Creating a web site

I’ve now completed the relatively straightforward content for the web site. This content:

• Explains the true story behind the fictional one
• Gives a background to the story
• Describes the main people in the true story.
• I’ll also include on the site the glossary I’ve written for the book.

I’ve yet to produce:

• Lesson plans – I’m going to work on my presentations for schools for a while and see if that inspires. I’ll also need to finish my stock of rhetorical questions I’ve been posting at the end of each section. Some I’ve done. The rest may come as I upload the content.      
• Links – these will be easier to put straight on to the web site once it’s live
• Reading lists
• Section on fiction / reality interface for the writer – this will take  a little more thought and in any case, I’m attending a couple of conferences where I’m giving papers on this topic.
• Other examples of fiction that have examined the Holocaust – in many cases I’ll be able to clone from this blog.
• The experience of writing Potatoes in Spring.  Again much of this will come directly from this blog.        

I’m now looking forward to getting this web site up and running, but still want to wait until I have a publisher’s and the university’s approval.   

Ruth Barnett "Person of No Nationality"

Ruth came to England in 1939 with her older brother Martin. Her father was a Jew and her mother was German. She had a slightly different experience form our own Renate Edler, whose mother was a Jew and whose father was German, but there are many parallels.

Like Renate, she didn’t know whether she was German, Jewish or English. Renate had most problems with her Jewishness but perhaps Ruth had more problems with being German: she was very young when she first left Germany. Both girls forgot their German.

The uncertainty about identity caused both girls to become depressed. Both girls ended up sleeping for a long time when they finally gave into their tiredness.

Amusingly Ruth had the opposite problem from Renate when it came to beds: the German bed with its bed roll and square pillows puzzled Ruth when she went back to Germany for the first time. Renate was puzzled by the sheets, blankets eiderdown and bedspread when she first arrived in London.

Ruth’s story shows that though the Kindertransport was well-intentioned and though it did save many lives, it did not supply a happy-ever-after ending. Both girls had three different foster homes. Ruth had some bad experiences in her first foster home. Renate was well-treated everywhere. Both girls found their parents alive again. So in many ways they were more fortunate than some of the other Kinder.

The worst for both of them was the feeling of not belonging anywhere. Renate had her serendipitous German passport but returned to Germany in 1947 as a British citizen with a British passport. Ruth had to travel as a “Person of No Nationality”. But both girls suffered from confusion about whether they were English, German or Jewish and therefore lacked an identity.

The question is, is this resolved for Renate?

Ah, well, you will just have to read the book. While you’re waiting for it to be finished, you could read Ruth’s book. 

                            

Flashes - back and of inspiration

I knew after my latest revision that two flashbacks were too close together. I wanted to turn at least one of them into a proper scene. However, if I did that, I would lose much of the tension and some rather nice cliff-hangers in the opening scenes. In the end, the lesser of the two evils seemed to be to leave the two flashbacks where they were.  

Even so, I knew exactly what my critique group would say, let alone at a later date, if the novel gets that far, which comments an agent or an editor might make. And they would also say, quite rightly, that the chapter I submitted would be too long.  They are probably right – especially as it is fourteen pages long – average for an adult book would be twelve. This is a teen / young adult / adult / crossover so that makes it seem even longer. Also, chapters are on average six pages long in this book.

When I consciously tried to alter the text, I couldn’t find a way to do it.

The trouble – or is it the joy? – with being a writer is that you never stop working. The project is with you all the time. You think about it while you are driving, while you are eating and apparently while you are sleeping – I actually woke up this morning with the answer at the top of my brain.     

It seems to be part of our creative process that we walk away from the project and something – perhaps our subconscious - carries on working on it. Yesterday I did battle with my work email account, went to my choir practice and watched some television, pushing the project out of my mind. This morning, as I woke up and was still in that half-awake, half-asleep state, I thought of the answer.

I’ve chopped the long chapter up by dividing it into scenes. Each chapter heading is a person and a date. I’ve further divided the chapter by adding in times of day. One flashback has become an earlier scene but not one that compromises a cliff-hanger. The second flash-back is still there but comes now from an actual scene rather than from another flashback.

Flashbacks are all right, I think, as long as they’re not overdone. In this case, it was actually a character having a memory so it has some authenticity.        

Pinning down those characters

Some argue that novels and short stories are all about character and that plot doesn’t matter all that much. I personally think that story is crucial – especially to the children, teens and young adults I write for. However, story only works properly if it comes out of character, and the stories are only convincing if the characters are believable. The story comes out of the tension between them and form a setting that acts upon them.

Writers really need to know their characters inside out, upside down and back to front. They must know the physical, the intellectual and emotional traits, what is important in this story, what their greatest ambition is and what they fear most. The writer needs to know it but doesn’t necessarily need to share all of it.  Magically, it often comes across anyway.

The characters must be true to themselves throughout the novel / story and they must grow – especially in a young adult novel. They must also be rounded – never completely evil nor completely good.              

This is what I’ve been looking at in my latest edit. Because of the way Potatoes in Spring is structured it was relatively easy to look at one character at a time. I was able to follow the Renate strand, the Hani strand, and then look at the individual girls’ letters, then Hanna Braun and Käthe Edler. I did have to read more generally for the more background characters.  And yes, they are important too.

Most of the growth happens in Renate and Hani, but the others all must move on too.

Have I succeeded in getting the characters right? I hope so. In fact, if I’m to be professional about this, I am duty-bound to do so. But can I see it clearly enough? Thank goodness for critique groups!

At least I like all of my characters. Even the dysfunctional SS officer who constantly snipes at Renate’s mind.

And so, onwards!             

Is this really a young adult novel?

Or even a teen, which is how I first envisaged it? Or perhaps a teen / ya / adult crossover as I’m now hoping?

I’ve just finished the fifth edit, which in this case was all about seeing if it really works for its target reader. I think it does – at least, now that I’ve made a few adjustments. Certainly, all of the characters in it behave like young adults. They are somewhat self-centred, think the adults have it wrong but are afraid of responsibility, yet crave it when they don’t have it, and they all take considerable risks. All of this has of course been tempered a little because I’ve had to make the people true to their time. Maybe the novel is young adult because it leaves a lot of unanswered questions. What has actually happened to Clara Lehrs? How did the Special Class get away with it? What will happen at the meeting between Renate and her former classmates? And arguably the story is a Bildungsroman, perhaps the most important characteristic of the young adult novel. In the end, Renate establishes and accepts her identity.   

Does the novel remain teen, though, partly because of the range it covers? Or does that help to make it adult? The story starts off with all of the girls being about 13 – which means it could appeal to 11-year-olds. Sexuality is played down.  One might expect something a little more explicit in a young adult novel. However, for girls of that age in the 1940s Hani’s encounter with two lesbians and later good-looking Peter would have raised eyebrows.  These two scenes would not shock a 21^st century 11-13-year-old.

Does the novel raise enough serious questions and make any new comment about the Holocaust to make it interesting to adults? I certainly find what I know interesting enough to share.

I’ve tried to keep a balance between making the characters sound like modern teenagers and keeping them within the restraints of their time. I hope it’s working. I am sharing this with a critique group, so perhaps they’ll tell me.

On this edit, I also made sure I’d kept some details consistent. This feels like a less creative task, but better do that than be embarrassed in front of a publisher later. In fact, I did find that I’d changed “Kurt” to “Gerhard” at one point. So, it was worth the effort.

I shall take a short break from the text now but not from the research. Then I’ll be diving into the next edit – are the characters consistent?