Background information about the book
Writing the book
Writing emails
Heike sent the first email, writing from Leo’s point of view, and Elizabeth responded from Henni’s point of view. Over the next few months Elizabeth/Henni and Heike/Leo exchanged lots of emails. This was fun, but the story rambled. It wasn’t until Heike came to Australia that the two authors could get down to serious plotting and planning together.
Elizabeth says, ‘There was LOTS of information and we had to think about our plot. There were so many strands to draw together. Like scriptwriters, we outlined our story on cards – pink for Leo, aqua for Henni. Heike established a numbering system, e.g. “24 Leo #12”, then we began email ping-pong.
‘When you write an email you are in a particular mood. An email can be a tossed-off happy snippet or a ponderous grumble. People often respond to one thing that strikes them from the email they received, so the comments are not always in order. We were aiming for a flow, so readers could follow the story easily, but we also wanted to give the chit chat that makes it seem real.’
Heike putting the plot together with cards
Managing information
The authors had to keep track of what Leo knew, and what Henni knew, and what the readers knew or still had to find out. Elizabeth was always thinking, ‘How can that person know that piece of information? She can read it in a newspaper clipping, so-and-so could tell her, she could find a letter, or she could accidentally overhear something… What is the strongest way for a particular detail to be told?’
When one character was the focus of the action, the authors had to stop the other character from interrupting their flow. The ‘at-home’ character should be feeding them lines, not stealing their thunder or distracting them from their telling.
