As of the Sunday check-in for A Round of Words in 80 Days, I’m up to Chapter 23 and about 180,400 words on my WIP, my third Russian historical novel. The story spans 15 years and 3 continents, and I’m up to April 1937, so I think I’m making good progress for the massive ground I have to cover.
Chapter 23 is one of the exclusively Soviet chapters, and entitled “Betrayed by the Revolution.” Even though I’ve had these events planned and in basic outline form for over a decade, actually writing them down is a bit difficult emotionally. I am so sorry I had to kill off former orphanage girl Inessa’s husband Roman, even though his only appearance ever is in this chapter. Inessa’s one of my favorite Soviet characters, and she doesn’t deserve this.
I even feel sorry for the obnoxious Leonid, knowing what’s going to happen to him in probably the next chapter. I was not planning for him to finally redeem his character at the end, but I couldn’t stand to have him be this flat, static, annoying, obnoxious fellow right up till the very end. Even his adoption of former orphanage girl Karla in the sequel wasn’t completely motivated by altruism, though he’s grown to love her like his own child. He’s finally shown brotherly love to Georgiya by holding her hand as they’re taken to the NKVD car, and in the next chapter, he’s going to ask to see her before the end and tell her, for the first and only time, that he loves her.
I had to do some rather gruesome, disturbing reading for this chapter. Even when you’ve read and written for so many years about subjects like the Shoah, GULAG, the Armenian Genocide, and the Great Terror, it doesn’t ever make it a ray of sunshine or pleasant to read about. But it’s important to have accuracy when you’re writing about real events and places.
I’d never read about the killing fields of Kurapaty (near Minsk) before, and I had to know exactly how it went down to realistically show how Inessa’s cousin Rustam (the husband of her adoptive sister Olga) was able to survive that mass grave. Note to nitpickers: Just because something rarely or infrequently happened doesn’t mean it was completely out of the realm of possibility or that there were no documented instances. It just means it didn’t happen often, not that it never happened. And it makes for a more interesting story.
It helped that this is the first half of ’37, before a fence was constructed around the killing field and thus making escape and survival even more difficult. Before he leaves Roman, he takes out the gag to give him dignity in death, and kisses him in farewell. Now it’s imperative that Inessa’s family escape the Soviet Union, as dangerous as it’s going to be.
Sounds like your at a difficult place to write. Good luck!
Research can be difficult at the best of times, even more so when it’s dark subject matter. But your work will be stronger for it. Feeling an emotional connection to your characters is always a good sign though; you know what they say, if you don’t care about your characters, then why should your readers? Good luck in your writing for this week
Larson., in his book “In the Garden Of Beasts” about the rise of Hitler, said in his end notes, he had to turn over one of his research books with a picture of Hitler on the cover. He couldn’t stand to see his face yet, of course, it was necessary for his research. I’m sure it’s tough to do sometimes for the ugly atrocities.
Wow, after having that all planned out for ten years you must be really excited to finally get down and write it. Good luck with your research, it does help to get things right.
I’ve always envied people who take on historical novels. It’s something I’d like to do but don’t have the courage.
Well done on the progress and keep going. It will be worth it in the end. x
I wish you great luck. i have many friends who grew up in USSR. Just the basic banality is frightening enough without gulags.
Hi Carrie-Anne, it looks like Kait has hit some trouble and we have no mid-week check-in. So no one is left out, please come over to our Facebook group and leave a link to your check-in post and we will be over to visit. The page address is https://www.facebook.com/groups/row80/ Alternatively, email me at katiecrcole@gmail.com and I’ll pass your post on. I know Facebook isn’t everyone’s cup of tea!
Should we have no Linky on Sunday, we’ll just keep working this way until things sort themselves out.
Cheers!
Cate (Round 1 Sponsor)