was fine, but diaries were a large part of people’s lives. They chronicled what was going on, even if it was simply to write about what they had for dinner on a particular night. In among the references to meatloaf, there are often little jewels of knowledge. There are insights into what life was like during certain periods of time. They’re also a good way to learn the slang used at the time the diary was written.
 

I’m not sure if diaries are used as often today as they used to be. With the Internet, I guess people use other means for keeping track of their lives. If we were to suddenly lose the use of the Internet, a lot of memories would be lost forever. The written word will last forever, assuming the diaries aren’t thrown away like mine were. Mine were just too corny to live.

Diaries and journals have existed in one form or another all through history. Think Dead Sea Scrolls. They’ve chronicled ocean voyages, trips across the country in wagons, people’s reactions to historic events, and some have even been known to hold deep, dark secrets.

So was I a diary snob? I guess I was. What brought me out of this was my cousin finding many diaries that one of my grandmother’s had kept. Many years ago I found one lonely little diary that my other grandmother wrote in, and one that my mother had kept her thoughts in when she was a teenager.

Now I’m working on Gin Mill Grill and I’ve introduced some old diaries. Since this story is based on a crime from the 1930s that needs to be solved today, and most of the characters are either dead or very, very old now, the diaries may be invaluable. Honestly? I haven’t decided just how they’ll play into the story, but in one way or another they will have a part.

I’ve mentioned this before, but one of my own personal mysteries is a photo I found in that big trunk I mentioned. In among the old family photos dating back into the 1800s, I found a picture of a firing squad doing what they do. You can even see smoke coming out of the rifles. This is not a photo you’d expect to find with pictures of great-great-great-grandma. I sent it to a Naval historian who had a few ideas, but I don’t think I’ll ever know for sure what was going on. My grandfather (much older than my grandmother), was in the Navy from 1904-1907. I have a photo album with pictures he took around the world, and the firing squad photo looks very similar to the quality and type of pictures he took. I wish he’d kept a diary.

So, while I started out with letters, photos and word-of-mouth (meaning memories), I’ve now added diaries and journals.

Is there something that you think is too cliché? Are you a snob about something used in mysteries? As for me, I need to keep an open mind.

Until next time, read some of those old diaries stashed away in boxes in the attic or garage. You just mind find something interesting.

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16 comments:

  1. You're very fortunate to have the old photos, diaries, letters, etc. that chronicle your family's history. I love the way you incorporate some of the information into your books and I'm looking forward to reading your new one.

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    1. Thank you, Pat! You can learn so much about history from those letters and photos. Thank you for stopping in!

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    2. Wow! I almost wish you would make up a presentation with some of those old photos and copies of the written material to take around to schools for history class. The kids often are bored and don't visualize history as being "real" at all. You might spark a future historian! My mother hated photos and reminders of the past, saying it hurt her to know what she had lost. I was always the family photo archivist. When she would find one of my photo albums, she'd take out many pics or tear them in half and take herself out of them because "you tried to make me look bad in this." I mourn what was lost, but I try to understand her mindset. I do get sad looking at old photos sometimes, but as a writer I also find it activates other parts of the memory and stimulates thinking. What if. . . ?

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  2. I wish some of my ancestors had kept a diary or, if they did, I could find it. It would make doing genealogy so much easier. And I agree, diaries, photos and the like are an excellent means of providing insight into a fictional character in a novel.

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    1. So true, John. The word-of-mouth thing works, too. I sat down with my grandmother and a handheld recorder. She talked about the past and it really was interesting. Not only do I have the information, but I can hear her voice any time I want to. This came about because of my own work on the family genealogy. Thank you for stopping in today!

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  3. Marja,
    I do not think it's cliché to use a diary in a mystery, especially since people actually wrote in them. My sleuth finds a journal in DEATH OVERDUE. My protagonist in GETTING BACK TO NORMAL learns about an old event in a newspaper article. Letters, logs, newspaper articles, and diaries are all records of the past.

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    1. Like I said, Marilyn, I was a Diary Snob, but I've learned my lesson. You're right about newspaper articles, too. They're a great source. Thank you so much for stopping in!

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  4. Your post today was very timely, as Marilyn Levinson mentioned. I am also working on a book in which the main character finds a diary and finds out about a crime that occurred in the 1860s. I think diaries are fascinating.My grandmother wrote in diaries every day for decades and my mother has them. They're priceless.

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    1. Thank you, Amy! I have to admit the diaries and what people wrote about have given me a few laughs, too. They're priceless, as I now realize. Thank you for stopping in!

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  5. Thank you for the suggestion, Shalanna. My favorite history teacher in high school told stories, many of which were firsthand stories, to keep us interested. I'm sorry you lost many photos. We don't always know why people do the things they do. Sounds like you have inspiration for a book. Thank you for stopping in today!

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  6. I think diaries are a great way to find out what people did and how they felt in the past. I read many Civil War diaries when I was researching, The Tarkington Treasure, and even included some pages in the novel. They were fictional, of course, but in the same vein that the originals were written. And as for old photos, I know what you mean, my mother-in-law left us a large box of photos from the late 1800s, but she never wrote down who these relatives were or where they were.

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    1. I'm one step ahead of you, Evelyn. My grandmother sat down and told me who was in each photograph. I marked all of them with the names. I can recognize most of them by sight now. I think some of the photos we have would make great book covers. : ) Thank you for stopping in today!

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    2. Maybe your photos would make great book covers, but mine are pretty grim-looking. Nobody's smiling. They don't look at all happy to be having their picture taken. And a lot of the women are wearing black clothes that cover them from neck to ankle. Summers must have been murder.

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    3. That's actually very typical. I have several wedding photos and you'd think the bride and groom were about to have teeth pulled. Your description of the clothes is relatively common, too. I can't imagine summers in those clothes. Depending on the story, I still think they might make good covers.
      : )

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  7. My mother was a big letter writer and I have hundreds of letters she saved (she saved everything). Many are between her and my dad before they were married.

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    1. What a treasure, Maggie. I'm sure some of them make you smile. My mother wrote about my father in her diary, and I find myself smiling when I read her entries. Thank you so much for stopping in.

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