Where I Get My Ideas From
Catherine Hokin
Most of the conversations I have as a writer revolve around ideas. People ask me where mine come from, they share that they have one of their own, or they ask the dreaded question I’m always afraid might actually be part curse: “aren’t you worried they might run out?”
I’m not surprised at the interest. The process of writing and editing isn’t hard to explain, but idea generation can be more difficult to pin down as – for me, anyway – there are always a lot of elements involved and the connections between them don’t become clear all at once. What I have learned over the process of writing eleven books, however, is that I have to make time for the things I’ve squirreled away – and frequently forgotten about – to find each other. Which sounds more magical than it is, so let me explain.
Like most writers, I am rarely writing one book at a time. While I’m researching one novel, I keep a note of the nuggets of information – from specific historic events to personal anecdotes – which aren’t relevant to the story at hand but interest me. For example, when I was researching The Girl in the Photo I read a number of accounts by Kindertransport children about their experiences of separation and being sent alone to a foreign country and I knew I had to come back to those. When I was researching The Secretary, I found a contemporary joke about Reichsmarschall Hermann Göring having rubber medals made so he could wear them in the bath and I knew I would have to use that someday too. Both of those became part of the fabric of my latest and eleventh novel, The Train That Took You Away, once I’d found the links between my scribbled jottings.
Many of the stored nuggets come from background reading, but not all. One important starting point for The Train That Took You Away was a photograph in Berlin’s Alte Nationalgalerie of the terrible damage the building had sustained during WW2. That led me to a conversation with a curator about the gallery’s restoration, and what had happened to many of its pictures under the Third Reich.
That in turn reminded me of an exhibition I’d been to on a previous trip about art banned by the Nazis. Off I went to the Neue Nationalgalerie to have another look at that. This time my eye was drawn by a 1930s painting of a young woman. On the opposite wall was another of a boy who could have been her son. That likeness and the physical separation between them eventually looped back to the Kindertransport notes and a story began to brew.
Then I got out the photos I’d taken on a visit to Płaszów concentration camp, and the Guardian printed an article about art that was stolen during the Nazi years which was still being recovered and the pot began to bubble.
It’s not a quick process. Sometimes what look like clues end up being dead ends – or a different story for another day. It needs time and a lot of staring out of the window, or contemplating as I like to call it, before an idea starts to fix itself. And there are other important elements involved in the process too. Writers are like sponges, we soak up everything around us.
I never use headphones in public because you don’t know when you’ll hear a fascinating snippet. I people watch, I read a lot of books about psychology; I like having a whole cast of imaginary friends wandering around my study. I watch a lot of television drama and drive everyone crazy picking apart the plots. I like nothing better than asking, “But what if?” and seeing the world through sliding doors. And I dig deep into my own experiences, because that’s where the heart of the idea usually is.
So far – touch wood and with everything crossed – running out of ideas hasn’t happened yet. If anything, the opposite is true. Stories in my experience lead to other stories. Part of The Train That Took You Away is set at the post-war Nuremberg trials and researching those has led me to a character who will be appearing in book thirteen. Amalie, one of the two women who plays a key part in the Train novel, travels through Bavaria and I’m certainly not finished with Bavaria yet – that’s the background to book twelve. And I’ve just come back from Lisbon and Madrid where I uncovered some fascinating connections with war-time Berlin, now known as books fourteen and fifteen. There’s a lot going on, I hope you’ll stay along for the ride!
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I seem to have followed a rather meandering career, including marketing and teaching and politics (don’t try and join the dots), to get where I have always wanted to be, which is writing historical fiction. I am a story lover as well as a story writer and nothing fascinates me more than a strong female protagonist and a quest. Hopefully those are what you will encounter when you pick up my books.
I am from the North of England but now live very happily in Glasgow with my American husband. Both my children have left home (one to London and one to Berlin) which may explain why I am finally writing. If I’m not at my desk you’ll most probably find me in the cinema, or just follow the sound of very loud music.
I’d love to hear from you and there are lots of ways you can find me, so jump in via my website https://www.
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THE TRAIN THAT TOOK YOU AWAY
I wipe the tears streaming down my darling son’s face, my heart shattering into a million pieces. “I promise I will find you, my love. No matter what…”
Berlin, 1938. Ever since the Nazis came to power, violence has spread through the city Esther Spielmann once called home. Each night she prays her family will be spared, but when her husband and father are murdered during Kristallnacht, she has no choice but to send her beloved son, Sascha, to safety.
Seeing his tear-stained face breaks Esther’s heart, but she knows letting him go is her only choice. Tormented, she watches his thin legs trembling in the cold as he is ushered with the other crying children towards the Kindertransport. As the train leaves in a cloud of smoke, she vows that this won’t be the last time she sees her treasured son. But has Esther made a promise she can’t possibly keep?
When Esther is taken to a concentration camp, her world feels devoid of hope. But each day she thinks of the heartfelt promise she made to Sascha, the hope of finding him burning like a flame in her chest. The war has taken everything from Esther, but she is determined it will not take her boy…
In the ashes of war, can Esther make her way back to her beloved son? And if they do meet again, will either of them be prepared for what they find?
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Catherine Hokin is the author of several novels inspired by World War Two, including the Hanni Winter series. She writes books set primarily in Berlin, which is her favourite city, a never-ending source of inspiration and also, very conveniently, where her son lives. Her novels cover the period from 1930 up to the fall of the Berlin Wall and deal with the long shadows left by war.
Her passion for history began as a child, flourished doing her history degree course at Manchester University and survived a varied career covering marketing, teaching and politics. She is from the North of England but now lives very happily in Glasgow with her American husband. She loves to travel and, if she’s not at her desk, she can usually be found in the cinema.
Category: On Writing