1. Where did you draw the inspiration for your story?
From my music teachers and William Stevenson's book about Intrepid,
the Canadian who masterminded the British Security Co-ordination, a civilian
organization within the British Secret Service during World War II. Ironically,
the real name of Stevenson's subject is Sir William Stephenson.
2. What's the connection between your music teachers and a spy organization?
Everything. My two favorite singing teachers served in the Secret War.
Robert Unwin was a Canadian Intelligence Officer with the British Army.
Because he was a musician, he was able to remain in Germany gathering information
for the Allies as a church organist. He was such a gentle man, I couldn't
imagine his being a spy, but he was, and that fascinated me. In my teens,
I was taught by Mme. Hendrikse, who had been an opera coach in Amsterdam,
Holland. She and her husband had served in the Dutch Underground. Knowing
these two people gave me a different base to profile the kind of people
who might become spies, and though this novel is not about them, my characters
are filled with the substance of their beings, with their quiet bravery,
steadfast faith and fierce tenacity.
The book, Intrepid, on the other hand, briefly dealt with a woman
agent called Trudi who really was a cousin of King George VI. She was captured
by the Gestapo in Copenhagen and, because her body was never found, it
was assumed she was dead. I wondered, What if she lived? What would
her story be? And then I came up with the idea of mirroring her character.
This gave me two women to write about.
3. I think you've just answered my next question. Are your characters
based on
people you know, or composites of several people?
Or, are they entirely works of
fiction?
All of the above. To write, we can only draw on our own experience,
which is a mosaic of all the people we've met, read about, seen in movies,
dreamed about or all the things we've done, studied, observed, feared or
thought about. The seed for Treason & Triumph grew out of the
meeting and the development of the relationship between the two women.
What happened to them was imaginary based on a historical event, (Churchill's
and Hitler's race to produce the atomic bomb) and the characters for the
conflict that would build the suspense within the story evolved from that
journey.
4. Earlier you mentioned that you spent a great deal of time researching
this book.
Where and how did you do this?
Once I focused on the two women, I had to build them a life. First
I developed their personality profiles. They had to be opposites with at
least one shared characteristic, to make the mirroring transition credible.
You might laugh, but I used Astrology charts to construct them and the
men they would attract and be attracted to. Marla is an Aries, Catherine
is a Virgo on the cusp of Libra, von Daren is a Cancer and Tobin is a Scorpio.
Sir Isaac is Sagittarius, and Wendal Stevens at the end of the book is
Aquarius.
When I began researching this novel, the Internet was only available
to universities, so I spent weeks in the Central Library reading all kinds
of books, taking notes and photocopying what I needed for reference. I
found a 1932 map of Berlin, in German. This gave me the locations and streets
I needed to develop routes. I also read diaries of Basques who lived through
the bombing of Guernica. Because I had trained to be a pilot in my younger
days, I was naturally intrigued with the air battles along with the history
of the undercover operations. To get a more balanced perspective of the
time, I interviewed Holocaust survivors, discussed political motivations
with a very knowledgeable friend and even found a former Nazi. He described
how he felt during the pogrom of Jews on Kristal Nacht in Berlin
in 1938. Overall, I tried to look at the big picture before I saw the story
from each character's point of view.
5. Do you prefer to have an entire outline, plot, etc. mapped out before
you put pen to
paper, or is it something that unfolds as it
happens and takes you places you hadn't
expected?
When I began, I had no idea where the story was going. Three quarters
of the way to the finish, I still didn't know who the traitor was going
to be. One night, I woke up at four o'clock in the morning and saw the
end. Then I couldn't write fast enough to get there. I wrote my first story
outline when I had to submit a query to a publisher. For me, I think it
was a trick of my subconscious. If I had known the end at the beginning,
I don't know if I would have had the perseverance to keep going to the
last line because writing is a gruelling exercise sometimes. Now that I've
worked through my first novel and have come to love the process, there
are shapes of new stories forming in my head, but again, the focus is on
the central characters and the directions their lives take. I've always
enjoyed suspense novels, so mystery and suspense will be consistent elements
in future books.
There's one piece of advice I would like to pass on to other writers
tackling their first novel. Colleen Dimson, a book editor who helped me
understand how to structure a novel, advised me to read Vladmir Nabokov's
Lectures
on Literature. I'll always be sorry that I didn't have a chance to
attend his classes, for he instils a tremendous love for literature in
the reader and the writer with his inspiring treatment of critical analysis.
Publisher: WHISTLER HOUSE
Printer: Webcom Ltd.
Cover Design: Eli Vranesic
© 1997 by Bonnie Toews
Mass Market Paperback: 384 pages
Price: $8.95 CDN $6.99 US
Publication Date: November 5,
1997 ISBN: 0969796714
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