I was looking back through some of my Examiner.com articles, and thought you might enjoy this one. I keep stressing how important it is research things when writing about locations and professions you aren't totally familiar with.
So, what did this city girl know about peacocks? Only that they screech, and although beautiful, they are very messy. I needed to know more about them for the third Silver Sisters Mystery, Vanishing Act in Vegas, and later found out that I REALLY did get it right. Read on and enjoy!
Spotlight: Mystery authors discover peacocks really do like shiny things
Morgan St. James, Las Vegas Writing Examiner
November 8, 2011 - Like this? Subscribe to get instant updates.
Today’s Spotlight is a little off the chart. It is actually an encounter my sister, Silver Sisters Mysteries co-author Phyllice Bradner, and I had with a group of peacocks over the weekend. She was visiting me in Las Vegas, and since Vanishing Act in Vegas, our latest crime caper was set in Sin City, I’d conceived just about all of the background descriptions in the book. For the record, when things are set in Juneau, Alaska, Phyllice usually supplies all of the authentic details since she lived there for over 30 years.
Anyway, in Vanishing Act in Vegas, the plot involves Mara the Magnificent, a magician who is the headliner at a fictional hotel on the famed Strip. She performs with a combination of white and traditionally plumed peacocks. My inspiration for Mara’s unique abode was an actual place in town. It is in the midst of a residential neighborhood zoned for livestock, and is sprinkled with an occasional horse property or those with other livestock or poultry.
Anyway, in Vanishing Act in Vegas, the plot involves Mara the Magnificent, a magician who is the headliner at a fictional hotel on the famed Strip. She performs with a combination of white and traditionally plumed peacocks. My inspiration for Mara’s unique abode was an actual place in town. It is in the midst of a residential neighborhood zoned for livestock, and is sprinkled with an occasional horse property or those with other livestock or poultry.
One property just off Warm Springs houses a whole flock of brilliantly colored peacocks. Taking it several steps further when creating the peacock ranch in our novel, we even conjured a luxurious Peacock Manor for the performing peacocks in our book complete with a setting designed like a hotel shopping mall...you know, the kind with painted skies, mood lighting and more. We provided a bright, shiny red Chevy for the birds to roost on.
You might question the Chevy, but I’d done lots of research and discovered that peacocks love shiny objects. They particularly like to roost on the hood of a shiny car, and are in Seventh Heaven if it has just been turned off and the hood is still warm. I’d driven past the property when writing the scenes, but never really saw any peacocks. “Who knows,” I thought. “Maybe they’re just one on those urban legends.”
Now Phyllice had never actually seen this property, and she assumed it was a figment of my imagination even though I insisted it was real. Knowing I’d never have a better opportunity, I thought it would be fun to drive her past it. Of course, I didn’t know whether we would actually see any of the brilliant birds but at least she would know that the quasi-rural area did exist elsewhere than in my imagination.
I drive a black Mustang convertible, and it was still quite shiny from a nice wax job at the local carwash. We pulled up to the property, and at first didn’t see any birds. Then Phyllice said, “Hey, look Morgan. There are a few peahens.” In case you don’t know, the hens have none of the brilliant colors of the males of the species. I looked in the direction she pointed, and sure enough, there were two muddy brown peahens on the lawn.
Within moments, Phyllice said, “Wow, look. Here come two male peacocks,” and sure enough two beautiful birds strutted across the lawn. They were followed by two more, then three more and at that point we stopped counting. The birds kept coming. We thought they were going toward the house for dinner, or perhaps someone was calling them. Boy, were we wrong.
Being the mystery writers we are, we quickly concluded that it was the shiny black Mustang they were after. At first they advanced slowly and were obviously focused on the car. They stood in a line across the lawn literally staring at the object of their affection. More and more birds joined them. One ran out into the road in front of the car, then darted back. En masse, they all began to converge on the car. It was clear my research was spot on. You could almost imagine them communicating with each other: “Shiny car, still running, warm hood. Let’s go boys.”
I said, “You know what, I think we’d better get out of here or we might have a bunch of peacocks sitting on the hood.” I raised the window and we took off. Phyllice said, “So there really was a place like that.” Then she giggled. “But we made it so much more elegant.”
Hope you enjoyed this little snapshot of Silver Sisters actually visiting the peacock ranch. After all, my sister and I are their alter egos. And this little escapade confirmed that it pays for authors to not only do research, but to get it right.
First there was A Corpse in the Soup which took place mostly in Los Angeles, Hollywood and Beverly Hills. It was followed by Seven Deadly Samovars as the Silver Sisters and their 80-year-old mother and uncle, former vaudeville magicians, tracked the treacherous Dumkovsky brothers in Juneau, then followed them to Seattle and L.A. Now in Vanishing Act in Vegas, a bona fide peacock ranch in the midst of Sin City and lots of Vegas-type kitsch. Whatever could be next?
______________________________________________________________________________
For more information about Morgan St. James, visit www.morganstjames-author.com, www.silversistersmysteries.com, and http://morgan-stjames.blogspot.com. Follow her on Twitter @MorganStJames and Facebook. Her Spotlight column appears in the Las Vegas edition on Tuesday and in Los Angeles on Wednesday. For those interested in writing, read Writers’ Tricks of the Trade on Thursday in Las Vegas and Friday in Los Angeles editions. Just click SUBSCRIBE to receive notifications of new articles from Examiner.com
Now Phyllice had never actually seen this property, and she assumed it was a figment of my imagination even though I insisted it was real. Knowing I’d never have a better opportunity, I thought it would be fun to drive her past it. Of course, I didn’t know whether we would actually see any of the brilliant birds but at least she would know that the quasi-rural area did exist elsewhere than in my imagination.
I drive a black Mustang convertible, and it was still quite shiny from a nice wax job at the local carwash. We pulled up to the property, and at first didn’t see any birds. Then Phyllice said, “Hey, look Morgan. There are a few peahens.” In case you don’t know, the hens have none of the brilliant colors of the males of the species. I looked in the direction she pointed, and sure enough, there were two muddy brown peahens on the lawn.
Within moments, Phyllice said, “Wow, look. Here come two male peacocks,” and sure enough two beautiful birds strutted across the lawn. They were followed by two more, then three more and at that point we stopped counting. The birds kept coming. We thought they were going toward the house for dinner, or perhaps someone was calling them. Boy, were we wrong.
Being the mystery writers we are, we quickly concluded that it was the shiny black Mustang they were after. At first they advanced slowly and were obviously focused on the car. They stood in a line across the lawn literally staring at the object of their affection. More and more birds joined them. One ran out into the road in front of the car, then darted back. En masse, they all began to converge on the car. It was clear my research was spot on. You could almost imagine them communicating with each other: “Shiny car, still running, warm hood. Let’s go boys.”
I said, “You know what, I think we’d better get out of here or we might have a bunch of peacocks sitting on the hood.” I raised the window and we took off. Phyllice said, “So there really was a place like that.” Then she giggled. “But we made it so much more elegant.”
Hope you enjoyed this little snapshot of Silver Sisters actually visiting the peacock ranch. After all, my sister and I are their alter egos. And this little escapade confirmed that it pays for authors to not only do research, but to get it right.
First there was A Corpse in the Soup which took place mostly in Los Angeles, Hollywood and Beverly Hills. It was followed by Seven Deadly Samovars as the Silver Sisters and their 80-year-old mother and uncle, former vaudeville magicians, tracked the treacherous Dumkovsky brothers in Juneau, then followed them to Seattle and L.A. Now in Vanishing Act in Vegas, a bona fide peacock ranch in the midst of Sin City and lots of Vegas-type kitsch. Whatever could be next?
______________________________________________________________________________
For more information about Morgan St. James, visit www.morganstjames-author.com, www.silversistersmysteries.com, and http://morgan-stjames.blogspot.com. Follow her on Twitter @MorganStJames and Facebook. Her Spotlight column appears in the Las Vegas edition on Tuesday and in Los Angeles on Wednesday. For those interested in writing, read Writers’ Tricks of the Trade on Thursday in Las Vegas and Friday in Los Angeles editions. Just click SUBSCRIBE to receive notifications of new articles from Examiner.com
This is one of the best posts that I’ve ever seen; you may include some more ideas in the same theme about Mystery Shopping Research. I’m still waiting for some interesting thoughts from your side in your next post.
ReplyDelete