Today, I have the great pleasure of welcoming Anne Barwell to talk about the research for her historical series, Echoes Rising. I asked Anne to tell us about her novels and what goes into creating them and was delighted to discover she is as passionate about research as I am. There are similarities between the time in which Anne writes and my Clearwater Victorian era (illegal and dangerous to be gay). I won’t dilly-dally but will hand you straight over to Anne.
Anne Barwell
Thanks, Jackson, for hosting me today.
My Echoes Rising series is set in WWII so I needed to research not only location, but the time period too.
I’d wanted to write not only an action drama story but one that had at its heart a relationship between two men during a time when the discovery of their relationship risked severe repercussions, even death. I also wanted to explore characters who needed to do some serious soul-searching in order to break free of expectations of themselves and their society.
I knew in writing a historical I had a lot of research ahead of me, especially as I planned to write a three-book series. Shadowboxing is set in Berlin, Winter Duet is a road trip across wartime Germany, and Comes a Horseman takes place in France leading up to, and including D-Day.
I used a range of resources for my research. I work in a library—shelving in the 940.5 section is not a great idea as I get distracted by shiny things. The library, and its databases, were a fantastic writing resource. Half the fun was finding the resources, which weren’t just in the history section, as I also needed travel books—for locations—and information about clothing and weapons. Early on in the writing process for the story, I found a book called The Bomb by Gerard DeGroot which was about the ‘life story of the Bomb’ and subtitled A History of Hell on Earth. I bought my own copy of it.
The Forgotten Voices series, another invaluable resource, relays personal accounts by both servicemen and women and civilians about what it was like to live through that time. The internet also provided a lot of interesting information although some things were next to impossible to find, the specifics of German telephones being one. The only information I could find was about the US system at the time! Luckily one of my beta readers was German and she proved an invaluable source of information. She also checked facts on websites written in German and provided/suggested the German used in the story.
However, history can also work for a story rather than against it. After all, there’s no need to find a way to blow something up when it’s already documented that the Allied forces dropped bombs in the area at that time.
Many of the other locations in the story are real places. The Michaelskirche—St Michael’s Church—in Berlin where Michel meets the Allied team was still intact in 1943, although it was damaged later in the war. The Klosterkirche, a nunnery on the site of another church, where Michel and Kristopher take refuge, is also a real place, as is St Gertrud’s convent in Alexanderdorf. I was able to draw on photos of those places to describe them as well, which was very helpful. Other landmarks included the Brandenburg Tor and the Spree River.
Some of the other settings were not real but I studied maps in order to place them in actual locations, so I could work out what route the characters had to take to reach them. I also used Google map directions to figure out long it would take to get there, although I had to make some adjustments, given the time period. Cars didn’t travel as fast seventy years ago, and this story is set during a war. Google street view was also useful too although I had to again keep in mind the time difference. I based my fictional locations on real places so they would sound authentic. It’s the details that throw a reader out of a story, although it’s impossible to get everything right, and sometimes a writer has to take some liberties for the sake of a good story.
I used books of street maps of the area—because sometimes you want something in hardcopy, rather than flipping back and forth on browser tabs—and firsthand accounts of people who had been in Berlin at that time. Databases were very helpful, especially the Times Digital Archive, as they gave more of an insight into what it was like living there at the time. Travel books like The Lonely Planet Guides were useful too, but again had to be adjusted because they focused on what Berlin is like now, rather than describing the city in 1943.
Music plays a big part in Winter Duet, book 2 of my WII Echoes Rising series. Two of the characters—Kristopher and Michel—are musicians. Kristopher plays the violin, and Michel the flute, and they’ve promised each other a duet if they survive the war. Although the title reflects that promise, it also refers to a duet of another sort as the team is split into two for a good portion of the story.
I’d attended a lecture on music code as part of one of my music papers at uni, and had always wanted to use it in a story. I also studied Schubert’s Winterreise as part of the same paper, and given the setting of Winter Duet, it worked perfectly for it. The lyrics for the music come from a collection of poems by Müller so I used lines from one of the poems—’Frühlingstraum’—as code phrases used by the Resistance. Kristopher takes the conversation about music a step further and devises a code which he and Michel can use to leave each other a note that will not be easily deciphered if found by the enemy.
Music code was not only used in WWII but long before that. Bach used musical notation to spell out his name in his compositions using the fact that modern music notation had developed from modes—in German ‘B flat’ is ‘B’ and ‘B natural’ is H—and phonetics. Later Schumann used several musical cryptograms in his music, spelling out not just his own name, but that of Clara Wieck, who would later become his wife. Other codes were based on pitch, motifs (repeated music phrases) and note lengths. There are many more examples and variations out there across a range of different composers.
And yes, Clara Lehrer, Kristopher’s sister, is named after Clara Schumann. I’ve learnt a lot more about WWII while writing this series than I ever thought I would, and despite the work involved, I’ve really enjoyed it. I still have a notebook, a folder, and bookcases full of information about the period, and although this team’s story is told, I wouldn’t be surprised if that information proves useful in another story sometime.
Shadowboxing, Book 1 of Echoes Rising, is on sale this month.
Complete their mission or lose everything.
Berlin, 1943
An encounter with an old friend leaves German physicist Dr Kristopher Lehrer with doubts about his work. But when he confronts his superior, everything goes horribly wrong. Suddenly Kristopher and Michel, a member of the Resistance, are on the run, hunted for treason and a murder they did not commit. If they’re caught, Kristopher’s knowledge could be used to build a terrible weapon that could win the war.
For the team sent by the Allies—led by Captain Bryant, Sergeant Lowe, and Dr Zhou—a simple mission escalates into a deadly game against the Gestapo, with Dr Lehrer as the ultimate prize. But in enemy territory, surviving and completing their mission will test their strengths and loyalties and prove more complex than they ever imagined. Author’s note: This is the third edition of Shadowboxing. The first and second editions were released by another publishing house. This story has been re-edited and uses UK spelling to reflect its setting.
Shadowboxing Links
Amazon US: https://amzn.to/3miLlib
Amazon UK: http://bit.ly/3G5GXhX
Universal Link: https://books2read.com/ShadowboxingAB
Paperback: https://www.amazon.com/dp/047354816X
Series Link: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0C4225LDC
Anne Barwell
Anne Barwell lives in Wellington, New Zealand. She shares her home with kitty siblings Byron and Marigold who are convinced her office chair is theirs.
Anne works in a library, is an avid reader and watcher of a wide range of genres, and is constantly on the lookout for more hours in her day. She likes to write in series and even so-called one-shots seem to breed more plot bunnies. Her writing is like her reading – across a range of genres, although her favourites are paranormal, fantasy, SF, and historical. Music often plays a part in her stories and/or her characters are musicians.
She also hosts and reviews for other authors, and writes monthly blog posts for Love Bytes. She is the co-founder of the New Zealand Rainbow Romance Writers, and a member of RWNZ. Her books have received honourable mentions five times, reached the finals four times—one of which was for best gay book—and been a runner-up in the Rainbow Awards.
Website & Blog—Drops of Ink: http://annebarwell.wordpress.com/
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/anne.barwell.1
Facebook group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/annesbooksandbrews/
Newsletter: https://lacedragonpublishing.eo.page/hg3wk
