Hugh has observed that when people learned that  he was writing a novel, they were curious to know about the process. Here are his comments:

"Doesn’t everyone harbor a secret desire to write a novel?  Well, from everything I can gather there isn’t any one right way to go about it. Writing is a craft, artful though it might be, and there are rules to be followed and rules to be broken, once the author's imagination takes over the process. While there may be overlapping approaches, each author has her own way of proceeding.   It seems that some writers will work out everything in detail, sketching each chapter and scene before actually beginning the first draft.  At the other end of the spectrum there are those who sit down at the computer, write the first word and then move on from there, without any prior forethought.  Most writers fall somewhere along the continuum. 

"For those who might be interested, allow me to share with you how I went about writing Silent Battlefields: A Novel.  I have a friend who would on occasion discuss with me what it was like for him being the adult son of Holocaust survivors.  It occurred to me that writing a novel centered on such an experience might make for an interesting read.  That was the seed from which the book grew. In my mind I began over time to develop several more characters.  What would it be like for a young man of German descent troubled by the question of whether or not his own father had been a Nazi during the war?  Hence, there emerged in my imagination two families each struggling with opposite sides of the conflict.  That was the extent of my preplanning stage prior to commencing to write.  I had a general idea of where I thought things would go and I even thought I knew how it would end.  I was wrong.  I was to discover that the characters had their own minds and wills.  They were capable of speaking for themselves and making their own decisions.  As I wrote I had no conception of what each subsequent sentence would be comprised of. 

"In time, I began to look forward to my work with an adventuresome spirit in anticipation of what was to happen each day.  The book has twenty-three chapters and I acknowledge that at the beginning of each I did have a general sense of what I wanted to cover, but that was all. Today, I view the novel as a collaboration between me and the characters in the birthing of Silent Battlefields: A Novel.  Maybe the writing process will be different next time, maybe not.

"I don’t want to leave the impression that writing the book was a breeze.  It wasn’t.  The process was hard work and there were even times when I doubted that I’d ever finish it, but the effort that went into it makes sharing the novel with you that much more satisfying."

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© Hugh Rosen 2007

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