Ask the Author: Daniel A. Smith
Answered Questions (1)
Daniel A. Smith
I read the question and thought, oh no; I don’t have any mysteries in my life significant enough to be a book plot. Of course, in any life there are numerous little events and settings that carry a sense of mystery, so much more curious and impressionable when experienced in youth. Rarely can those small mysteries support a plot through an entire novel. However, authors do draw on their own mini-mysteries to add a sense of intimacy when describing a setting or to contribute an element of wondering. Mystery is nothing without “wondering.”
Several of my life’s mini-mysteries were incorporated into my historical novel, Storykeeper. I set part of the novel on my grandfather’s farm, 400 years before it was his farm. One of several mysteries around the farm involved a section of land surrounded by an off-shoot of the nearby creek where arrowheads were always found. I wondered, why were there so many arrowheads in this one place? Was this the site of a great battle or a trading center or possibly where craftsmen produced arrowheads? Was the canal-like channel encircling the site natural or man-made?
I still don’t know any of the answers, but through my novel, I could interweave my experiences and bits of mystery into the storylines. In the book, some fifty years after the Spanish departed, an old woman, shunned by her tribe, begins digging a new fire-pit where she can tell her stories that speak of their tragic past. Beneath the same land, I walked as a boy, she finds a small white arrowhead and wonders how it came to be there. She takes the arrowhead and gives in return a special quartz; she has carried for years. I imagined that it was the very crystal I found centuries later.
One day at my grandfather’s farm, I joined my younger brother and our cousin on an adventure further than any of us had ever gone before. We were going in search of a cave where according to our grandfather, a wild woman once lived. As the story went, the cave was hidden and could only be entered by swinging-in on a rope.
After a couple hours of hiking, my brother and cousin were ready to quit when the forest opened-up. We all immediately froze. A small frame house stood to one side of the large clearing. This was someone’s homestead but with no signs of a road in or out. I turned back toward the woods. My brother being my brother shouted, “Hello!”
He shouted again before I could say, “be quiet.” Motionless, we watched the house and waited for a response. Tall grasses and briars spread from the edge of the woods up to the simple shed pouch. A faded blue door faced us. To its left were two worn chairs, one crumbled onto the other. Curtains hung in both windows. The house and all around had the appearance of a well-cared for farm just untended, maybe for years.
I led a slow procession across the field. The curtains were closed in the left-hand window. We peered through the other. There were two rooms full of belongings: tables, chairs, dishes, and oil lamps. Through the half-open bedroom door, we could see the corner of a quilt-covered bed, its headboard, and night stand. From the bedroom furniture to the dishes, from the paintings on the walls to the books on the end table, from the simple possessions of a man to the tranquil touches of a woman, nothing seemed to match the rugged isolation surrounding the little cottage. My brother turned the decorative doorknob and cracked open the door. I think we all felt the same unease at that moment. Without a word from anyone, he pulled the door shut. We turned and walked away.
It was not just abandoned house on the side of the road. There was no road, no power lines. I still wondered, who was the couple that chose to live alone? What happened? Where did they go? Why did they leave so much behind?
Now that I think about it, that might be a mystery worthy of a book plot and consideration after I finish the two books in front of me. After delving into the influence of personal mysteries on and in fiction, I realized that is also a factor in my first non-fiction, Orb Stones and Geoglyphs: A Writer’s Journey. Mysteries of origin and mystique of two of my own discoveries are woven throughout the book with images of stone balls and unexplained earthworks. A writer’s nature is to wonder and hope that his readers will also wonder.
Several of my life’s mini-mysteries were incorporated into my historical novel, Storykeeper. I set part of the novel on my grandfather’s farm, 400 years before it was his farm. One of several mysteries around the farm involved a section of land surrounded by an off-shoot of the nearby creek where arrowheads were always found. I wondered, why were there so many arrowheads in this one place? Was this the site of a great battle or a trading center or possibly where craftsmen produced arrowheads? Was the canal-like channel encircling the site natural or man-made?
I still don’t know any of the answers, but through my novel, I could interweave my experiences and bits of mystery into the storylines. In the book, some fifty years after the Spanish departed, an old woman, shunned by her tribe, begins digging a new fire-pit where she can tell her stories that speak of their tragic past. Beneath the same land, I walked as a boy, she finds a small white arrowhead and wonders how it came to be there. She takes the arrowhead and gives in return a special quartz; she has carried for years. I imagined that it was the very crystal I found centuries later.
One day at my grandfather’s farm, I joined my younger brother and our cousin on an adventure further than any of us had ever gone before. We were going in search of a cave where according to our grandfather, a wild woman once lived. As the story went, the cave was hidden and could only be entered by swinging-in on a rope.
After a couple hours of hiking, my brother and cousin were ready to quit when the forest opened-up. We all immediately froze. A small frame house stood to one side of the large clearing. This was someone’s homestead but with no signs of a road in or out. I turned back toward the woods. My brother being my brother shouted, “Hello!”
He shouted again before I could say, “be quiet.” Motionless, we watched the house and waited for a response. Tall grasses and briars spread from the edge of the woods up to the simple shed pouch. A faded blue door faced us. To its left were two worn chairs, one crumbled onto the other. Curtains hung in both windows. The house and all around had the appearance of a well-cared for farm just untended, maybe for years.
I led a slow procession across the field. The curtains were closed in the left-hand window. We peered through the other. There were two rooms full of belongings: tables, chairs, dishes, and oil lamps. Through the half-open bedroom door, we could see the corner of a quilt-covered bed, its headboard, and night stand. From the bedroom furniture to the dishes, from the paintings on the walls to the books on the end table, from the simple possessions of a man to the tranquil touches of a woman, nothing seemed to match the rugged isolation surrounding the little cottage. My brother turned the decorative doorknob and cracked open the door. I think we all felt the same unease at that moment. Without a word from anyone, he pulled the door shut. We turned and walked away.
It was not just abandoned house on the side of the road. There was no road, no power lines. I still wondered, who was the couple that chose to live alone? What happened? Where did they go? Why did they leave so much behind?
Now that I think about it, that might be a mystery worthy of a book plot and consideration after I finish the two books in front of me. After delving into the influence of personal mysteries on and in fiction, I realized that is also a factor in my first non-fiction, Orb Stones and Geoglyphs: A Writer’s Journey. Mysteries of origin and mystique of two of my own discoveries are woven throughout the book with images of stone balls and unexplained earthworks. A writer’s nature is to wonder and hope that his readers will also wonder.
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