Long before attempting fiction, I fell in love with the universal resonance of the personal story. I wrote articles and essays and, like most writers, I also had a day job. For ten years, I was a U.S. correspondent for two international education journals. But whether writing a commissioned article on international education or an essay on celebrating Thanksgiving as an immigrant to America, I was always searching for the nugget around which to frame the piece. And the strange thing is, I never consciously realized what I was doing until seeing The Center Will Not Hold, the 2017 documentary by Griffin Dunne about his aunt, Joan Didion.
There’s a memorable scene in the film where the great writer recounts reporting during the heady Haight-Ashbury days of 1967 San Francisco. Didion describes a party, a gathering of high-as-a-kite hippies, and while observing everything that was going on around her, she witnessed a five-year-old girl stoned on LSD, the drug supplied by her mother. Asked how she felt at that moment, Didion gives a wry grin and says, “Let me tell you, it was gold.”
Many viewers were shocked by the confident glee she expressed when describing the impact of the scene—yet I understood what she meant, though I am far from Didion’s caliber. What she saw was something so many writers of fiction and non-fiction are searching for—and there it was right in front of her—the image that would make all the difference for the story she had to tell. The scene encapsulated everything she wanted to report about the dark side of an era.
After seeing the film, I started to think about the many interviews I’d conducted over the years. I love interviewing people, digging down, mining their stories with my questions—inquisitions that I hope will elicit a response that makes the difference between a ho-hum article and one that goes right into the heart of the matter.
I remember interviewing a college professor for an article on how that particular institution welcomed international students to the United States. I questioned the professor about the school’s initiatives, and was given a series of textbook answers, as if she were reading from a brochure. But I pressed her regarding the moment when the students arrived on American soil and how they responded to efforts designed to ensure a successful start to life in a foreign country. “Ah,” she said, with a sigh, “That’s when the rubber really hits the road.” Yes, it’s a common phrase here in America, but not one usually found in the sort of journal I was writing for, and not by a staid professor. I knew it would frame the entire piece, because with those words she had admitted that all the best laid plans for immersion into a new culture could go awry. I loved the fact that the woman’s very professional responses to my questions suddenly changed—my article would get attention.
A couple of years ago, I was interviewing well-known writers for an essay on the impact of writing about war, reframing my questions as I went along so I could get to the heart of the matter. I asked some pretty personal questions but was taken aback when one of the authors mentioned the emotional drain of imagining such terror. He told me he had been worn down while interviewing survivors of one of the most devastating battles of the Korean war. That highly regarded author, known for his bestselling books on a range of conflicts, said, “I just don’t know if I can do it anymore.” In that moment I knew I had struck gold—there was the piece I wanted, to reveal how the work burdens the writer’s soul. I also wondered if the comment sent his editor into a tailspin.
Upon reflection, I’ve come to understand that with every piece of writing I’ve ever embarked upon, from an essay to a blog post, short story to a novel—in interviews, in my primary and secondary research and the reading of books—I’ve looked for the gold. Sometimes that gold is just one sentence in a reference text, sometimes it’s an ah-ha moment while walking around an area where I want to set a scene, and sometimes I know I need a whole bag of nuggets, one for every chapter, every scene.
I was in the reading room of London’s Imperial War Museum, sifting through documents on background for my novel Pardonable Lies. I wanted to find out more about the experiences of soldiers in France during a specific period of World War I. The museum has since had a major refit, however this was in 2004, when the reading room was still in the “dome” of the museum and you had to make an appointment to use the library and state your research interest. To put you in the picture, the Imperial War Museum is housed in the building that was originally the Bethlem Royal Hospital— “Bedlam” in the local vernacular. The dome had been the chapel when the asylum opened.
On my first visit, I walked into the silent room, where a collection of books and letters allied to my stated interest awaited me. The museum has been, and continues to be, the recipient of many collections of letters from a time of war (though not so much today, as people communicate via text and email), and only a small percentage of those letters are to, or from, famous people. Each collection of letters is stored in a heavy cardboard box labeled with the name of the writer (and rank if appropriate), the dates of the letters, the year/s and where the writer served. Reading those letters is something one comes to with great reverence.
On this day, as I lifted the lid on each bundle of letters—sometimes the letters are still tied with ribbon, just as they were found, perhaps after an elderly man or woman who had cherished those communiques died—I had a growing feeling of excitement. I was looking for something special. I didn’t know what it was, but I knew I would find something more than just the impressions of young soldiers on the Western Front in 1916.
I read through each collection, replacing letters in their respective boxes before moving on to the next, and I sat back. I could feel a lump of gold staring at me, but I couldn’t see it. I began with the first box again, and this time noticed there was a point at which the soldier’s handwriting became difficult to read because the ink was very faint. I noted the place of origin of letters at the point when the change seemed obvious, put the letters back in the box, and moved on to the next. Same observation. And ditto with the next. When I had double-checked each box of letters, I looked at my notes and realized that the ink had become fainter after the soldier had left a training barracks in England and deployed to France.
I sat back and closed my eyes to think about it—and realized that there must have been a run on ink, because thousands of soldiers from across the Empire were being sent to the Western Front. Perhaps the rations of ink had been watered down to make it go further. Of course, I didn’t know that for a fact, but I also remembered reading that the “Princess Mary tins” distributed to soldiers for Christmas in 1914 contained not only sweets, but a pencil in case ink was not available. The nugget of gold stood out when I imagined how it must have been for a soldier about to be sent up to the front line—knowing that for every five soldiers who went to the front, only two returned.
In my mind’s eye, I saw him trying to pen his last letter home, but as he’s writing, the watery ink is almost vanishing before his eyes. It would be the equivalent of a soldier today trying to communicate with her loved ones before going out on patrol in a conflict zone, and not being able to get an internet connection. It was gold—not for the whole book, but precious for one scene, helping me create the sort of tension that puts the reader right there, with the soldier.
It was during some intense in-person research for The White Lady, my new standalone novel, that a nugget of gold fell into my hands in a most extraordinary way. Given that I was writing about a woman who had been a trained killer during her girlhood, it occurred to me that it was a bit strange exploring a character who used a gun when the only gun I’ve ever handled was a toy when I was five. It was made of silver tinted plastic and came with a holster and caps, plus a cowboy hat to finish the ensemble. My brother had the same outfit. As an adult I had no idea how it felt to handle a weapon. It made me wonder how many thriller writers had ever lifted a gun—a reasonable consideration given the number of untimely deaths littering the pages we write.
To rectify the situation, I talked to the farrier who takes care of my horse’s feet, knowing he was a member of the local gun club. Mike said he would be happy to show me how to use a pistol, so one Sunday morning—joined by my equestrian trainer and her assistant, both good friends—I had my first lesson. Mike showed me a 9mm pistol, pointed out the constituent parts, and demonstrated how to hold it. Despite the fact that the weapon wasn’t even loaded, the audience ducked and decided to watch from behind a door held ajar, so that tells you something about my handling skills.
Mike was a good teacher, talking me through the safe handling of the weapon, the correct way to move one’s finger from the barrel to the trigger, and so on. We talked about using the pistol (it was way heavier than I’d imagined) and after a very short time I decided I’d had enough background to create scenes that were crucial to the story. I’d also had enough of handling a gun—the experience left me with an ache in my heart. I had done something I never thought I would do, and would never do again – this would be the last time I touched a gun. I passed the pistol back to Mike to pack away and commented that I didn’t understand why ordinary people would want to be armed. We talked about fear, and what that does to the psyche, and then he said, “Look at it like this: For some people, a gun turns you from prey into predator.” In one sentence, the farrier had given me the nugget of gold that would underpin the experiences of The White Lady through two world wars, her transition from prey to predator. And my own response to the experience helped me get inside her head.
A writer’s gold can be found in the most extraordinary places. Sometimes we have to dig, sometimes polish what looks at first blush to be coal, but when we pay attention it’s there, waiting to bring a story alive.
Jacqueline Winspear is the author of the New York Times bestsellers A Sunlit Weapon, The Consequences of Fear, The American Agent, and To Die but Once, as well as thirteen other bestselling Maisie Dobbs novels. Her standalone novel The Care and Management of Lies, was also a New York Times bestseller and a finalist for the Dayton Literary Peace Prize. She is the author of two works of nonfiction, a memoir, This Time Next Year We’ll Be Laughing , and What Would Maisie Do?, a companion book to the series. For more on Jacqueline Winspear, visit: https://jacquelinewinspear.com/
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