I'm finding it difficult to get my idea translated into a suitable novel. It's about a girl who lost her parents to WWII even though they were peaceful. She is an american but her parents had relatives in Germany who were sick and went to see them before America entered the war. After that they were not allowed to leave the country and ended up dying in the Berlin bombing. I have the idea of how I want it to end and the basic plot but I'm having trouble expanding on my original idea. Any tips?
In my humble opinion, you can expand the story through your characters and use of imagery. It's kind of like the movie "Titanic". We all know how it ends (the boat ends up under the water), but they expanded the story by giving the characters another story (the underlying love story) to play off of. If you do something like this, it can work to your advantage and expand your original idea! Just a thought...
Put some attention on her trying to get news about her parents. Sending letters, telegrams, and other messages to people she knows in Germany to see if they know what has happened to her parent. Smugglers were getting people in and out of Nazi occupied Europe throughout the war. Maybe have the daughter work with one of them trying to free her parents. She could try to go through the Swiss embassy to get her parents out. Switzerland was willing to act as a go between for the Allies and Nazi Germany. And of course have her obsessively follow the war through the newspapers and radios. Every time Germany advanced her parents were a little further from her. As Germany falls, it means more danger to her parents, but the sooner Germany is defeated the sooner her parents can come home. So does she want them to be safe, but unable to return, or able to return, but in horrible danger?
Well, maybe your idea would work with the aunt who's watching after the girl but the girl is too young for that. She would be only 5 or 6 when her parents died. The rest of the story entails her life as an orphan and searching for a long lost brother who is 12 years older than her.
that's certainly enough of a plot premise on which to build a novel!... the details have to come from you, or you'd be having others write your novel for you... story ideas are a writer's stock in trade... if you want to be one, you need to be able to come up with your own plot detail ideas... to do that, you first need to do a lot of research on the times, the situations, the people who lived then... read anne frank's diary, for openers... then as much of the really good stuff written about that era as you can find [fiction and non], check out the best movies and study them, too... only then will you be ready to fill out your plot... love and hugs, maia
