Friday 3 January 2020

Schellberg 5 The Round Robin




I’m now writing another book in the Schellberg Cycle. This goes back to the original class letter and I’m expanding on some of the stories behind the letters. So, I’m in 1940s’ Germany again. 

I’m focusing on just a few characters:

  • A farmer’s daughter,
  • A young woman who becomes an actor
  • The class teacher Hanna Braun
  • One of identical twins.  They have to take over running their father’s factory.  One twin gets married and has a baby.  The other, featured here, takes on most of the work with the factory. 

To do this I’ve gone back to the letters included in The House on Schellberg Street. There’s an interesting story here, too. My editor suggested shortening some of the letters and leaving some out altogether. I think he was right. However, one reader asked where all the others were; he’d noticed an oddity in the sequencing. That is one of the reasons I’ve included “deleted scenes” on this web site.  Find them here.       

Each letter from these individuals is turning into two or three chapters. 

Again it is proving to be a way of uncovering what actually may have happened. What led to the twins needing new boots and how did they actually cope when there were none available? What was it like for Hanna Braun when her mother died and when she had to give up teaching? What was it like when they knew they were losing the war and how did the young men react? What was it like when the Americans arrived? 

I anticipate the book being about 80,000 words. I’m working on other projects as well but every day I work on this one I’m writing about 1,000 words.    

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