The Changeling Diary

Changeling readers often tell me that Bridget’s diary entries (and her papa’s journal entries) are their favorite parts of the books.  Below are answers to some frequently asked questions:

What made you decide to showcase the novels’ past in diary and journal-entry format?

This answer is easy: Because diaries and journals are historically accurate to the period.  In the 1920s, the world saw the production of inexpensive paper and affordable fountain pens.  During the Great War (i.e., the First World War), the entire globe was affected.  Between that and the Spanish Flu pandemic that followed due to the virus being spread by military travel between countries, our nation as well as many others saw a lot of widespread fatalities.  Things barely had a chance to get back to normal once that war ended when the world was rocked once again with the Great Depression.  That’s when many people, seeing all these changes, wanted to document the goings-on to preserve their observances, emotions, and experiences.  Thus, the world saw an uptick in the popularity of diaries.  By the time World War II started, diary writing was an already-established pastime that remained popular for another decade.   Besides that, you’ve got to remember that people from that era didn’t yet have television to help pass their time.  (As a side note, a similar popular item at the time was the autograph book.  By the 1970s, autograph books were reserved for the signatures of movie stars, musical artists, and theme-park characters.  But between the 1920s and the 1950s, autograph books were used as keepsakes to document relationships between classmates, friends, and colleagues.  They were used in much the same way as teenagers sign yearbooks these days.)

Did you write the diary first and then write the books around the diary?

No, as I write each book, I write and insert diary entries where necessary.

Is there a companion book available of just diary entries?

Not at this time.  Because I write the diary entries as I write the book, and because the diary entries are randomized in date, a completed diary will be impossible until I’m done with the series.

Do the diary entries have a theme?

Actually, yes.  While many diary entries focus on Bridget’s life in hiding or post-war, the ones that involve the time spent in concentration camps are themed for each novel.  In Book I, they focus largely on what being arrested and arriving at a concentration camp was like, from stepping off the train to being shaved, deloused, tattooed (at Auschwitz), and assigned a work detail.  The Book I diary entries also touch on some of the Nazis’ barbaric medical experiments.  In Book II, the focus is chiefly on nutrition offered at the camps and how the lack of nourishment affected the bodies and minds of the prisoners.  In Book III, the diary entries’ emphasis is geared toward the absence of hygiene accommodations at the camps and how the lack of such basic needs affected the bodies and minds of the prisoners. In Book IV, the diary entries focus on the religious aspects of Judiasm that we so calculated and cruelly violated by Nazis in concentration camps.