Research for WWII novels

In his book On Writing, Stephen King talks about how irritating it is when someone says they want to be a writer and when he asks what they read, they reply something like, "Oh, I don't have time to read!"

Really? You want to write, but you can't be bothered with reading? Wait, you want to be a physics teacher, but you don't want to study physics?

Therefore, the same is true with writing novels about a historic period. I wanted to write WWII novels, so I read more and more about WWII to increase my store of knowledge picked up over my lifetime. The reading of WWII non fiction books and researching on the web was crucial to a having a deeper understanding of what happened. I think of myself as a student of WWII.

In a previous post, I listed some of the WWII non-fiction books I've read http://ronnonwriting.blogspot.com/2013/10/journey-to-publishing-update-13.html.

Weaving a story around real events requires paying attention to the little details like dates and locations, as well as troop disposition, for both sides. Finding accurate military maps just comes down to Google searches. The best site I've found so far is, perhaps naturally, West Point.

I write my stories around actual events, but typically haven't thrown the characters into an event. For example, in the first book, Operation Devil's Fire, the timeline is from 25 May 1944 to 19 June 1944. This time frame includes D-Day, which I'm sure you know was 6 June. However, my characters are not involved in the invasion itself. They have other missions and I wasn't about to try to squeeze in D-Day as part of the story--it's been done many times--because it was NOT directly part of the story.

I am a novelist, not a historian, so I sometimes have to take some liberties, but when I do, it's always for the sake of the story. However, whenever possible, I do stick to the known facts.

In addition to all of these important things, the weaponry has to be accurate. For example, I'm not about to give my main character, Sgt. Dunn, an M-16! Any student of WWII history or reader of military fiction / non-fiction would immediately think I have no idea what I'm talking about.

Here are some of the weapons and equipment I had to research to make sure I knew what I was talking about. I invite you to read about them yourself, just copy paste into Google.

• 1911 Colt .45
• Luger
• Thompson .45 submachinegun
• STEN submachinegun and sound suppressor
• M1 Garand 
• 1903 Springfield with Unertl sight (also needed muzzle velocity to calculate time to target).
• MP40 submachinegun
• MG42 machine gun
• Panzerfaust
• Explosives
• Grenades, U.S. pineapple, German potato masher
• parachutes - static line, also very low altitude drops
• The Horten 18
• P-51 Mustang
• ME109
• B-17
• C-47 Goony Bird 
• Heinkel 177 Greif
• Tiger Tank
• T-34
• Sherman tank
• German armor attack formations

Writer's tip

When I'm writing and discover I need information on something, instead of stopping the writing and hitting Google, I type in an asterisk and short description of what I need: "*nameofweapon." The purpose here is to prevent myself of falling into surfing mode because one thing leads to another and you can suddenly lose a half hour of writing time. Do your research between writing times, not during. Then go back into the document and search for the *.

Thanks for stopping by today.

Please feel free to leave a comment.

John F. Kennedy - 11/22/63

Fifty years ago today, at about 1:00 PM CST, President Kennedy died. Please consider taking a moment of silence today.

I was in the 6th grade and we all had just came back from the cafeteria, except for one girl, Alicia (I can still remember her name and appearance) who had gone home for lunch. She ran into the room and told us what had happened. After school, I turned on the TV and watched and watched.

If you want to watch that same coverage you can, starting today at 12:38 PM CST:

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/schedule-of-cbsnewscoms-live-stream-of-jfk-assassination-broadcast-coverage/

Veterans Day 2013

Please take a moment to remember.

Writing (with) Discipline

Talent. Discipline. Which of these is more important to a writer?


I once read a great quote about this topic. Regrettably, I can't find it again, and I don't want to incorrectly attribute it, so as a compromise, I'll paraphrase it: There are plenty of very talented writers with little discipline who aren't published because they have drawers full of partial manuscripts, while there are lots of "less" talented writers who have discipline and are published.

If you have the ability to string words together to form good sentences, then paragraphs, then pages, then chapters, and you can construct a story that grabs a reader's attention, getting their buy in, then you can probably say you have some talent in writing. But are you writing enough to make progress toward a completed manuscript?

When I first started writing Operation Devil's Fire (ODF)  in January of 2004, I was an undisciplined writer. There were times I would go days and weeks without writing a single word. A year and three months later (15 months), I was just a little over a third the way done. 

Then, I started writing a new novel, a modern day thriller. I applied a new energy and discipline to the writing of that book, which I finished in just 10 months. Not bad for guy with a full time day job.

Fast forward and return to writing ODF on 1 June 2006. By 7 October 2006, only four months later, the first draft was completed (128 days). What was different? How could I write the remaining 2/3 of the book in 25% of the time? Wait for it. Yes, discipline.

Writing the modern day thriller, which was never published and just sits on my computer, taught me how to apply discipline.

But then the question arises, what the heck do you mean by that? I mean writing when you don't feel like it. Writing every day, or at least on a schedule. I use a daily word count goal of 700 words (about two book pages), with the latitude of just making sure I hit 4,200 for the week (six days). Sometimes it's already 9:00 PM and I haven't started for the day. I don't want to write. I'd rather watch some more TV. But at 9:05 PM I start to write and the next thing I know it's 10:15 and I've written my 700 words.

I use Excel to track my word count and my progress toward the final goal of about 100,000 words

You'll be surprised at what you can accomplish if you apply discipline and set goals.

Best of luck.

New book update - thank you to my readers! FIRST READERS discussion.

Thank you to my readers!

Behind German Lines made it into the top 100 in the Military category last Sunday, 11/3. Last night it broke into the top 50! Today it's sitting at #37. My first book, Operation Devil's Fire broke back into the top 100 this week due to the renewed exposure and the discovery by readers that there are now two Sgt. Dunn novels.

Writer's Advice

As I've written in earlier posts, some of my readers sent me emails about Operation Devil's Fire and I discovered that folks from all over the world were reading my book. If you receive emails, answer them promptly and be sure to personalize your response. Take the time to engage the person who took the time to write you about your book.

FIRST READERS

I always capitalize these two words because that's how important they are to me. There's a lot of writer's advice on the internet, and when it comes to finding people to read your work and give feedback, most advice says you can't trust your family and friends because they'll sugar coat anything they say.

Well, I'm here to tell you, those advice givers don't know my FIRST READERS! They are all excellent editors and telling me something doesn't work or is just plain wrong is no problem for them. Each of them looks for different things: some are grammarians and others are fact checkers, others tell me how different chapters make them feel. One prints the manuscript, writes all over it, then scans it into a pdf file and ships it back to me! 

Only a few of my FIRST READERS know each other, I am the only commonality between most of them. They reside all over the world: Arizona, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Missouri, and Cairo, Egypt.

If you're fortunate, you'll find FIRST READERS as awesome as mine.

Thanks for spending time with me today.

Tomorrow: Writing with discipline.

Creating a WWII novel

Writers have a daunting task ahead of them when you think about it. First, there's the IDEA. The "what-if" this happened? Think about some books you've read or movies you've seen. What if an impenetrable dome settled onto a small town? The Dome, by Stephen King. What if a computer became self-aware and decided to kill humans? The Terminator movies. What if the Nazis were about to finish their atomic bomb AND had a jet bomber capable of transatlantic flight? Operation Devil's Fire, my first book.

Next, we pick the setting, the time and the place. Then we populate that framework with characters. We decide what viewpoint(s) to use to tell our story. Some stories require multiple viewpoints and others follow one character around and only see the story as it unfolds for him or her.

For my Sgt. Dunn books, the setting, time and place are determined somewhat by what actually happened during World War II. I create challenging events for my characters to overcome either by extrapolating from historic fact or from my imagination.

I use multiple viewpoints, and the third person omniscient, which means I and the reader can be anywhere and see anything including things the characters don't see. For example. I can have Dunn and his men preparing to attack a German outpost. By using the omniscient viewpoint, I can show the reader that there's a Tiger tank around the bend in the road, but Dunn and his squad don't know this. This creates tension, or suspense, for the reader, another word is worry. I want to make my reader worry that something bad could happen!

By using more than one viewpoint, I and the reader can follow the bad guys, see what the hell they're up to, and this creates the thriller aspect. Again we know something the good guys might not know yet. Then, if the good guys uncover the evil plot, I add the ticking bomb part by giving the good guys a deadline to meet or else.

I published the second Sgt. Dunn novel ten days ago. Two days ago, I wrote the first paragraph of the third novel. I'm a believer in writing a first sentence that conveys the essence of what follows. So far, I'm two for two, meaning that the first sentence for each of the books remained unchanged for the entire duration of the writing of the book. Here they are:

Neil Marston feared for his nation’s survival. (Operation Devil's Fire)

Tank battles are mankind’s reply to God’s thunder and lightning. (Behind German Lines)

I learned this from the author Dick Francis who wrote outstanding first sentences. 

As for the plot of the third book, I have the beginning in my head, perhaps as far as the middle, but not the end yet. My next step is to begin writing the bullet point chapter descriptions and create some of the new characters to populate the setting, time and place.

Thanks for sharing your time with me.

Veterans Day is in 8 days. 

"Veterans Day continues to be observed on November 11, regardless of what day of the week on which it falls. The restoration of the observance of Veterans Day to November 11 not only preserves the historical significance of the date, but helps focus attention on the important purpose of Veterans Day: A celebration to honor America's veterans for their patriotism, love of country, and willingness to serve and sacrifice for the common good."

~ http://www.va.gov/opa/vetsday/vetdayhistory.asp

Why write about WWII? - Part 2

Happy Friday! Well, soon anyway.

You know how, when you're with a really good friend and the conversation comes to a stop for a little while? But it's a comfortable silence, as opposed to the awkward kind? I like to think that my not posting for a few days is like that. It turns out that the silence was comfortable for me, and I felt no need to fill it (you know the type, right? can't stand two seconds of quiet?). No offense intended if you're that type . . .

The first World War II book I ever read was Up Periscope by Robb White. It was first published in 1956 and was later made into a movie starring James Garner. Raise your hand if you know who Garner is. :)  It was a Scholastic Reader book I bought with my allowance in the fifth grade (about 1962). No snickering, please. A couple of years ago, I was able to find a copy on Amazon and I reread it. It was quite fun. 

A couple of months before my first short story sale I knew, instinctively, that I would write about WWII. This was in the fall of 2003. I'd been mulling over ideas and settled on a character who would be in the army. My original plan was to then follow his life throughout the war, then on to the postwar years. Now, ten years and two books later (why it took so long is for another time) I'm sticking to that basic idea. The question arose as to who this guy would be, and I chose to make him a sergeant and a member of the new U.S. Army Rangers. 

Once I had that information, the rest came down to building his background, and then creating the story line, also known as the plot. When I'm working on a book, I use Excel to build the plot as opposed to a narrative outline. This works for me. 

Some writers swear they don't plot, and I'll take them at their word, but for me, I have to know where the book is going. This doesn't mean I don't change the plot because I always do; that's the creative part of writing, but without the plot in Excel, I can't keep track of who's where and when, etc.

Advice to writers:

Plot may be a four letter word, but it's acceptable in the writing world.