All writers are asked, “Where do you get your ideas?”
I, honestly, don’t know how not to get ideas. Ideas attack me at all hours of the day or night (usually night). And ideas seem to really like showers.
The hard part is turning an idea into a story, a story into a manuscript, and a manuscript into a publishable book.
When you write historical fiction, like I do, with 2020’s The Nesting Dolls and this November’s My Mother’s Secret: A Novel of the Jewish Autonomous Region there is an added wrinkle. Not only must your idea-story-manuscript-book feature compelling characters, evocative writing, and plenty of twists and turns to keep readers engaged, it needs to be historically accurate too!
My 18th published book, My Mother’s Secret: A Novel of the Jewish Autonomous Region takes place in Birobidzhan, the first independent Jewish state of the 20th century, located on the border between Russia and China, and in a World War II prisoner of war camp where Soviet captives were treated much more harshly than their Western counterparts.
There is also a framing device set in 1988 San Francisco, CA. I lived in San Francisco, CA, from 1977, when my family first immigrated to the US from the USSR, until 1994 when I moved, first to Los Angeles then to New York City to work in soap-opera production.
I knew San Francisco in the 1980s.
I did not know Birobidzhan in the 1930s or a POW camp in the 1940s.
So I did research. I read Where the Jews Aren’t. I scoured this university archive.
And then I watched movies. Because what can I say? Movie watching is fun!
I watched documentaries shot at the time the Jewish Autonomous Region (JAR) was first established, and I watched ones made almost 100 years later revealing what it had turned into. You can even get a VR tour now!
Most exciting of all, I found an intact movie made in 1936 in Yiddish and in Russian, shot as propaganda to convince all the Jews of the world to leave wherever they happened to be at the time – which included the Americas and Palestine – and come to the USSR, where their dream of a homeland would finally be realized, thanks to the largess of the great Joseph Stalin.
Seekers of Happiness showed me better than any documentary what the Soviet Union wanted potential immigrants to think their salvation would be like.
Reality, of course, told a different story.
And that’s the story I wanted to tell.
But ideas are easy. Ideas are less than a dime a dozen since, most times, we writers don’t even get that much. (And don’t ever try breaking down how much you make per hour when it comes to publishing a book. It will only make you sad.)
As my favorite composer, the late Stephen Sondheim wrote, “Having just the vision’s no solution/Everything depends on execution.”
And execution isn’t just compelling characters, evocative writing, and plenty of twists and turns to keep readers engaged. Execution, when it comes to historical fiction, is also getting the facts right.
Some authors find the straitjacket of needing to make your story fit into historical events stifling.
I actually find it helpful. Don’t know what’s going to happen next? Let history be your co-writer!
Pinpoint your time and your place and then just open an almanac. (Sorry, I’m old. For young people: Just type the date into a search engine. Or ask Alexa. Or Siri.) Odds are, something momentous happened on that day, And if not on that day, on a close enough date and/or in a close enough place. Since your participants are fictional, you can move them around some. Or you can just have them hear about it.
So now you have what happened. All you have to do is figure out how it affects your characters and how they react to it. Half the writing work is done for you!
Thanks, history!
My Mother’s Secret: A Novel of the Jewish Autonomous Region by Alina Adams
With his dying breath, Lena’s father asks his family a cryptic question: “You couldn’t tell, could you?” After his passing, Lena stumbles upon the answer that changes her life forever.
As her revolutionary neighbor mysteriously disappears during Josef Stalin’s Great Terror purges, 18-year-old Regina suspects that she’s the Kremlin’s next target. Under cover of the night, she flees from her parents’ communal apartment in 1930s Moscow to the 20th century’s first Jewish state, Birobidzhan, on the border between Russia and China. Once there, Regina has to grapple with her preconceived notions of socialism and Judaism while asking herself the eternal question: What do we owe each other? How can we best help one another? While she contends with these queries and struggles to help Birobidzhan establish itself, love and war are on the horizon.
New York Times Bestselling author Alina Adams draws on her own experiences as a Jewish refugee from Odessa, USSR, as she provides readers a rare glimpse into the world’s first Jewish Autonomous Region. My Mother’s Secret is rooted in detailed research about a little-known chapter of Soviet and Jewish history while exploring universal themes of identity, love, loss, war, and parenthood. Readers can expect a whirlwind journey as Regina finds herself and her courage within one of the century’s most tumultuous eras.
https://www.historythroughfiction.com/my-mothers-secret
Alina Adams is the NYT best-selling author of soap opera tie-ins, figure skating mysteries, and romance novels. She was born in Odessa, USSR, and moved to the US with her family in 1977. She has covered figure skating for ABC, NBC, ESPN and Lifetime, and worked for the soap operas As the World Turns, Guiding Light, All My Children, and One Life To Live. Her historical fiction novels, The Nesting Dolls (2020) and My Mother’s Secret: A Novel of the Jewish Autonomous Region are based on a combination of family history and rigorous research.
https://www.facebook.com/alina.sivorinovskywickham/
