A profound act of faith: creativity and bravery with Danielle Binks, author of The Year The Maps Changed
In celebration of the release of Danielle Binks’s debut middle-grade novel, The Year the Maps Changed, I got to ply Danielle with questions about her story and how it developed. I’m a process person and particularly love gaining insight into the way writers grow their stories from seed to fruit. Danielle was kind enough to indulge my obsession with process by offering us a delicious peek into the writer’s room.
You can check out my review for The Year the Maps Changed here. And now, dive right in to Danielle’s interview:
How did Fred's story germinate? Had you always known that you wanted to set a story during the time of Operation Safe Haven?
I hadn't, no. I think we can all sympathise right now with feeling like you're not *actually* and actively part of history - even as you are, and you're living through it and in it. I was too young at the time to know how impactful Operation Safe Haven was, much like Fred - I needed to gain some experience and distance to see it for what it was. But also like what's happening now, I think it is a very human thing to store away some little nugget of the present deep inside yourself - ready for a future version to pluck it out and reexamine when you're able to. That's what I did in some way, even as a 12-year-old; I kind of reminded myself to not forget this stuff.
For so long I had one-half of this story; which was the part I lived through in real-time 1999 ... but I resisted giving more of myself to my protagonist for so long, until the day that I just gave up and let her in and gave her parts of myself. Then the story came easily - and not just because I remembered and researched that history and appreciated a fuller, bird's-eye view and ripple-effect of the thing - but more because I remembered being that age and I sympathised completely with how complex Fred's world already was - even before a major turning-point in Australian and international history entered into it.
What are the links between The Year the Maps Changed and your own experience as a young person in 1999? Do you recognise elements of your own story in Fred's?
I didn't have Fred's story until I gave her parts of my own. For a really long time and because I lived through Operation Safe Haven coming to my back door on the Mornington Peninsula, I knew that was an interesting recent-memory historic event that I should one day unpack and look closer at. So for a little while, I had this historic-fiction idea steeping away in my mind ... but it wasn't until I decided to tell a story about the Point Nepean Haven (not one set in Singleton, NSW, like I originally thought I would) and when I decided it'd have to be middle-grade and not young-adult, then I had to confront the fact that I'd be writing an MG story with a protagonist who was the age I was in 1999. Once I decided to go so all-in on those two levels, it was really easy to tap back into being 11-going-on-12 and what an uncertain and conflicting time that was. It was really easy to decide that I could give Fred's Dad the same occupation mine had for 17-years, and make him a police-officer ... and then I'd also include a grandparent as a primary-carer, who lived in a flat out the back of the main house, just as my own grandmother did for most of my life. And then to look around at the friendships I had as a kid, insert those into the story in lots of ways - and then get a little deeper in wanting to see adoption represented, because I have so many friends and family who've never seen that side of themselves in stories.
So I gave bits and pieces of myself, but not so much that I get too self-conscious (Fred's father Luca and my own only shared an occupation, otherwise Luca is not based on my Dad at all. I gave Fred a grandfather instead of a grandmother; because I needed to keep some things just for me). And then I got to put in little 1999-asides that are just for me. Heartbreak High, Heath Ledger and LipSmackers - I didn't want to go overboard with 90s references, but where I could I popped in the things that still matter to me, the touchstones - Fred got those too.
Can you describe a little of what your writing and research process looked like? Did the two always go hand-in-hand with Maps, or did you find it was important to dive into a whole heap of research before working on the story itself?
My research looked a lot like procrastination, lol! Five-years of researching; doing things like travelling out to Singleton in New South Wales (as you well know, one of the Safe Haven sites!) and visiting the public library there, pouring through their archives because they kept meticulous newspaper and newsletter clippings from that time. Tracking down and interviewing people like photographer Emmanuel Santos, who took a collection of photographs of the Point Nepean Haven and asking him about that time. Chatting over Facebook messenger to American-settled refugees of Kosovo, part of their 'Operation Provide Refuge' - many of whom were happy to chat to me, but not be cited in my acknowledgements. I did a lot of research - I think because once I realised this would be historic-fiction, inspired by real events and I'd have a timeline and politics to stick to - I kind of panicked. The weight of that just hit me, and I put a lot of pressure on myself and tapped back into my history-geek self and probably over-compensated to the point that I didn't want to actually write it, for fear that I'd get something wrong. I still have that fear, of course - and my acknowledgements have a lot of "sorry if I misrepresented or mucked this up!" but once I decided not to be afraid of history, I actually wrote Fred's story in a fever of about three-months. It was hard-easy. All the research meant I knew all the historic markers I had to hit, but inserting a fictional character and giving her her own universe to meld by the history was the hard part - the truly fictional aspect.
What most surprised you about the process of writing, editing, and publishing The Year the Maps Changed?
Oh gosh ... that it's historic fiction. Even as I also tried to make it feel like a contemporary middle-grade, and that part came very easily - because 1999 honestly feels like 5-years ago, not 21. And it's weird now that when I was writing I was thinking things like, "Well, kids don't really ride their bikes around the neighbourhood anymore like they used to in the 90s, so this might feel a little throwback ..." but of course now in the time of pandemic I see so many kids tooling around on their bikes and it's a silver-lining of lovely I'm seeing. My favourite was when, on a walk around my neighbourhood, I passed these two boys on their bikes about three times because they were just doing laps and chatting - every time they rode past me I briefly overheard snatches of life-updates and just having a laugh together as they glided down the street of their suburb. It was really nice - and as I was writing Maps I was envisioning all the bike-riding as something of a Goonies or E.T. throwback, also Now and Then maybe a little Super 8, Stranger Things and IT. I tried to infuse a few of those scenes with a feeling or urgency and action, also to try and actualise this feeling I think you have as a kid which is that bike = freedom. I was also surprised that I so enjoyed writing those more high-octane scenes. I think there might be an action book in my future ... maybe. Who knows?!
Um, yes please!!
And -- I know it's a cliched question but I can't help myself -- what's a piece of advice or a little gift of hope you would offer to young writers today?
Oh, look - I defer to better writers than me and someone who so perfectly captured this idea I feel like lots of us are struggling with. Talia Lavin on Twitter said; "If you're writing or editing or working on a book right now, it may be incredibly difficult because the future is so uncertain. But every word you put on paper is an affirmation of the fact that there will be a future. It's a profound act of faith." So for any creator out there (young or old!), in any field I say... keep putting words down on paper. Keep making music, or dancing, podcasting, painting - all of it is indeed a profound act of faith, and you're all helping create a world that I want to see and be part of when this is all over.
So beautifully said. Congratulations on your absolute delight of a book. It is a treasure and I anticipate seeing it nominated for all the awards this year.
You can visit Danielle’s website here, or follow her on twitter and instagram.
