That Emotional Connection

Finding a ‘heart link’ to your writing.

When I wrote my first two novels, I had an emotional attachment to the real-life events on which they were based. My discovery of the heart-rending tale of British children ‘deported’ to Australia in the mistaken belief they were orphans, whose parents often spent the rest of their lives fruitlessly searching for them, was one that affected me deeply when I first heard about it on the news. The story of Nicholas Winton’s rescue of Jewish children from Czechoslovakia, and accounts of the Jewish inmates of Terezin who put on a defiant performance of Verdi’s Requiem, also had me in tears. It is so much easier to find the motivation and creative stamina to write at length when one is emotionally invested in the events of one’s novel.

But I’ve struggled to find a ‘heart link’ to my third book, set on occupied Jersey. I have read a lot of source material and faithfully tried to represent this in my writing, yet although I was interested in the research, I could only find a ‘head-link’ to the story, not the emotional connection I craved if I was to successfully move my reader.

Until today.

I was trying to discover when the islanders discovered the fate of those who had been imprisoned in Germany, often punished for the flimsiest of reasons such as distributing leaflets based on the BBC news, some of whom died in prison. I came across the story of Dr. Gilly Carr whose research into two men’s deaths features in a short documentary. I would urge you to watch it. It’s very powerful. It features two elderly Channel island women, neither of whom knew their father’s fate. One of them promised her mother she would never rest until she found out what happened to her husband. Her reaction when Dr Carr finally finds her father’s grave is heart wrenching. I must admit, I sobbed.

I have finally found the emotional connection to my story, and I know it will be better for it.