This might be a big ask, but can you give us an example of the type of technique you mean? As someone who isn’t a writer, I’d love to know what you look for when you’re studying the craft of writing - what you pick apart, how you pick it apart. Like your students, I’ve always thought you just… write (and then get someone to edit the end result).
I know you could probably write hundreds of pages on the topic and I’m not trying to burden you, so really, it’s fine to ignore this question.
Your first book, Window, is a collection of short stories and essays. How did that come about? Did you write them over a long period of time? Were any of them published as stand-alone works, and if so, where?
Thanks so much for the opportunity to learn about yet another travesty in our history that I was unaware of. Your response to this question sums up how I was feeling as I read the book. Will we as a country ever stop hitting the “repeat” button?
Nancy, I don’t have a question, but I wanted to say thank you. Not only for a terrific read but for also highlighting a part of history that needed to be told!
@Joyce_Montague and @Dee_Driscole --Thank you both for your kind and thoughtful comments. I am glad I had the opportunity to write In Our Midst, but I would rather there had never been a reason to. I wish that what happens to the Austs had never happened to anyone. Or that, having happened, this terrible chapter in our history would have shocked us as a people so much that we would have been determined to ensure that it never happened again, in any variation.
Nancy, Your research was extensive. What did you learn about the internment of Italian Americans during WWII? Also, what did you find about the German POW camps here in the U.S.? Perhaps that was outside your scope.
Your book was enlightening. I grew up in the 50s in the Midwest where there were German families whose first language was German. Even as a child I sensed an uncomfortable vibe among some adults toward them although Norwegians were accepted.
@NanK Thank you for your questions! My earliest research did indeed include reading about the internment of Italian Americans. As my characters’, their timelines, and circumstances began to take shape–especially with the focus on Otto and Kurt held at Fort Lincoln–the stories of the Italians receded, as there were few Italians held at Fort Lincoln and at Crystal City at the time my characters were there. I do make a few references in the novel to Italian men Otto and Kurt have encountered, as I wanted to remind readers that there was yet another targeted group, even though none emerged for me as full-blown characters. One of the earliest books I read in my research might interest you. The title is Una Storia Segreta. Here’s a link where you can read more about that book: https://gaic.info/una-storia-segreta-the-secret-history-of-italian-american-evacuation-and-internment-during-world-war-ii/
I also did learn some about the German POW camps. I have found that when I first mention German-American internment, many people initially say, “I’ve heard about that!” but, after a few moments, it’s clear they’re talking about German POWs. Ironically, the POWS were far freer than the German-Americans who were interned. Many of those POWs were place on farms as labor; others were held in cities and towns (including Indiana town where I grew up) and bussed every day to work in various industries, including factories. I have only hearsay evidence on this–but one woman I met told me she worked in a war-supply factory alongside German POWs who were allowed to do all the work there except to “pack the parachutes.” I never tried to follow up on that to verify it, but it stuck with me because it pointed up the degree of comparative freedom allowed to actual German soldiers when some naturalized American citizens (of German and Italian descent) were, for years, literal prisoners enclosed by barbed wire and under constant surveillance from sniper towers.
My experience of writing The Sisters prepared me for some of what I think of as “sidebar research”–those unexpected things that I discover along the way I need to know. The need to do this did surprise me while working The Sisters, which (it’s okay to laugh) I never thought of as an historical novel, despite its opening in 1927, but once I realized, for instance, that I needed to know exactly what a new Burger Chef sign looked like at night in 1957, I greatly enjoyed the search, which always led to new discoveries that helped further develop my characters.
As I worked on In Our Midst, I found I looked forward to these sidebar needs. Not only was the search always interesting, it was something I could do during the school year when I was teaching full time. This kept my characters and the story alive for me for those ten months a year with almost no writing-time. I had to learn to be careful, too, because that kind of research is so interesting I’m prone to keep on with it to avoid actual writing. It’s easy to justify the time as work toward the writing–but after a point, it’s just another psychological trick writers play on themselves, like, in the old days, needing to make sure all the pencils were sharpened perfectly before starting work.
The one time I was really daunted by the weight of research was just after I read Wolf Hall. I had begun my preliminary research for In Our Midst a few months before, but after reading Mantel’s novel and feeling such admiration for that immersive experience, I became a little depressed, feeling like I’d never be able to do anything close to that. I almost gave up before I started because the task seemed too great.
@kim.kovacs For writers who are just starting out, picking apart the technique might be a focus on basics–things like how to structure and punctuate dialogue (It’s not intuitive for people brought up on movies); how to keep the reader grounded in physical space in scenes with a lot of dialogue, including how to connect characters with their bodies so they aren’t simply disembodied voices. A little further along, writers can benefit from taking notice of how other writers balance dialogue with narrative, or how a skilled writer moves about in time without confusing the reader. I used to focus my students on transitions into and out of flashbacks, drawing their attention to how skilled writers move seamlessly into the past and back to the present without forcing their characters to suddenly pause for a kind of trance that is just as abruptly broken.
More developed writers can benefit from taking a close look at particular passages that have moved them in a way they want to move their readers. This examination might include studying the lengths and structures of the sentences, and their relationship to each other. How many long ones, how many short ones? Why are the short ones placed exactly where they are in the passage? How are the long sentences kept under control by punctuation. How do they still propel the reader forward despite their length? How do the sentences (and the passage as a whole) rise and fall, causing the emotion to rise and fall? What is the writer doing with sound and rhythm in the sentence to make it move as it does?
A quick lesson can be had by studying Alexander Pope’s poem “Sound and Sense.”
For me, as both a reader and a writer, sound is as important to me in prose as it is in poetry–and I think, in many ways, it’s harder in prose, because the sound shouldn’t overtly draw attention to itself, as it is often meant to in poetry. Prose has to seem natural and easy, so the reader stays immersed in the story, but crafting it that way is hard work.
The publication of Window came about because Sena Jeter Naslund, the founder of Fleur de Lis Press, wanted to publish a mixed-genre collection. To that point, the press–which is dedicated to publishing first books for writers who have previously published work in The Louisville Review, which Sena Naslund also founded–had published a couple of story collections, poetry collections, and one or two novels, but no creative nonfiction. The Louisville Review had published a couple of my stories years before–both of which became part of Window. At the time of Sena’s interest in a mixed-genre collection, I had begun publishing short creative nonfiction–short memoirs and personal essays–so she asked me to put together a book manuscript to submit for consideration. It was a lucky break for me, driven by Sena Naslund’s generosity and support.
All the pieces in Window were published in literary journals over about a twenty year span, from the time The Louisville Review gave me my first-ever publication with a short story to a couple of essays written and published a couple of years prior to the release of Window.
LOL, Nancy, that makes total sense. I research “Behind the Book” articles for the books I review, and it’s so-o-o-o easy to get lost in the weeds on an interesting topic! I can definitely relate.
I applaud you for all the historical detail you put in your books. I’ve read plenty of historical fiction that feels like it could have been set yesterday or 100 years ago. It’s all those little touches (like the Burger Chef sign) that make a story believable and interesting.
It’s always risky, though, 'cause you know some reader somewhere is going to call you on any historical inaccuracy. Has anyone ever questioned you on a historical point?
Thanks for the detailed answer! I bet you’re a wonderful teacher. Have you ever thought about an online writer’s class, or writer’s seminar?
@kim.kovacs That’s kind of you to say. I retired from 30+ years of teaching last May because of extreme burnout. I really don’t want to teach writing again, though I have left the door narrowly cracked open for an occasional one-off craft talk.
@kim.kovacs A few people have questioned me on an historical point, but the challenges tend to come from what they’ve heard rather than from what they’ve studied or experienced. I don’t have all the sources for either of my novels instantly at my fingertips all the time, but I do have the sources for everything documented in my notes.
The best compliment I have ever received relative to the historical immersion, and probably will ever receive, came from Art Jacobs, who is the author of the Freedom of Information Times website www.foitimes.com Though I didn’t know it until after In Our Midst had been acquired by Dzanc Books, all the scholarship on the German-American Internment was initially founded on material Art discovered and brought to light. He self-published a memoir about his family’s internment: The Prison Called Hohenasperg: An American boy betrayed by his government in WW II. Though that was among the first books I read in my research, it wasn’t until I came to know Art via email that I realized that, without his lifelong effort, this part of American history might truly have been lost forever.
When I contacted the German American Internee Coalition https://gaic.info/ to let them know my book was coming out (and to express my appreciation for their helpful website), someone passed the info along to Art Jacobs. He emailed me immediately, and my publisher sent him an advance copy. He started reading as soon as it arrived, and suddenly my email was bursting with messages from him. Every few pages, he’d stop to send me a note to say how moved he was or how I’d gotten something exactly right. He told me that experiencing Nina’s reaction to the hut assigned to the Austs felt like I was directly channeling his mother’s memories.
My editor asked Art if he would offer a blurb for the hardcover, and he sent this–the best compliment ever: “The story is reported as if the author had lived through the immeasurable tragedy.”
Art and I kept up an intense email friendship for a couple of years, until he became too ill to continue. Around that time, he decided he wanted to republish his memoir with some photographs, and he did me the enormous honor of asking me to help select, place, and caption them. His level of trust in me still brings me to tears. Art passed late in 2023, a few months before his 91st birthday. Though we never met–just lots of email and a couple of brief phone conversations–I miss him as I miss other dear friends.