I wrote a couple of drafts of a novel that is partly based on those interviews and partly on stories I picked from my family and friends when I was growing up in Romania. I haven’t finished it, though. When I was working on it, around 2008, I didn’t quite understand how storytelling worked. For instance, writing the story of a dissident’s ordeal might work from a documentary angle, but it doesn’t work from a novelistic angle because there is no unified antagonist, other than the whole system. Time after time I was told that the story didn’t work, and now I get it. Now I plan to return to the novel with the experience I gained from my second book, and try to make it a captivating read, in fiction form. But I do think that having the story’s source (based on those interviews) out there for everyone to read is great for the world, and for my novel too.
Roxana, is this account of their time in jail in Romania part of a book you are writing?
I wrote a couple of drafts of a novel that is partly based on those interviews and partly on stories I picked from my family and friends when I was growing up in Romania. I haven’t finished it, though. When I was working on it, around 2008, I didn’t quite understand how storytelling worked. For instance, writing the story of a dissident’s ordeal might work from a documentary angle, but it doesn’t work from a novelistic angle because there is no unified antagonist, other than the whole system. Time after time I was told that the story didn’t work, and now I get it. Now I plan to return to the novel with the experience I gained from my second book, and try to make it a captivating read, in fiction form. But I do think that having the story’s source (based on those interviews) out there for everyone to read is great for the world, and for my novel too.
Roxana sounds like you received good advice. You also have excellent material for a novel.