Turning Fact into Fiction in The Warsaw Orphan with Kelly Rimmer

Kelly R audio_only

Kelly: [00:00:00] And so I wanted to drill down and I wanted to tell this story because I'm fascinated about history and I've got Polish ancestry. And if I don't know anything about this, there's plenty of other people who don't. And so it helped me to press on to think. We can not forget.

Pamela: [00:00:15] Welcome to Writes4Women, a podcast all about celebrating women's voices and supporting women writers. I'm Pamela Cook, women's fiction author, writing teacher, mentor, and podcaster. Each week on the Convo Couch, I'll be chatting to a wide range of women writers, focusing on the heart, craft and business of writing, along with a new release feature author each month.

 On a personal writing note, my current release is All We Dream. If you'd like to know more about it or any of my books, you can check out my website at pamelacook.com.au for more information.

Before beginning today's chat, I would like to acknowledge and pay my respects to the Dharawal people, the traditional custodians of the land on which this podcast is being recorded along with the traditional owners of the land throughout Australia and pay my respects to their elders, past, present, and emerging.

And a quick reminder that there could be strong language and adult concepts discussed in this podcast. So please be aware of this. If you have children around.

Kelly Rimmer is the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, USA Today and worldwide best-selling author of contemporary and historical fiction, including The Secret Daughter, The Things We Cannot Say and Truths I Never Told You. Kelly announced that she would become an author when she was still in kindergarten. For decades, she wrote for herself always hoping to be published, but it wasn't until her mid-thirties that she was ready to even show family or friends, any of her stories.

And then one night she came home, pressed the publish button and put her first novel out into the world. Since then, Kelly's books have been top 10 bestsellers in Australia have topped Kobo Amazon and Apple books charts, and have appeared on bestseller lists, in Canada and the New York Times Wall Street Journal and USA today lists in the United States.

 Kelly's novels have been translated into more than 20 languages. Her latest novel the Warsaw Orphan has been out for a few weeks now and is getting rave reviews. Kelly is joining me today on The Convo Couch to discuss turning fact into fiction in The Warsaw Orphan. I found The Warsaw Orphan just the most gripping - gruelling at times - but compelling read.

  So Kelly, welcome to the Writes4Women Convo Couch.

Kelly: [00:02:45] Hi, Pam. I'm really glad to be here.

Pamela: [00:02:47] And we've got your beautiful, gorgeous, rural background there. We can see your trees on your property.

Kelly: [00:02:53] My blinding sun, that's coming streaming through the window. It's been raining all morning, so hopefully it'll go away again in a minute. Give us some more lovely ring.

Pamela: [00:03:01] Well you're looking gorgeous with that glow behind you?

Kelly: [00:03:04] Thank you.

Pamela: [00:03:10] Well, let's get straight into it. We're here to talk about The Warsaw Orphan and congratulations on the release. It's a fabulous book. I've already sung its praises in the intro. And there is so much I want to talk to you about particularly on this topic of turning fact into fiction. And of course, there is so much that's fact in the book, but you've done such an amazing job of fictionalizing it. But for people who might not know, could you just tell us what the story is about?

Kelly: [00:03:36] Absolutely. So, the story opens in Warsaw in 1942, we have young Emilia  she's a girl who's living under a false identity. She's basically lost her whole biological family, but she's the one who was a really loving set of adoptive parents and her uncle. And because of her backgrounds, they are going to great lengths to try and keep her safe.

They have her living as Elzbieta Rabinek and she's effectively allowed only within her own apartment because they don't want her out on the streets. Poland is occupied. And so they are kind of keeping a low profile as much as they can, but they allow her one freedom. And that's this brief period each day where she's allowed to go down to the apartment block's courtyard, just to have some fresh air and some time to herself.

But Elzbieta's life has been out of control for a really long time. And she starts to really subtly rebel. It's just as simple for her as visiting a neighbour  instead of going to the courtyard and through this neighbor, she discovers this whole other world that is  happening just a few blocks away in the Warsaw ghetto.

And the story follows Elzbieta/Emilia and a young Jewish boy she meets in the ghetto Roman as they navigate some really turbulent years in Warsaw through the Warsaw ghetto uprising. And then the Warsaw uprising and then the early years of the communist occupation.

Pamela: [00:04:53] I think that's a great description without spoilers or anything Kel, so well done.

Kelly: [00:04:58] Thank you.

Pamela: [00:04:58] I was lucky enough to get an ARC of this book and read it a little while ago and I have to say like all of your books, I think, but this one in particular, I found  completely compelling. And I thought, I'd go back to the message that I sent you after I read it.

And this is what it was. I said It's bloody amazing, completely compelling. And so damned heartbreaking. I cannot believe the level of detail on your writing. Your best yet.  And I'm betting  I'm not the only one that's had those reactions. I've already looked up good reads. And I found this quote yesterday: The Warsaw Orphan will make you cry. It will make you think. It will make you appreciate your life. The strength of humanity and the power of family is amazing. This is in no way, an easy book to read. It is one you need to savour, to take your time with and appreciate.

And there's lots of things in there I want to talk to you about, but what sort of reaction has the book been getting so far and what sort of messages and feedback have you been getting Kel on it?

Kelly: [00:05:58] Yeah. I feel really lucky to have the readers that I have to send me and friends like you, who send me amazing messages like that because as you know, you write the book and then there's this really long period of time where it's getting ready for publication.

It's like editing it, but it's kind of just you and an editor and maybe your agent or just you and the editorial team. And that long lead time is just like purgatory, it could go either way.  Someone once said writing a novel, it's like telling a joke and then waiting to hear, to see if it's funny. And in this case, I wrote most of this book or big chunk of this book or finishing it actually during lockdown last year.

And it was probably in that sense, one of the more difficult periods to write in because the whole world felt so chaotic and kids were homeschooling and husband was working at home and it was all kind of bonkers. And then I'm trying to write this book which I, from the outset, I knew it was going to be the most emotionally taxing out of all of the emotionally taxing books that I've written.

And so it was hard, but so far the reception has been amazing and people have been so kind and generous. And you know, I think this is not meant to be an easy read. I don't think any WW2 fiction. It should be an easy read. My voice is meant to be conversational, but the content that I'm writing about, particularly in this book, it should kind of be harrowing.

Anytime we pick up a historical novel that is set during his era, it should not be fun to read. And so, you know for some readers that will probably be too much. But you have be authentic. And so that's, that's just the reality of it.

Pamela: [00:07:35] It's so true.  See, you know, you were aware obviously Kelly of the impact that writing about   such a disastrous period in world history could have it in such a traumatic time for so many and for the whole world, in fact. But did you sort of have an inkling as you're writing out or when it was getting into its final stages of, of the potential impact on readers?

Yes, and it's kind of like a conscious choice at times.  I'm going to read you a little excerpt from the book. It's just a couple of paragraphs and at times I was, when I was doing my research, I was thinking, you know, the realities of life in the Warsaw ghetto were so brutal and so cruel.

And as I'm writing and I'm thinking this is hard to research and it's hard to write, it's going to be hard to read. But the only way to get around that would be to move the book, like the setting, that's the fact of it. And so, I'm going to read you just this paragraph if that's okay.

Yep. For sure.

Kelly: [00:08:32] So this is Elzbieta/Emilia, and she's talking to Sarah who is a nurse who lives in her apartment building and Sarah has been, or Sara she's S - a - r - a

She has been with a team of nurses and social worker, she's been going to the Warsaw ghetto and trying to smuggle children out to safety or relative safety on the other side. And Emilia has become involved in that work. And they're having a conversation as they leave one day. And Emilia says to Sara, 'I don't know how you do this every day', I whispered shakily after a mother and father told us in no uncertain terms to leave their apartment.

So Sarah has asked a family to give her their child to take away and

Pamela: [00:09:12] I've got goosebumps just thinking about it.

Kelly: [00:09:16] The thought of that is just gut-wrenching, you know, families had to make this decision, not knowing what the future within the ghetto was for them or having an inkling that it might actually be, they might effectively be doomed, but do you send your children with a stranger, you know, and how are you ever going to find them again even if you do escape  ? So it's this whole big, impossible decision. And Sara says to Emilia, 'You know, Emilia said, I don't know how you do this every day.' And Sara says, 'Neither do I,' she admitted smiling ruefully. 'Some days I think I have reached the end of my tolerance, but other days I know that it is not for me to decide when enough is enough. Not while these people simply cannot opt out. The thought of that helps me to carry on.' And obviously writing the book is not a patch on what people who actually did this work went through, or the people who lived in the ghetto. But every time I would think, is this going to be too much for readers?

You know,  the research was so hard. I'd think 'People lived this Kelly' and I didn't know much at all about the Warsaw ghetto when I started researching or any of the events that happened in the book. I really am kind of embarrassed about my ignorance. I wanted to drill down and I wanted to tell this story because I'm fascinated about history and I've got Polish ancestry. And if I don't know anything about this, there's plenty of other people who don't. And so it helped me to press on to think. We can not forget. It's hard to look at this history, but we must, we absolutely must because we know if we don't, then it can happen again.

 So that, that that's the answer. I think I was conscious that it might be difficult for readers, but you can't shy away from it.

Pamela: [00:10:52] I want to come back to where you got the original idea for the story Kelly,  and the inspiration for it. But what you've just been talking about was something that really struck me when I was reading the book. In the past, my past life, I was a history teacher. I taught the about the world wars at you know, HSC level and I have to say, I didn't really know anything about the Warsaw ghetto. I mean, you hear about it.  I guess, because the whole history of WW2 and the whole terrible story of what happened to the Jewish people is so big, and the Warsaw ghetto is an important part of that, but it's often brushed over or glossed over, or you don't get time to find out about it.

So, one thing that really struck me in reading the book was, as you say, how important it is for people to remember. And it struck me too, that we're, we're now living in the next century to when all that happened. And you know, I'm thinking of my own daughters who all did history at school too, but you know, like me would have no idea of that and just how with each generation we're getting further and further away. So I really felt that, you know, like you, that this is such an important story and that we must remember these things.

Kelly: [00:12:04] Mm. I think the sheer scale of the events of WW2 , it would be impossible, particularly for someone who's not an academic, it's impossible for any one of us to know enough about the, the breadth of it.

There was, you know, so many occupied countries and,   there were, I can't remember the exact figure, but there were many, many, many ghettos. And so, and  Warsaw was the biggest, it was the largest and the most populous, but even so the conditions in there were replicated in other places. And we can't, you can't know about every single one of them, but I think the particular part Warsaw's  history that drew me to writing about it was just the sheer relentlessness of those years. It wasn't, it wasn't that there was, you know, the city was just occupied, which would have been bad enough, but the city was occupied and there was this massive ghetto  set up. And then there was an uprising in the ghetto. That event alone I want to tell everybody I know about it because these group of Jewish people who had been starved and tortured for years, most of them had been taken to Treblinka and, and suffocated, and then cremated in the forest and just disrespectfully murdered. And then the bodies  not even respected. And this scrappy little group of people left behind fought for 28 days and held off the might of the Nazi army.  There were no resources left and yet they managed to achieve the impossible. And I feel that story alone, I wanted to tell that story because , for a long, long time the Nazis had had this message that the Jews were cowards and, you know, they were there, they were there under race.

And these men and women were so courageous and the fate of almost certain death, they just wanted to die with dignity. And that story alone was so huge. And so immense  that I didn't know much about that. I was thinking, this is something that even in that sea of things that I wish I knew more about, even in the sea  of these events across WW2 , I will never understand enough that one alone was the story that I really wanted to tell.

And then of course the relentlessness of it, it goes on and on then the city uprising, the communists, the Soviets occupying. So, yes,  I wish there was a way that you could just like download all of the information so that we could all be better informed,   . But I think the role of historical fiction is actually so that somebody might read this book and go, I don't actually know enough about this. This is a novel it's fictional, but I would like to educate myself now, you know, I, I didn't know about it before, but I'm going to go do some reading or listen to some oral history or watch a documentary, you know, and I think that's the power of this genre.

Pamela: [00:14:39] Absolutely. And the power behind having characters that you can relate to as a reader and empathize with   it does make the fiction to me a lot more powerful than particularly when it's written the way you've written it.

I mean, history, reading history books can be watching a doco on TV, well, you know, the world at war or whatever can be pretty dry. But I really feel like, you know, bringing these stories to life in fiction and through the characters is, is a really great way for readers to relate or, you know, try to relate in some kind of way to what happened and to learn more about it. So yeah. Fantastic. So let's go back a little bit. Where did you get the initial idea for the story and then starting from that kernel of fact, I guess, how did you then go about developing it and you know, like you were saying Kelly,  it is such a big story  how did you go about narrowing it down?

Kelly: [00:15:35] So originally I wanted ...Emilia appears in my earlier novel, The Things We Cannot Say, and she's got this minor role, but she, to me, she always felt like a special character. I wanted her to have a broader role. And when I first start a planning that book I, because I went to Poland to research that book and I was in amazing museums and libraries and talking to different people.

And the story of Irena Sendler who was a real life Polish hero, heroine kept coming up and I became quite fascinated by Irena. She led this team of mostly women and they, just like Sara in my book, went into the Warsaw ghetto and saved and then sustained the lives of more than two and a half thousand Jewish children.

So they smuggled them out, found them families, taught them Catholic prayers so they could hide in plain sight. Sometimes Jewish boys, they would have them dress and pretend to be girls so they wouldn't arrest suspicion if you know, obviously Jewish boys generally circumcised, and then Nazi certainly did not think twice about checking that even on children.

And so they went to these extraordinary lengths to rescue and then keep safe, these children. And that story just kept sticking with me. And so I had envisioned that Emilia might go to Warsaw and somehow get involved in that so that I could tell part of that story. But you know, you know what it's like when you're writing a book, you can only fit so much in it. And that was already a huge story. And as I started trying to really nut out the plot, it quickly became apparent that the book was going to be 10,000 pages long and I would have to cut out some of that. I kind of set that aside had Emilia remained a child in that story, and at the end of that book, spoiler alert, she leaves the village that she lives in.

And so she survives because she appears in the modern day timeline as well as an elderly woman, but there's a gap. You know, she, she survives in the historical timeline and she appears in and the contemporary timeline. And I had that kind of fleshed out in my mind, but couldn't fit it in. And so, I set that aside and went off and wrote another book.

But while I was publicizing The Things We Cannot Say, I went to a book club and it was here, me near where I live in Orange. And it was one of my old colleagues from my previous job, his wife had invited me to come and talk to her book club that's been meeting for a couple of decades and they were amazing women and it was the best afternoon.

But as I walked in, we were all kind of swapping family stories because so much of The Things We Cannot Say is about our family histories and, you know, connecting with those while grandparents or our parents were alive when we can. And a woman was telling me that her grandmother knew someone who was smuggled out of a ghetto in Hungary, in a suitcase.

And like this little flare went up like, 'Oh, that's like Irena Sendler. And I wanted to write that story' and I was like 'I'll ponder that later', had lovely lunch. And at the end of the lunch, they were asking me questions. And one of the questions was, 'Will you write a sequel to The Things We Cannot Say', which by then I had answered a couple of hundred times.

So the answer was: I can't. All of the loose ends are tied up! And the same woman said to me, 'But Kelly, what happened to Emilia? Can't you write Emilia's story? And that was the big light bulb moment because I already, I really had it there. It was just ready to write. And so as I drove home, I actually pretty much had the plot kind of ding, ding, ding, ding. You know, you race  home, and you quickly take the notes. And then, because I didn't know nearly enough about the events that would happen in the book, just loosely that the story would, you know, flow through these historical events. So that kicked off this whole process of research and away I went.

Pamela: [00:19:14] Fantastic. So the next step for you, I guess then would have been diving into that research.  Do you find then that as you're doing the research and you're reading the factual information, that that's then sparking more and more ideas for you in terms of the story and then you're sort of going backwards and forwards.

Kelly: [00:19:30] Yes. So originally Roman was just like simply a Jewish boy. And as I was reading, I came across this amazing ... there were three Catholic parishes that operated within the Warsaw ghetto and plenty of Jewish Catholics who lived and were trapped in  there who, for various reasons of family heritage, or maybe they had converted, but to the Nazis, they were still considered Jewish.

So there was this thriving kind of sub-population of people who had some connection to the Catholic church too. And it felt natural to write Roman as someone who's, in his case, his father was a devout Catholic and his mother Jewish. And so he is culturally considered Jewish. And, but for him personally, he considers himself a mix of both worlds.

And I wanted to write about identity, in that way that, you know, things are not always so simple as you're one thing or another, you can be lots of things once. That down a little tangent and you know, things like that as you're reading, you kind of like, oh, describe something. And then that sends you down another rabbit hole.

And that might tweak bits of the plot. Because I do plot, I generally do a bit of like pre research so that I can get my plot settled before I start writing. And then as I'm writing, it's, you know, oh, what about this? And then there's a new something that pops up.

Pamela: [00:20:41] I know that you, with your past books, Kelly are a big outliner that you do tend to do quite a detailed outline before you start writing. Was it the same with this book?

Kelly: [00:20:50] Yeah, I think it was 15 pages. And I don't think I varied from it in this case. Sometimes I do. The book that I'm writing now, which is probably going to be called The German Wife, it made a slight deviation. Again, because research kind of made me realize that something I had found in pre-research probably wasn't quite right, so I've adjusted it, but generally I follow the outline. The outline goes into Scrivener and then I just expand it. , I know this has got to happen in your scene and so that one sentence now becomes, you know, how ever many words of actual text. And so that process works for me. I know to some people that sounds nightmarish, but that seems to be how my brain works.

Pamela: [00:21:31] Nah, if you, if you know what your process is and it works, just keep at it. So can we talk a little bit about Elzbieta and Roman, so they were based, I guess, like all of the story in these real people. Can you tell us about their characters and how do you go about developing your characters? Do they develop as you're writing, do you do separate little character descriptions? How does that work for you?

Kelly: [00:21:57] Yeah, I don't really, it's one of those mysterious aspects to it. I don't do a lot of intentional planning. You know, you have those writing days where writing actually means walking the dogs and thinking about the story. I think the characters evolve in my mind during those really informal brainstorming sessions.

It's not, sometimes it's not even that separate. Sometimes I'm washing the dishes or folding the laundry or something and I'm thinking about what would it be like for a 13 year old girl under these conditions? How would a 15 year old boy, 16 year old boy reacts to event X? And so the characters start to take on their own personality.  An editor once said to me, if someone was interviewing you as a character, you should know the answer to basically any question they should be vivid enough in your mind that you should know how they would react.  But I don't write like a character study or do a questionnaire, . It happens organically when it's working sometimes, you know, you have to force it sometimes, you know how it is. And by that, I mean, sometimes I'll reach a point when I'm actually writing where it’s, 'Oh, I don't know how she’s going to react to this'.  My first drafts are so rough and so inelegant and they are jarring, like I don't have scene transitions sometimes.  If the point of the scene is to get to point X in the plot, sometimes I do it too, too abruptly, and I have to go in and soften it. Or I'll have something really dramatic happen, and when I'm refining later, I realize actually, you've got to smooth that out a little bit, or it's going to be too shocking for the reader. Not that it can't be shocking, but you have to do it in certain ways so that the readers aren't pulled out of the story. And so sometimes when I'm thinking about the characters and how they react, I have to, you know, pull that together in a way that feels organic. And Elzbieta, she's intended to read as this curious headstrong determined girl. She starts the book as someone who's lost almost everything but she still has compassion for other people. And for Roman as well, he's probably the most broken and angry of all of the characters I've ever written.  I've never really written anger in this way before, but he is driven by outrage. And so he should be. His family and his entire world has been turned into this torturous existence for no reason.  They've done nothing wrong. Their crime was being born. And so he's got this righteous anger that drives him, and I found that really difficult to write. But again,  ou  meditate on it.

You marinate a little bit and I think the research help with that, particularly with Roman, because I was looking at a lot of photos and listening to oral histories and reading them. I read these great memoirs and I'm thinking. My God, how could this happen? You know, and it does, it does make you angry. It's not just, and it's not right, and it's not fair. And so I think that helps to drive the way to the character reads. It should help to drive the way the character reads on the page.

Pamela: [00:24:50] Mm. Yeah. So you're drawing on your own anger at the situation and about what you're reading.

Kelly: [00:24:55] Yeah. And then of course that's a taste. Reading these secondhand accounts is not a patch on what these people actually went through, but when you're trying to represent it, you can only draw, I guess, on that.

Pamela: [00:25:05] So do you spend a fair bit of time Kelly in immersing yourself in that material? You know, you mentioned the oral histories, the memoirs. I don't know if you watch anything, any sort of video thing or talk to people who've, you know, I mean bit hard in this situation, but maybe with your other books, talking to people who have experienced different things.

Kelly: [00:25:23] Yeah. That's the best. The three forms of research I like the best are photographs because you can see... there's this one particular picture of a boy being removed from the ghetto to be taken probably to Treblinka. He's this little Jewish boy with his little hat and he's being held at gunpoint. And the look on his face, you know, you're looking at context clues, like the clothing and the buildings, but the emotion in the face of these people. You draw on that. I draw on that. So, it's photos, oral histories, hearing people talk about their experiences and when I'm writing contemporary stories and I can ring people or meet with people, I love to do that, to have a conversation. Particularly, if you can get in a room with someone or on a zoom with someone and you can see their reactions,  because you're drawing on people's experiences and you're trying to represent them on the page.

And it's such a, an intangible process, but there is something magic about real life accounts. As you say, history textbooks can be so dry. Reference books can just be cold and clinical because that's kind of academia, isn't it? But, but people's real-life accounts, are magic for, for this kind of fiction I find.

Pamela: [00:26:30]  Great tip there for people writing anything really. I think it doesn't even have to be historical, does it?

Kelly: [00:26:35] No, that's true. And people generally want to help. I remember on my last book, there was a postnatal depression - I wrote about postnatal depression - and I'd written a draft and  there wasn't an emotional depth to it  and I was really unhappy with it. And I put a call out on my personal Facebook page for people. Does anyone know anyone who might want to talk to me about this? And I actually had more, just from my personal Facebook page, which is not... I don't have a lot of friends, Pam... in real life I do but Facebook, not so much.

And I had more offers for interviews than I could possibly have done. So people want to help. And I think when you're first starting out, I remember with my earlier books, it was so hard when I needed to approach people for research help. But as time's gone on, I realized people really love helping you get it right.

Often like with postnatal depression, people were saying to me, 'Oh, I'm so excited that you're writing about this because I didn't know about it until it happened to me'. So they want to help you. So yes, if you're an aspiring writer, don't hesitate to ask people, because they often want to tell you their story and that will help you more than, you know.

Pamela: [00:27:35] Yeah. I recently spoke to someone who had a similar experience to the book I'm writing now. And hearing a different version of the story just sparks so much in  your mind about different options for your plot, you know, and your character.

Kelly: [00:27:50] Yes, absolutely.

Pamela: [00:27:53] And so with The Warsaw Orphan, Kel, you know, we've talked about obviously the dark subject matter.  but there's so much, that's beautiful in the story as well. And, you know obviously the compassion that the characters have for each other and the strength and determination  that they find. How did you go about sort of balancing the light and the dark, as you were plotting, and  particularly as you get onto those later drafts?

Kelly: [00:28:18] Yeah, my first ever publisher said to me, if you want to write about dark, you need to know a lot about light. And every single book, because I always am drawn to these crazy dark stories...What is it about us? Why Pam? How can we stop doing this to ourselves and ourselves?? 

 Every single book, there's a point, particularly towards the end where I'll go back and look and see. You have to balance. I wanted this book to be harrowing because the subject matter should be harrowing. But if you're going to put your readers through that, you have to remind them that there's humanity in every, each of these awful moments, some kind of humanity shines through. And in this book, those family connections, and the connection between friends and people being selfless and kind ... that happened.

That happens every time. Every time we, as a species are in crisis, there is goodness somewhere to be found. And so the one point where I had to go back and really adjust, it was... there's this point where Roman and Emilia are in this kind of bubble for a brief period of time where Roman's recovering from an injury.

And I realized that I was about to take these characters from one really intense scenario into another, in the very next chapter. And so I wrote an extra scene where they're just connecting and they're just two kids and it's awkward because they're two kids and they're starting to get feelings for each other, but they're in this weird situation and they don't know how to proceed, so I just kind of tried to take them out of all of the chaos for a minute before I dropped them back in, in the next chapter. So that the reader can have a break and they could have a break and I could have a break. You have to balance it.

And so, if you're going to write great scenes of emotional depth and heartbreak and tragedy, you have to be able to write some love or hope or peace or something at some other point in the book for the most part.

Pamela: [00:30:12] And like you say for you too, while you're writing it. W ere there times and I'm sure there must've been where you were so deeply immersed in it that you just thought, oh, I just can't do this. And what do you do when you get to that point? You know, do you have any sort of little self-care routines that you go through?

Kelly: [00:30:27] Sometimes... I'm quite a rational person, I'm not, not super spiritual or, you know, I don't have any superstitions or anything like that. But every now and again, when I'm writing about something like this, I like to just light a candle, take a moment and just reflect on the fact that you are writing about events that touched and changed and ended  real people's lives. And you have to do it respectfully. And I think for me, because I feel so drawn to this era and so drawn to these characters in these scenarios, but you have to do it respectfully. I just can't keep coming back to that. You have to take it seriously. , .It's almost meditative.. And there were times when I would just say, okay, that's enough. 30 Rock for a couple of hours. Go for nice walks with the dog. I think this was probably the hardest research I've ever done. The book I'm writing now is probably equally as difficult and it's just a case of trusting your instincts. And when you feel like you're a bit wrung out...it's like I say to my kids, when you start to, you're frustrated with something you need to step back from it for a minute and then try again later. And it's a bit the same when I start to feel overwhelmed by the subject matter. You just step back from it for a minute, and then you come back to it, light it with fresh eyes.

But it should be upsetting.  I know I'm rabbiting on about this, but I really feel like, if you're writing about WW2 and you're not disturbed by it, you're not digging deep enough because it's such an intense and disgusting part of human history. , it should not be easy to look it in the eye.

Pamela: [00:31:59] For sure, for sure. And Kell, the level of detail in your writing and capturing you know, the setting and those moments and the, the different events that happen throughout the story is, is actually quite amazing.

Kelly: [00:32:12] Thank you.

Pamela: [00:32:13] So you're obviously absorbing all that research. You're writing and rewriting. Can you talk a little bit about, you know, when you've got, say a scene that you're writing and , you really want to infuse it with a lot of detail. Does that just sort of come out naturally for you once you've done that research, how much honing and revision goes into that level of detail for you?

Kelly: [00:32:34] I've just started this new part of my process, where when I'm coming to a scene… it's rough. It's so rough. I'd be embarrassed to show you. But for me, I try and picture what I'm going to write, I know this is different for you  and it works for you bit I have to stop and be able to say, this is going to happen. This is going to happen. I can see the setting. And so I'll try and scribble down words and try and connect the research into that rough mind map of how the scene might... for example, there's a scene in the new book where there's this peacock blue wall. And so I'm trying to reference the wall and dismissing artwork it's been solved because the family's in financial crisis and the character's eye is drawn to, the spot on the wall that's a different color. And so that's a constant reminder for her of all that she's lost. And so, when I'm writing, I'm glancing at the mind map  and thinking at the end of that scene, I want the reader  to have a really vivid picture, except for some readers,  but for most readers, I want them to have a really vivid picture of the spot on the wall and  how, like it'sa  like constant slap in the face and the character.

And I want it to feel a bit like that to the reader. And so, that comes out of a piece of research that I was reading about.  You draw some detail from your research and then you find where it fits into the scene. I might scribble down, you know something about the food that the family, the turnip peels or something that the character in the Warsaw ghetto is eating, you know? I've read that in a memoir. I've had someone talk about it, you know, oral  history or I've seen it photo. And now I'm trying to draw just that sensory stuff into the scene to make it vivid.  But that is another case where balance is critical because most writers, I find we love our research, and we'll research all day and night

Pamela: [00:34:24] A great procrastination tool.

Kelly: [00:34:26] It's so good!  When you're at the coal face, you're not actually writing a history textbook and there is such a thing as too much. By the time we get to my editors, have a look at it, my agents have a look at it…I think they've just got a template. 'Hi Kelly. This is too long. You need to cut it down to 115,000 words’. Every book. It's the same story. I know I should just refine the first draft and often that's: do we really need three paragraphs about the peacock blue wall, Kelly? Maybe we could just have one.

I think where I get it, right, it's a team effort because you know what? You're in the forest and your editor and other people outside in the team can see the trees and they can help you figure out h ow to navigate your way through it. The worst thing would be if the reader's going well, ‘you know, he's still on about the turnip peels. God we, get it’.

You’ve got to keep progressing the story. And that's another balancing act. So teamwork and instinct. Sand read lots of books, so you know when you're bogging down in a story and where you're thinking, 'Oh, come on writer, move on from this. I think that's the two things for aspiring writers: get good editorial feedback and read lots so you can hone your gut feel.

Pamela: [00:35:50] And of course experience, isn't it? And, you know, learning to trust those instincts.

Kelly: [00:35:57] Absolutely. Yep.

Pamela: [00:35:59] And I will just say for anybody that may have been wondering what those references were Kelly was making, we've had this conversation before. I don't actually get mental pictures in my head, which is really annoying. I sort of get a feeling and a sense about things, but I don't get the movie running in my head when I write or when I read. So sadly, for me.

Kelly: [00:36:18] And I find that utterly fascinating because you still write great books.  I think it's so amazing how all of these different processes work. So you don't see the movie in your head, but you can make the movie in my head. I just find that absolutely brilliant.

Pamela: [00:36:32] Well, thank you. 

So we've talked loads about the detail and the research and all that sort of thing. Kelly, I did have a question from a fellow writer actually on the Writes4Women community page.  I think it was Leanne. , she'd love to know about you writing across genres. You know, that you've written romance books. And do you still enjoy writing the romance books? Which genres do you prefer? And do you find that readers follow you from genre to genre?

Kelly: [00:37:03] That is a very good question. Hi, Leanne. I just like writing. I actually have a couple of other genres I'd like to write in at some point. It’s a  different part of my brain when I switch into contemporary romance mode, where instead of anything could have happened by the end of this book, you know what I mean? Like it won't necessarily be a happy ending for everybody. The history is dictating the course that the plot takes, but in contemporary romance there's going to be a happy ending. And I get to pick what it is. Like, it feels like a different process and it's definitely less taxing. It's hard. Don't let anyone tell you romance is not hard to write because it is very, very hard. But it's different. It's a different kind of difficult. And so for me, writing something else is actually quite refreshing. Particularly when I haven't had time when I'm writing these really in-depth historical novels. The research is so much more time intensive. But I would like to write romance again in the future, somewhere down the track.  There's a couple of speculative fiction ideas that I have at some point I'd like to write.

 I just like writing, and I think no matter what I write... I tried to write a romance series that was going to be lighthearted, kind of fun, a little bit funny and not at all intense. And I managed to write three books that each had issues at their heart. There was infertility in one, one of the characters has autism spectrum disorder and in the third book there  was this whole backstory that was very intense. I think my brain is just drawn, drawn to that. So even when I'm trying to write fun things some of it pops out. And I think a lot of readers have followed me between the genres because I'm amazed by people whose average a whole backlist and then they'll send me feedback on or lovely comments on books of both kind of varieties.

Pamela: [00:38:50] Oh, that's brilliant. Well ,we love to read across genres. So why not? You know, the general public out there. Do you ever get any resistance from your publishers and editors about, you know, oh no, you don't really want to write  another romance nove’l. Are they happy for you to  write across genres?

Kelly: [00:39:03] They've been happy for me to cross genres. I think probably a do get resistance, but it's not from anyone in the publishing realm.

I think people do not take romance very seriously. And so, when I said I was going to publish some romance novels as well, the feedback I got from particularly Australian people kind of at the periphery of the industry or outside of the industry, the feedback was, but why? But you write good books!   I love it when people do that, because then I give them a big, long lecture about the importance of the romance genre and how big it is, how it props up publishers sometimes and how it brings joy and feminism and all of these good things to a whole group of readers, male and female, and everywhere on that spectrum.

Cause I get quite ranty actually. People don't do that about crime. Which is also a genre with kind of a formulaic pattern. People don't do that about SciFi or Fantasy, and yet the Romance is bigger than all of those genres combined. And yet people think they can be kind of scornful about it. So it does get me a bit ranty. But I hope that people within the industry, I think understand the importance of it and how loved it is and how readers are passionate about it. But it's just dudes outside of the industry, Pam, there's plenty of them. You have to push back on it.

Pamela: [00:40:22] Good on you for getting ranty. There's nothing wrong with a good rant.  You've mentioned a couple of times about the book you're writing now. Is it possible to have a little hint about what that's about?

Kelly: [00:40:34] Yep, sure. It's the story of two women, two really headstrong women, one who is living in a kind of early Nazi Germany through the war and one who is in the US  through the Great Depression and they end up in the same place in the second half of the book, which is Huntsville, Alabama, around the space program, around the rocket program. And it's another historical novel entirely historical. This book is so intense. You know, I'm still writing, so it's not finished yet, but I think readers who enjoyed Warsaw Orphan will all like it, or at least will like find it satisfying. Again, it's not a super fun book. I'm writing about the  Great Depression and Germany and the lead up to the war, like these are not fun topics, but, but they're really interesting.

Pamela: [00:41:23] But I don't think your readers would expect you to write anything too lighthearted, either Kelly. Even in your Contemporaries, you deal with very serious issues and that's what people are drawn to.

Kelly: [00:41:34] Yeah. Thank you. I hope so.

Pamela: [00:41:37] Well, you have given us some great tips for aspiring and in any writers out there, really, and you are going to be, I think my Patreon victim for, Four Curly Questions . And there's going to be some interesting questions about writing and the writing life there. So if anybody wants to hear about that, they can hop onto the website and find out more about the Patreon membership. But for now, I think all I can say is thank you so much for everything that you've shared with us about your writing process for The Warsaw Orphan. And I know it's just going to be a huge success.

Kelly: [00:42:10] Thank you, Pam. Thanks.

 (C) Pamela Cook/Writes4Women