Tales from Burkeland Tale 17
The world is alive with story ideas for authors astute enough to find them. That’s especially true in places like St. Augustine, Florida where the past and present exist side-by-side, turning the whole city into a bit of a living history museum. It’s that quality that makes it my favorite place in the United States and an ideal place for a writing workshop. When my mentor, Wulf Moon, announced Wulf Moon’s St. Augustine Writing Workshop and Retreat, I couldn’t miss it.
On the first day, Moon challenged us to explore the city and find a story idea to develop during the workshops. I’ll confess, I cheated a bit. I arrived with a partially formed idea from one of my previous visits to the city. On that trip, I toured the Ximenez-Fatio House Museum, which operated as a boarding house in the 1800s and learned about people suffering lung diseases coming to Florida with the hope that the warmer weather would cure them. Called the climate cure, the practice helped turn places like St. Augustine into tourist destinations. That intrigued me, and it stayed in my mind over the years between my first visit to the Ximenez-Fatio House and when I returned during the retreat when I made the museum my first stop for exploration and research. My second tour of the museum reminded me that the businesses in the house were owned and operated by women, which made it the perfect place to develop fascination with the climate dure into a female-centered story.
The research phase of the workshop highlighted the first tip I’d give writers looking for unique ideas: Grab onto the bits of history that intrigue you.
With my research complete, I had the bones of my idea. But I am a speculative fiction author, so I needed a fantasy element to dress it up. Of course, St. Augustine delivered. As the oldest continuously inhabited city in the U.S., it has seen plenty of political strife, sickness, and violence. Some of those events remain stuck in time just on the other side of the veil, if you believe the ghost stories. I love a good spook, and so does fellow author Tara McKee. We filled our retreat evenings with ghost tours around the city, taking in the stories and legends left out of the tourist booklets. As we did, my mind wove the historical facts I picked up at the Ximenez-Fatio House with the thought of spirits still walking the city streets. I had my speculative element.
Which brings me to my second tip. Sometimes something simple is all you need to complete an idea. I brainstormed ways to add flashy magic, underground witches, or other speculative tropes to my story, but a classic ghost is what fit.
Now that I’m home, I’m developing the story into a mix of historical fantasy and magical realism. Readers should feel like they’re walking the streets of Victorian St. Augustine as they read it. By the end, they’ll be wondering if, perhaps, they’ve just seen a ghost.
If you’d like to try story hunting in St. Augustine for yourself, be sure to follow Wulf Moon for updates on his next workshop and retreat in the historic city.
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What you missed in this month’s newsletter:
From the Drafts: Original vs. Published – “Rise of the Witches” Opening.
Quote of the Month.
Myths and Magic: The Beltane Fires.
From My Shelf: Death and the Taxman by David Hankins, Book 1 of the Grimsworld Trilogy.