h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I have wondered how to go about writing about the dark stuff: famine, war, concentration camps... the danger is not just being too fast moving, but also too much on one note. Writing needs light and shade,
chiaroscuro.

My feeling is that the writer would have to weave in more positive things - a father's love for his children, two sisters who are inseparable, a meal in a refugee camp which a stranger is allowed to join.

I think the key is to remember that you're writing about people - and that people aren't unrelentingly one mood or another, even throughout a single day. One way to pick up on that would be to read journals or personal accounts of individuals who experienced the things you want to write about. Sometimes we have trouble imagining what it would be like to be in a situation until we follow the people themselves.

That makes me think of Corrie ten Boom. Corrie was a Dutch watchmaker, a middle-aged woman, who helped hide Jewish refugees in Amsterdam during World War II. She was arrested and ended up in Ravensbrück concentration camp along with her sister Elizabeth.

Corrie, who lived to tell the story, claimed that her sister was the one with the deeper faith. One day, she told Corrie that they should follow the teachings of the Bible, and learn to 'give thanks in everything'.

Corrie demurred, saying that she really couldn't find it in her heart to give thanks to God for the lice that were making her life a misery.

Now, it happened that Corrie and Elizabeth were holding secret Bible studies in their barracks, and it was a great comfort to all of the women there. They were in constant fear of interruption and reprisal - and confiscation of the tiny Bible they had hidden - but, somehow, the guards never came into their barracks. The reason turned out to be the lice: the guards didn't want to pick them up.

'See?' said Elizabeth. 'I was right to thank God for the lice.'

Now, it would be hard to imagine something like that - especially to find levity in a situation that dire. We know about it because Corrie ten Boom wrote 'The Hiding Place'.

Thanks.