Why Historical Fiction?

Why do I write what I write? Why historical fiction?

The quick (and cheeky) answer: I don’t have enough imagination to create a plot completely out

of thin air. With historical fiction, I have a good head start.

While all that’s true, and while there are many wonderful genres to read and write (I read most

of them), my need to write historical fiction is more than a quick answer.

I write it because it needs to be written.

Example: I recently visited the US Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington DC. I wanted to

go specifically for one small exhibit – the children’s artwork from Terezin, the Jewish ghetto

outside of Prague.

Terezin, the real-life art classes that took place there, even one of the pieces recovered after

World War II all play a big part in my upcoming novel, Diamonds in Auschwitz. I wanted to see

for myself the exhibit.

As I expected, it moved me, made me even more committed to telling the story of those

children who were (mostly) all sent straight to the gas chamber. Seeing the exhibit also angered

me a little bit.

Not just because of the fate of those children, but because a very important part of the story

was left out – the woman who made those art classes a possibility.

In no way do I blame anyone at the Holocaust Memorial Museum. I know there are millions of

stories not told in that one building. How could that all be on display? There could never be

enough room to tell the stories of all the people who were killed, affected, heroic, etc. during

WWII. And many of those stories are lost.

That’s why I write historical fiction. If I can bring one person’s story to life, tell just a few people

about her (or him), then I would consider my job as a writer well done. The children from

Terezin deserve to be written down and commemorated. The woman who smuggled in the

supplies for the art classes and then taught the children to express their feelings with art

deserves to be written down and commemorated.

By writing historical fiction, I feel like I’m helping to protect and preserve those stories.