Beneath the Covers is proud to present award winning writer Paty Jager.
How a Story Can Take a Twist
By
Paty Jager
Rosemary, Thank you for having me on your blog
today.
I’m an eclectic writer. I find sticking to one genre gets boring, so
I hop back and forth between genres. I write historical and contemporary
western romance, historical paranormal romance (Native American stories) and
contemporary action adventure with romantic elements. While I genre surf, I
always have a western or Native American element in my stories.
The book that just released is Laying Claim, a book set in 1898 in Alaska and the Yukon during the
gold rush. The idea to write a book set
during this time and in this setting came to me years ago when I visited our
daughter in Ketchikan, Alaska. At the time I was intrigued by the history of
that town and grabbed up all the books in their book store on the history of
the area. That started the juices bubbling about setting a story in Alaska.
Several years later for our thirtieth anniversary,
my husband and I took an Alaskan cruise. This time it was Skagway and the
Chilkoot and White Pass trails that caught my attention and made me start
spinning scenes in my head.
When I wrote the end of Logger in Petticoats the fifth Halsey brother book, I put in that
Jeremy, the brother to the heroine in the first book, Marshal in Petticoats, had headed to Alaska looking for gold. After
the last book, I started getting emails from readers wanting more Halsey
books. Having sent Jeremy to Alaska it
was a no-brainer that his story would take place in the Alaska and Yukon gold
country.
The book started out with him discovering there was
more money to be made by transporting goods for the greedy gold seekers and he
started a packing operation. The book opens with him having made his fortune
packing and is ready to head home. Only along comes a pretty, strong-willed,
bit of a woman who is determined to get to the Yukon interior and find her
brother. No amount of persuasion from Jeremy can get her to change her mind. He
can’t ignore how he was brought up and he hires on as her guide.
This is where the story had to take a twist I hadn’t
planned. I wanted him to use his pack string to cross the White Pass and show
the carnage of the poor horses who didn’t make it over the pass. But upon
researching, I discovered the winter that came right after the word got out
about the biggest strike in the Klondike was also the worst winter in the gold
rush history. That meant, even horses couldn’t get over the pass after feet of
snow were dumped.
Plan B: When the heroine, Clara, makes an enemy of
the villainous man running most of Skagway at the time, Jeremy has to get her
out of town quickly when there is a slight break in the storm. To do this he
trades his pack string for two dog teams and six sleds. And from there the
action begins.
This proves even with the best laid plans for a
story, if you don’t get all the historical facts before planning a book, it can
take a twist you didn’t see coming, but in the long run can make for just as
entertaining a read.
Blurb for Laying Claim: Jeremy Duncan commits to haul one last load
of supplies across the great interior of the Yukon before heading home. But, he
has to trade his pack animals for sled dogs and leave Skagway in the middle of
a blizzard due to one strong-willed, business-minded beauty.
Determined to find her
older brother, Clara Bixbee doesn’t care how she gets across the pass, as long
as she does, and soon. Hiring handsome pack guide Jeremy Duncan seems to be her
best choice. Especially after she saves a young girl being beaten by the local
gang leader and needs to escape Skagway fast.
Excerpt:
“Who’s
there?” a female voice questioned through the wood barrier.
“I
have a trunk for a Clara Bixbee.”
The
door swung open. A girl stood in the opening.
He
blinked.
No.
A girl didn’t fill out the front of a dress like this one did. But she was
small. Tinier even than his sister, and she barely came to his shoulder.
“It’s
about time you brought my trunk. I’ve been waiting hours for it to arrive.” Her
green eyes snapped with anger.
“I
don’t know who you asked to pick this up, but I found two thieves rummaging
through it on the beach and saved it.”
She
gasped, then her small pink mouth set in a grim line. “I paid the clerk
downstairs to have someone bring it to me.”
No
wonder the man had a startled look on his face when Jeremy hauled the trunk up
the stairs. “Where would you like me to put it?”
The
woman stepped back, opening the door wider. “I cleared a spot over there. I’ve
yet to meet my roommate but will have a word with her about this mess when she
comes back.”
Jeremy
set the trunk on the floor and turned to the woman. Her blonde hair was pulled
up into a working woman’s bun, but her clothes, the ones she had on and the
ones he’d sifted through in the trunk, were not working-class clothes.
She
stood with her hands on her hips, her head tipped back, eyeing him. “How did
you know this was my trunk?”
“After
I chased the men off, I took it to my livery where I had some light and looked
through it until I found the Bible with your name in it. Then I left it in
safekeeping and started asking for you at the hotels.”
Her
smooth, creamy skin flushed a deep pink. “You went through my trunk?”
“Would
you rather I left it to the thieves who wouldn’t have brought it to you even
after they took all they wanted from it?” While the woman was soothing on the
eyes, he wasn’t keen on her attitude.
She
gasped and dropped to her knees in front of the trunk. Her tiny fingers clasped
the broken latch where a key had most likely locked the box. She unclasped the
other latches and dug down to the bottom of the trunk shoving the clothing,
causing them to spill over the sides.
Jeremy
watched in fascination as she burrowed into the contents. She pulled out an
oilcloth jacket and pushed her hand into a pocket. A smile crept across her
face. Her hand reappeared empty. He’d guess she had money stashed in that coat.
He
cleared his throat and she jumped. In her urgency to make sure she hadn’t been
robbed, she’d forgotten he was still in the room.
“Mr…?”
“Jeremy
Duncan. Miss…?” He hoped she didn’t say she was married. It would be a shame to
have rifled through a married woman’s unmentionables. It would make
fanaticizing about her not near as much fun.
“Bixbee.”
She frowned. “You know my name. Why are you asking?”
He
smiled. “Just figuring out if you’re married.”
“I
am not, and it isn’t proper for you to be in my room.” She pushed to her feet
and stood, again, with her hands on her narrow hips.
Jeremy
nodded to the open door. “The door isn’t closed so you haven’t been compromised.”
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Meet
Paty Jager:
With sixteen published
books, three novellas, and an anthology, award-winning author, Paty Jager is never at a loss for story
ideas and characters in her head. Her rural life in central and eastern Oregon,
and interests in local history and the world around her, keeps the mystery and romance
ideas flowing. She not only writes the western lifestyle, she lives it.
