Everything has a story

One of the geekier things I do--and one of the few things that doesn't involve parking my butt in front of a computer--is volunteering as a docent at Riversdale House Museum. It is writing-related since the house dates from the federal era and was built by the Stier family, immigrants fleeing the French revolution, who wanted their home to reflect a grand European style and sensibility. I am lucky enough to be able to pick the brains of the museum staff on period food and clothes, since we have two experts in those fields working there.

But last week I had the pleasure of attending a symposium for museum guides and ushers, and what I learned there relates so much to writing fiction that I thought I'd share it. First some odd stories came up: in one historic house, which shall remain anonymous, the visitors were led around by a strange-looking person, as darkness fell, who at one point opened a creaking door and pronounced, "This is a closet. Would you like to see inside?"

Overwhelmed by the gothic overdose, the visitors fled.

When you give a tour of a historic building, your aim is above all to engage the visitor. You have to establish some rapport with them: why did they come, what interests them about the house, how does their life relate to that of people two centuries ago? Several mentions were made, as an example of museum excellence, to the Tenement Museum in NYC, which I am now longing to visit. And I really think that's what we try to do as writers--look, these people are like us in so many ways. We have shared experiences.

Surveys taken by museums reveal that people really enjoy walking through a site on their own, able to soak up the atmosphere and create their own experience. Yet the Tenement Museum only gives guided tours, as do many places that have a delicate structure and fragile artifacts. The secret of their success is that they relate the museum to people's lives and family stories ("Where did your family come from? When? Do you know where they lived?..." and so on).

When we take visitors at Riversdale to the building where open hearth cooking demonstrations are given, even if no one is cooking that day the smell of wood smoke brings back memories ("my grandmother had a nutmeg grater like that!") and stimulates the imagination. Even seeing someone cook from scratch is a new experience for many people. I gave a tour last week to a woman who was raised in the Appalachians by her grandmother whose house had no electricity and who basically cooked 18c style; she taught me a lot. People love to use all five senses; I encourage people to smell the spices, and pinch and sniff the herbs growing outside.

Above all, holding and touching an item, even a replica or even stuff which is essentially the trash of the past, like these ceramic fragments (which aren't from Riversdale but are very typical of the sort of items found during excavations) brings history to life. What was the story behind these? Was the blue and white import a treasured possession? Who broke it and what happened to them?

Every artifact, every building, has its story and it's the docents' job to bring that to life and make the visitor excited about the past. And that's what good fiction should do--we engage the reader, stimulate their imagination, and make our story part of their lives. It's an amazing process.

Have you visited the Tenement Museum or any other place that fired your senses and imagination?

And now for the obligatory self-promotion and news: Win a copy of Jane and the Damned at goodreads.com--less than a week to go before its release! And I'm happy to announce that my Regency chicklit Improper Relations is a finalist in NJRWA's Golden Leaf contest.