Scene from Zookeeper's Wife inspired sequence in A Place for Murder
One of the questions I am frequently asked when meeting with readers is this: Where do the ideas come from for developing your stories?
It happened again during Books for Lunch at the West Branch District Library on March 19. I had been invited back to the library for a fourth time to make a presentation on my newest novel, A Place for Murder.
The question came from an older man who had finished reading the story and was dying to know how I came up with the idea of using a manure tanker as means of transportation for smuggling migrant workers between farms where they were illegally employed and housed.
“Where did that come from,” he asked. “I’m always amazed at how these ideas are developed. That’s really why I’m here. Just had to find out.”
I could tell he was genuinely curious, and by the looks on the faces of the other 40 people in the library Community Room I knew he was not alone. So, I tried to answer the question in two ways – generally and specifically.
Ideas for stories come from everywhere. I run across them all the time – night or day. It’s the reason I never go anywhere without a pen and notebook or my cell phone in one of my pockets.
Whenever I experience or observe something I find intriguing, I make a note of it – even if I don’t know where it might fit into a story at the time. Some ideas pan out and wiggle their way into scenes or passage in my stories right away. Others do not, and they go into my tickler idea file.
In this particular case, the idea came from a note I had made while watching The Zookeepers Wife, a movie that showed the horrors of life in the Warsaw Ghetto after Germany had overrun Poland in World War II.
If you saw the movie, then you will recall the very inventive way in which Jewish leaders were able to smuggle some of their people out of the hellhole right under the noses of Nazis.
Jews were smuggled out by being hidden under huge piles of garbage while lying flat in the bottom of trash trailers routinely pulled from the ghetto. Once into a safe zone, the Jews jumped out of the trailers and scampered to safety while the garbage continued to farms where it became hog feed. Fattened, the hogs became feed for German soldiers.
Ingenious, I thought, and made a note of it. I didn’t use the idea right away so I stuck it in my tickler file, which is where it remained until I was in the process of rewriting the first draft of A Place for Murder, a story that vividly reveals the dark and sordid world of human trafficking.
In my novel, I needed to come up with a way for human smugglers to effectively transport workers while being observed by the law – ICE, state police, and county sheriff’s deputies. The note I’d made after watching The Zookeepers Wife inspired the idea for A Place for Murder.
Instead of using garbage to conceal Jews in the bottom of a trash trailer, I came up with the idea of using a converted 10,000 gallon manure tanker – a very common piece of equipment in rural farm areas – to conceal workers, who were crammed butt to bellybutton in a hidden compartment of the tanker underneath a smaller compartment that held a few hundred gallons of raw manure.
In both cases, when authorities poked and prodded in either rotting garbage or raw manure to check the cargo, they were repulsed and sickened, allowing the Jews and illegal immigrants to go on undetected.
In my novel, the search of the manure tanker by federal agents is a critical scene – full of tension, apprehension, surprise and nail-biting energy. Readers almost always comment on it.
The reader at the West Branch Books for Lunch discussion said he found it captivating and it's what hooked him into the story.
His question prompted many others along the same lines. My 40-minute presentation in West Branch ended up lasting two hours. Great discussion, and that's what I call fun.
A Place for MurderDave Vizard
It happened again during Books for Lunch at the West Branch District Library on March 19. I had been invited back to the library for a fourth time to make a presentation on my newest novel, A Place for Murder.
The question came from an older man who had finished reading the story and was dying to know how I came up with the idea of using a manure tanker as means of transportation for smuggling migrant workers between farms where they were illegally employed and housed.
“Where did that come from,” he asked. “I’m always amazed at how these ideas are developed. That’s really why I’m here. Just had to find out.”
I could tell he was genuinely curious, and by the looks on the faces of the other 40 people in the library Community Room I knew he was not alone. So, I tried to answer the question in two ways – generally and specifically.
Ideas for stories come from everywhere. I run across them all the time – night or day. It’s the reason I never go anywhere without a pen and notebook or my cell phone in one of my pockets.
Whenever I experience or observe something I find intriguing, I make a note of it – even if I don’t know where it might fit into a story at the time. Some ideas pan out and wiggle their way into scenes or passage in my stories right away. Others do not, and they go into my tickler idea file.
In this particular case, the idea came from a note I had made while watching The Zookeepers Wife, a movie that showed the horrors of life in the Warsaw Ghetto after Germany had overrun Poland in World War II.
If you saw the movie, then you will recall the very inventive way in which Jewish leaders were able to smuggle some of their people out of the hellhole right under the noses of Nazis.
Jews were smuggled out by being hidden under huge piles of garbage while lying flat in the bottom of trash trailers routinely pulled from the ghetto. Once into a safe zone, the Jews jumped out of the trailers and scampered to safety while the garbage continued to farms where it became hog feed. Fattened, the hogs became feed for German soldiers.
Ingenious, I thought, and made a note of it. I didn’t use the idea right away so I stuck it in my tickler file, which is where it remained until I was in the process of rewriting the first draft of A Place for Murder, a story that vividly reveals the dark and sordid world of human trafficking.
In my novel, I needed to come up with a way for human smugglers to effectively transport workers while being observed by the law – ICE, state police, and county sheriff’s deputies. The note I’d made after watching The Zookeepers Wife inspired the idea for A Place for Murder.
Instead of using garbage to conceal Jews in the bottom of a trash trailer, I came up with the idea of using a converted 10,000 gallon manure tanker – a very common piece of equipment in rural farm areas – to conceal workers, who were crammed butt to bellybutton in a hidden compartment of the tanker underneath a smaller compartment that held a few hundred gallons of raw manure.
In both cases, when authorities poked and prodded in either rotting garbage or raw manure to check the cargo, they were repulsed and sickened, allowing the Jews and illegal immigrants to go on undetected.
In my novel, the search of the manure tanker by federal agents is a critical scene – full of tension, apprehension, surprise and nail-biting energy. Readers almost always comment on it.
The reader at the West Branch Books for Lunch discussion said he found it captivating and it's what hooked him into the story.
His question prompted many others along the same lines. My 40-minute presentation in West Branch ended up lasting two hours. Great discussion, and that's what I call fun.
A Place for MurderDave Vizard
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