G. R.
Revelle
__________
The
Writing
of
My
Enemy's
Child
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The
idea for Enemy’s Child came
from a casual conversation
with the English Programming Director for Radio Sweden’s International
Boadcast section. I’d
just come off finishing the six part (eventually, four volumes), first
draft of the novel Vallkulla
and was
emotionally exhausted from the sheer effort of living through the lives
of my characters,
particularly the demise of little Per-Gustaf.
Fortunately,
I’ve never
really experienced writer’s block. I often have difficulty being
able to write fast enough. At times, the ideas
come so rapidly I’m forced to jot them down for later reference while I
finish a
scene or chapter in process.
The
story my friend at Sveriges Radio
International
related, had to do
with an interview she once did with an…either American or Canadian spy,
active
in Sweden
during WW-II. She remarked that he’d
related how the Nordic countries, especially Sweden,
were a literal hot-bed of clandestine operations. With the Nazis
in Denmark
and Norway and
the Fins fighting both Hitler and Stalin, there was a good deal going
on. I thought that might make a great theme for a
novel. I had to send away to other
libraries for some of the research materials.
I knew there was only so much I could fictionalize; I wanted to get it
as "right" as I could.
The idea of Lebensborn
fit well into the story’s theme (If you don't know what this word
means, please search for it on the web). I’d seen a television
documentary about it
many years ago and never forgot it. As I
researched it further, I came to realize how tragic the program was and
how
many souls, living and dead that it must have impacted in such an
appalling
manner. The fact that so many Lebensborn
were from Norway
dovetailed perfectly with the Nordic theme of the work.
I
don’t really remember when Sophia, or Katrina, the
character of the little girl, as she’s really called, entered the
plot. I know I didn’t begin the plot with her. I think she
found her way in somewhere near
the middle of the story…again, an idea that came, sounded plausible and
I went
back and rewrote the plot to accommodate her character. I wanted
something to help feminize the story
line. I felt the heroine, Greta, though
she is a woman, comes off at times as a bit masculine, given her
(early-on)
steadfast belief in the Nazi doctrine.
Giving her a daughter whom she’s blindly forsaken at birth for the
cause
of Heinrich Himmler’s Lebensborn
Project added more to her character, but also
took the chance of detracting from her motherly qualities, given the
fact she
so readily abandoned her newborn to the Nazi ideal.
As the plot for
Enemy’s Child
progressed, I began to
research a bit about the circumstances before the outbreak of WW-II,
especially
the events timeline as well as other factors.
At the time I began writing Enemy’s
Child, I was unaware of the famous
and often decorated American Eagle Squadron, the brave Americans who
went to Canada
to join the British RAF. I was well into
writing the novel by this time and didn’t want to change anything to
incorporate that theme, as I knew too little about the subject
matter. I also feared I didn’t know enough about any
particular pilot in that squadron to accurately represent the main
character in Enemy’s Child;
so
I stayed with what I had and didn’t even mention them, though
the brave and courageous deeds they novel’s
characters practiced and sacrificed for were not unlike those of the
Eagles
Squadron. As it turned out, in the
course of researching the British Hurricane and Spitfire aircraft, a
former
American Eagle Squadron Major volunteered to “vet” the fighter scenes
in the
book. He even passed it along to some of
his other fellow airmen, “who were still around,” as he put it.
Such good fortune I had in this endeavor.I’d known the names of many
American aircraft of the era, both
fighter and bomber, but hardly any from Great Britain, so I had to
expend some research
effort there.
One of the scenes in Enemy’s Child
dealt with a fair amount of technical data about these “kites” as
the Brits termed their aircraft and there wasn’t much available on the
web. In the end I found a couple websites for Lancaster
bombers and “sent away” for information.
Only one replied and queried me further about specifics. In a few
day I had two written pages on the
hydraulics system for operating landing gear (undercarriage) and
flaps…far more
than I expected, but exactly what I needed.
Further correspondence with the sites curator brought me a surprise pre
Christmas present in the mail: three more books about British Bomber
command. This and other personal interviews I conducted,
helped me develop a skeleton to flesh out with fictional events and
characters.
I
am an instrument qualified general aviation pilot and flew
my own airplane around the US
and Canada in
the course of business. I even flew in England
and Sweden,
though for pleasure, only. Though I had
extensive knowledge about flying, machines and weather, I knew nothing
about
military flying in the late 1930s. I
first interviewed USAF bomber pilots, using a prepared list of
questions. I wasn’t interested in blood and gore, but
the technology of getting an aircraft weighing several tons and loaded
with 100
octane gasoline, carrying tons of explosives, off the ground in
miserable
weather. The answers I received because
of this approach were valuable. I was
also fortunate to have access to a couple of RAF Bomber Command pilots
and
thank goodness I did. The British RAF,
who flew at night (the Americans flew by day), took an entirely
different
approach to flying. Among other things,
they didn’t fly in formation, but in long strings of aircraft.
That was a mistake I almost made. The time I spent with these
fellows was
invaluable. There’s more information,
and the gentlemen are identified, in the afterward of Enemy’s Child.
My Enemy’s Child was totally edited
no less than seven
times. I wasn’t making any drastic
changes, possibly beyond the first edit; I was merely correcting some
thoughts,
paragraph structure and spelling. For
the latter I’d relied on the computer spelling checker and learned this
was
only the beginning, for a manuscript of this size. For the novel,
Valkulla, subdivided
into six
parts, the computer software couldn’t handle such a monstrous document
until I
did divide it. Every word had to be
scrutinized. Just when I thought I’d
gotten it right, I’d open a manuscript proof print and find
something. As I write this, waiting for the printing of
the first edition, I’m frustrated because I found a small error.
Several people read it for content,
continuity and believability. The best
spelling checker I found was an accountant friend. I eventually
learned that all the checking was for naught, because of the file
transitions when the documents went to the printer. My
wordprocessor file went to a layout software which, when given to the
printer, was converted to their layout processor and the text changed
(as many of you learned). It took the forth printing to hopefully
get it right.
Of
the several people who were kind enough to read an Enemy’s Child
manuscript in advance, for content and
believability, most wanted to change something about the plot: have
this
character fall in love with another, change names, places,
circumstances, etc.. They didn’t believe anything was
particularly wrong with the
plot, as it was; they simply had the power (before it was printed) to
maneuver the manuscript and made suggestions. I found this
fact very surprising and quiet interesting.
Years earlier, in my design engineering career mode, we used to counter
these "suggestions" for changing a final design, with: "...and where
were you when the paper was bare?"
Making
most of the manuscript changes in My
Enemy's Child that they wanted would have been monumental for
me, at the risk of missing a link, somewhere (it was over six-hundred
pages) and that done, the next
reader would
probably have wanted to change that version, too.
I took all suggestions quite seriously and held each under advisement
before doing nothing.
And finally,
several of these readers have made the suggestion,
which I have also considered, that My
Enemy’s Child possesses some interesting
characters who could take on a life of their own: Millie, the officer’s
wife
and certainly, Clyde, the so-called coward, who is exactly
the opposite. Clyde
probably deserves a book of his own and I’m likely to consider this for
a
future novel.
If you purchase My Enemy’s
Child
and any future books, I hope you enjoy reading them as much as I
enjoyed
the creative process which brought them to life. Writing is a
true joy. Believable as
the stories sound as you move from chapter to chapter and that the
characters might actually have once lived, they’re all a total work of
fiction from
within my mind.
Return
to page one...
2007, G. R. Revelle
©
2007 Smultron Publications, All Rights Reserved
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