How I went Amish for Three Days to Research my Thriller By C.G. Twiles

How I went Amish for three days to research my thriller

By C.G. Twiles

Eli tried to pass me meatloaf again. “Mmm,” he drawled in an exaggerated manner. “Are you suuuure you don’t want some? It smells so gooooooood.”

I had already told him I was vegetarian. But this didn’t stop him from repeatedly dangling the meatloaf so close to my face that my nostrils were assaulted with its meaty, saucy smell. 

“How about this?” I finally said. “I’ll take a bite of meatloaf if you let me take your photo and put it on Instagram.”

Eli, who appeared in his seventies, stared at me. Behind his lively brown eyes, his brain was churning. He’d earlier told me I was welcome to take pictures of the house, but not of him or his wife. The Amish don’t believe in photos. Nor was I certain he knew what Instagram was. The Amish do not (officially, at least) have smartphones or social media.

But at my suggestion of an exchange—I’d sample the meatloaf if he’d allow his picture to be taken and posted online—a slow grin crept over his face. Then he said, sagely, “I see now. You have your ways and I have mine.”

I’d been visiting Amish country in Lancaster, Pennsylvania since the early days of the pandemic. My friend has a large home in Berks County, and was kind enough to invite me to visit when I was going bonkers in locked down NYC. Anticipating lots of outdoor space and fresh air, I couldn’t get there fast enough. I fell in love with the technicolor landscape, the endless rows of emerald corn and glittery-golden wheat, and was intrigued by the Amish in their plain clothing and horse and buggies. I grew up with old people, and there was a simplicity in the Amish lifestyle that felt pleasantly nostalgic and familiar.

A couple of years later, I thought Amish country would make the perfect setting for my latest psychological thriller. I’d begun self-publishing thrillers shortly after my agent couldn’t sell my book The Neighbors in Apartment 3D. Locked down, I needed an indoor activity to keep me occupied. Neighbors turned out to be an unexpected hit, so I left my agent and kept publishing.

Once I settled on an Amish country-set plot, my reportorial side kicked in (I was a reporter for two decades). As my main character, Syra, was going to stay inside an Amish house, I felt that I also needed to stay inside an Amish house. I wanted the kinds of small but vital details that make a fictional story believable. The Amish don’t have electricity, so how do they keep their food cold? Do they have showers? How do they power their toilets or did they still use outhouses? Do they make phone calls?

I googled a lot and eventually found one Amish family in all of Lancaster that rented out rooms inside their home. Not a guest house that was wired with Wifi and electricity—but an actual room inside their electricity- and wifi-free house. Not only that, you could ask the host questions, and he’d answer them! I found no other listing remotely like this, and quickly booked two nights in Ephrata.

On the train ride there, the husband, Eli, called me and asked if I’d like to have dinner with him and his wife that night. Would I?! That’s how I found myself eating wife Emily’s typically Pennsylvania Dutch dinner of creamed corn, green beans swimming in real butter, and homemade applesauce. And trying to dodge Eli’s insistent plate of meatloaf.

True to the listing, Eli, who’d been an Amish tour guide for many years, loved talking to strangers. He didn’t shy away from any question. For three days, we sat chatting. I didn’t take notes in front of him—but I don’t think he would have minded if I had. We developed kind of a teasing relationship. When I told him many of my female friends didn’t have children, Eli was deeply concerned. “What will happen if everyone stops having children?” he mused. I replied, “Eli, I think the Amish have it covered.” (The Amish usually have many children. Eli and his wife had a relatively small amount: six.)

He didn’t take offense at my retort and we continued our banter.

“Do you know the difference between a city wife and an Amish wife?” he asked, setting up an Amish joke. I told him I did not. “The Amish wife will darn your socks; the city wife will darn you.”

“Oh, I think the city wife would use a stronger word than ‘darn,’” I replied.

Someone should have given Eli and me a reality show.

Thanks to Eli, I was able to gather great details for my book—such as that many Amish homes in Lancaster have solar panels. Some local men had argued to the bishop (who decides these things) that “God makes the sun,” so they should be allowed. (I didn’t tell Eli that solar panels create electrical energy—the very thing the Amish don’t believe in using.)

Eli also had some unintentionally comical lines. When I asked him why Amish bicycles weren’t allowed to have pedals, he answered, in all seriousness, “Because people might run away.” 

Although his house didn’t have electricity (at least the non-solar kind), it had many battery-powered lights and lamps. Additionally, it had a full refrigerator, shower, toilet, stove, and washing machine, much of it powered by large tanks of propane he kept in the backyard. As for phones, Eli had a flip phone (I saw many Amish with flip phones) as well as a landline inside of a small shed on his sprawling property. The shed also contained one electrical outlet. 

It was interesting to me how these modern conveniences were embraced while tiny inconvenient traditions like stick pins instead of buttons or suspenders instead of belts were still mandated. 

The Amish don’t collect social security and Eli was proud of the fact that he kept sending back his pandemic stimulus checks to the government. (Although the Amish are pacifist, I also noticed a “We Support Our Troops” sticker in his barn. So, like everyone, the Amish can be contradictory.)

And then there’s the cars—or lack of them. The Amish still drive horse and buggies. They can, however, use ride shares. Eli had a phone number if he wanted to call an Uber.

Eli brought me for a ride in his buggy. It was a little scary. I kept feeling like the buggy was going to outpace the horse and ram into its backside. Buggy accidents are common, many fatal for both horse and human. (A fatal buggy accident is at the center of my novel.)

Eli and I had a lasting effect on each other. After finding an abandoned kitten in his barn (the kitten came with me to Brooklyn), I managed to convince him to have the cats on his property spayed and neutered. Neutering isn’t exactly a concept the Amish embrace, so this was a big, progressive step for Eli (and his cats). I arranged everything.

And Eli’s willingness to engage in frank discussion allowed me to create a much more nuanced portrayal of the Amish in my thriller. I don’t think he’d agree with everything in my book (not that he’d ever read it!), but I like to think he’d find it accurate.

At Christmas, Eli sent me a card and signed it, “Your friend.” It has a prime spot on my mantel. 

—

C.G. Twiles is the pseudonym for a longtime writer and journalist who has written for some of the biggest magazines and news outlets in the world. She enjoys Gothic, cemeteries, ancient history, and old houses. She lives in Brooklyn. Her six psychological thrillers are: Brooklyn Gothic, The Neighbors in Apartment 3D, The Little Girl in the Window, The Perfect Face, and her latest, The Little Girl with a Secret, is out now.

THE LITTLE GIRL WITH A SECRET, C.G Twiles

Only she knows what happened

The betrayal…

After finding her fiancé and best friend in bed together, Syra Fragos flees heartbreak for the lush farmland and unplugged serenity of Amish Country in Lancaster, Pennsylvania.

There, she stays in a farmette with no electricity or Wifi. But there is one perk: handsome caretaker Jonas Martin. A decade ago, he was banned from the Amish after refusing, without explanation, to marry his pregnant teen girlfriend, Lydia.

The accident…

When Lydia is tragically killed in a buggy accident while riding with her and Jonas’ young daughter, Jonas returns home to Amish Country. Is it to make amends to his daughter? Or does he have a darker motivation…?

The letters…

When Syra finds a box of letters from Lydia to Jonas buried under the porch, she can’t help but dive into them. Against her better judgment, she’s falling for Jonas and wants to know what kind of man he really is. Why did he abandon Lydia and their daughter so long ago? Did he have anything to do with Lydia’s buggy accident?

The secret…

Jonas confesses the real reason he’s returned. He and his sister suspect that Jonas’ daughter is the only one who knows a terrible secret about their mother. A secret so explosive that when the little girl heard it, she stopped speaking…

Now if only Syra can get the girl to reveal it… but does she really want to hear it?

The author of top-selling The Neighbors in Apartment 3D, The Last Star Standing, and The Little Girl in the Window is back with her signature brand of crackling suspense with twists you will never predict. For fans of Lucy Foley, Shari Lapena, Freida McFadden, and Gillian Flynn.

The Little Girl with a Secret is not a sequel to The Little Girl in the Window, however, that book is recommended as a companion read. The thrillers share similar themes: A city girl hiding out in the country. A borrowed dog. A love interest who may or may not be trouble.

And a strange little girl who holds the key to a dark secret.

BUY HERE

 

 

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Category: On Writing