I've had the pleasure of watching small-town fools several times in my life - you know, the ones that will talk to you as long as they can ask the questions, but when you reply with a question for them, they get very quiet. After putting them in their place, many times they will just glare back at you because they can't think of anything else to do to try to intimidate someone. Small-town gossips are nothing but transparent fools. Kind of like Gladys Kravitz in "Bewitched," they peep out the blinds of their front windows stupidly thinking that they they can't be seen - or are so arrogant they fool themselves into thinking that no-one catches on to their transparency. But, the good news is that they are great fodder for characters in your writing.
Having just met, a woman asked whose wife I was so she would be able to identify me. I've never placed my identity under the veil of marriage - how stupid is that? I've watched people who think that their maiden names are forgotten, lose weight/gain weight, "marry up" or "marry down" while ignorantly thinking they can change their character - all of it again, very transparent. Notice that I said "character" - not "personality." Old habits die hard.
Here's another example: I once knew a vanity publisher who was extremely proud of herself for "not publishing anything that had cuss words in it" - because she was such a good "Christian." The joke was that when she heard a piece of gossip about someone or wanted to know more about them, she set up a circle of people to ask her questions for her. She may not have used cuss words, but her gossip was just as malicious and sinful as if she did. She was one of the worst gossips in town - and just as transparent as the others. Nobody was fooled by her - and those that lived in the same town gossiped about her as well. We all knew who her little "disciples" were - because as second-hand messengers they were even more transparent. She and her disciples were the making of a specific scene in one of my recent manuscripts. If Lillian Hellman had known her, she would have modeled "Regina" in "The Little Foxes" after her - instead of her grandmother.
Here's the funny part - these kind of people are dumb enough to think their secrets never get out. That's when they really make fools of themselves. Recently, I addressed a certified business letter to someone that included her maiden name from 20+ years ago. You see, just like I posted on Twitter - the beauty of small towns is that every body knows your name and your history. There are those that would like to forget from whence they came, and there are others who won't let them.
Now don't get me wrong - I've also had some very pleasant experiences with people in small towns. Not every "native" has been so petty. In fact, there are a few that I go out of my way to associate with - mostly because they've had the experience of living somewhere else and coming back to their small towns later in life - having learned how to treat people along the way.
There's this much about it ... when I'm sitting in the library, coffee shop, attending book clubs or whatever, I'm also making notes. That's what writers do.
The bottom writing line is that "people will always be people," but Geoffrey Chaucer got it right when he noted the "just desserts" method of preserving those exhibiting insideous behavior as "skewered on the immortal page."
**This post was included in approx. 10,000 GA newsletters on fiction/nonfiction writing.
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