Nuggets From Life in Fiction – When a Ladder Simply Won’t Do

Nearly every fiction writer will confess to using small nuggets from real life when creating fictional scenes. I thought it might be fun to occasionally share a few of those with my readers in a segment I’ll call, “Nuggets from Life in Fiction.”  So, here’s one small example from A Dose of Danger.

The snowflakes continued to fall, illuminated by the yard light they had been able to fix earlier in the day using the tractor head to elevate Logan enough to change the bulb. She had been terrified while watching him balanced so high in the air at the mercy of a 1957 tractor with no brakes, affectionately known as the “Rustmobile,” and her mediocre ability when it came to driving the worn-out antique.

So, it wasn’t a 1957 tractor with no brakes, but we did call it the “Rustmobile.” Growing up we also had a second tractor (not sure of the year, but likely in the 1950s) on the place that had virtually no brakes, but its work was relegated to projects on the flat ground that had no risk to life or property. People who live in the country often utilize a lot of creativity to accomplish tasks. In this instance my dad and uncle were installing the top pole to the entrance. In A Dose of Danger, Logan was changing a burnt out bulb in the yard light. In both cases, a ladder wouldn’t accomplish the job, having no solid place wide enough to lean it against.