Old as dirt Part II

I have no compelling reason to include a second or even a third component to the principle that literary life lies only in the depths of our past.

A search of century-old newspapers produces all of that; modern newspapers and other publications do the same thing. The major difference is history is sealed. The present has yet to become the history, and it's far more difficult to pin down.

Let's just say: Reading about the past is as much about what did not happen as what did happen. Everyone has seen the past; almost nobody has seen the future and it's likely I don't agree with your vision of it.

That's important when considering a story written in contemporary times, one that leads inevitably to a focus on the what-ifs that manifest as the future.

The weapons of war in 1918 have been defined, and we know what impact they had. What the Pentagon is dreaming up today lives in our imagination. We simply do NOT need to re-create a light saber or focus-based ray gun for future killing. It's been done. When all else fails, produce a race of super-smart people and you can invent any damned thing you want.

The reality is machines aren't made that way. They are tools that are modified and enhanced as the result of other inventions.

New stuff is being invented every day.

Which is sort of the point of the old newspapers. They're chock-full of tidbits about flying aerocraft, machines that milk cows, medicines, sewage treatment plants, long-lasting electric light bulbs.

And ruts in the road, hogs on the train tracks, people dying of typhoid.

Simply put, we can approach any event from two directions, from now looking back and from now looking forward. It's the 'from now' part that flattens it out.

One approach isn't better than the other.

It's been said that any three people can come together over the carcass of a skunk in the middle of a county road and become the framework of a novel.

The century-old newspapers -- the better ones are the small-town weeklies -- are simply loaded with characters, stories, anecdotes and events. These stories are the front door to the future.

Consider the attached clip.

Chloroform? Was that a common product in 1917? Seems like an inside job if the robber knew where to look. Why would somebody have that much money sewn into a pocket. Gold? This is rural Indiana.

Sounds like a pretty damned interesting mystery novel to me. You could even turn this into a romance.

Just ordinary stuff in the average weekly newspaper.

This one from 1920:

Everything about this real event sounds and smells like "To Kill A Mockingbird." If you can't write a story about this event, the people who would be central to it and its potential outcome, take time to sniff the coffee. "Believed to be negroes ..." is focal. Looks a bit like Ernest is tryin' to pin a crime on some imaginary evil people. (Probably owed somebody money.)

In short:
Get your head out of the future and stop pretending that everything that isn't real is somehow better.