Why write about WWII? - Part 3

In a previous post I mentioned reading Up Periscope by Robb White, my first war story. Other things that I loved were the TV shows Combat! and 12 O'clock High. Occasionally, on Saturday morning, one of the Kansas City stations showed WWII movies, not all of them with John Wayne, but many were. The land battles, especially those with tanks, were exhilarating, the submarine movies tense, the dogfights incredible. I was always awed by the credits scrolling by at the end thanking the the Department of the Navy, or the US. Army, etc. Wow! They approved this movie! Finally, let's not forget the Rat Patrol!

On top of all that, there were two fabulous comic books about WWII: Sgt. Rock and Sgt. Fury. A few blocks from my house was a used comic book and record shop. Most of my meager weekly allowance was spent there, handed over with glee to the small, dark-haired man behind the counter. If I had to choose between a comic book or a Coke, the comic book won.

We're all products of our past. So is my writing. My fascination with WWII had its genesis as shown above. As I grew older, the fascination didn't abate, I just changed sources. In high school and college I studied some history and military history. In 1977, at age 25, I first read The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich by William L. Shirer. I own the 1960 version, not the abridged version. I have subsequently read it twice more, all 1,242 pages of a view into utter evil. This is a must-read for anyone wanting to learn more about WWII.

It's my goal to provide my readers with several things in each book:

• a fast-paced book with lots of battle action.
• characters you can love (and care what happens to them) and others you can hate and want them to get their just rewards.
• tidbits of facts interwoven within the story.

From the feedback I receive by way of reader emails and reviews, I'm on target.

I'm working on the third Sgt. Dunn novel, which is untitled, but to which I refer as sd3. I didn't set out to recreate Sgt. Rock and Sgt. Fury, and until yesterday, hadn't thought about them much at all, and not during the writing of the books. Sgt. Dunn is clearly defined in my head and on paper, and while I owe part of my WWII fascination to Sgts. Rock and Fury, Sgt. Dunn is his own man. 

Thanks for stopping by today.

Please feel free to leave a comment. I would to love to hear from you.

D-Day, June 6, 1944; The Climactic Battle of World War II by Stephen E. Ambrose

D-Day, June 6, 1944; The Climactic Battle of World War II by Stephen E. Ambrose.

I finished reading Ambrose's book on D-Day recently. It's a 600 page account of the lead up to and then the day itself as seen from the perspective of men on the different beaches as well as the airborne units who landed inland to take out specific targets. 

My impression of the men who participated in the invasion is one of utter awe. There are so many stories of bravery and determination. Doing the impossible seemed to be the order of the day and was the norm not the exception. 

Ambrose's storytelling is compelling, as if the topic itself wasn't enough, and his easy style makes the book a terrific read. He doesn't pull any punches and criticizes certain military leaders whenever their decisions or lack of them nearly ruined various operations. On the other hand, earned praise is given, too.

Do yourself a favor and either buy this book or borrow it from the library. While I borrowed it from the library, I'll have to order my own copy to have as a reference.

Now I'm reading A Man Called Intrepid by William Stevenson. The subtitle is: The Incredible WWII Narrative of the Hero Whose Spy Network and Secret Diplomacy Changed the Course of History. The book's person of focus is William Stephenson (what are the odds a man would write a book about another man with a similar name?).

Although I write action thrillers and have no plans for a spy thriller, the insider's view of the intelligence world is fascinating. And I do have a British spy character who appears in the Sgt. Dunn novels, just saying. On page 57 of 497. . . 

Thanks for stopping by.

Ronn

Happy New Year!

Wishing you a Happy New Year.

How I plotted Operation Devil's Fire and Behind German Lines

As I mentioned at the end of the post for 26 October 13, I'm going to talk about how I plot my novels. 

When I decided to write my first novel, Operation Devil's Fire, I knew I had only a vague understanding of plotting. I bought a copy of Ken Follet's Hornet Flight, read it, then sat down and plotted it using Excel. I entered the name of the point of view (POV) character and a one-sentence description of the chapter. Next, using Excel's formulas, I counted the number of times each character appeared and calculated the percentage of "screen time" they each had. Side note: I have no idea how Mr. Follet writes his books.

For my next step, I bought two books on writing:

The Marshall Plan for Novel Writing

and the companion workbook

The Marshall Plan Workbook

I read them both cover to cover and still have them in my home library. Mr. Marshall laid out a logical approach to plotting, which I converted to Excel using a pattern of appearances by each of my POV characters. I saved the file as ODF Story Plan.xls and used that same naming convention for my latest book, Behind German Lines BGL Story Plan.xls.

Because my books are thrillers, my chapters tend to get my characters in trouble, then end, switching POV, often to the bad guys whose chapter then ends with a new threat that the reader knows about but the main character doesn't. This doesn't occur all the time, but I use when needed. Remember, the writer wants the reader to worry about the characters and wonder how in the world he or she is going to get out this jam.

Using Marshall's general POV pattern, but modifying it for MY story, I ended up with a spreadsheet whose POV column looked like this. Note that some chapters are listed more than once - this is due to perhaps just moving them from one place to another in the same chapter.

Chapter	VP Char
1	Marston
2	Dunn
2	Dunn
3	Miller
4	Dunn
4	Dunn
5	German
5	German
5	German
6	Miller
7	Churchill
7	Dunn
8	Churchill
8	Dunn
8	Churchill
9	Dunn
9	Dunn
9	Dunn
10	Dunn
10	Dunn
10	Madeline
10	Dunn
10	Madeline
10	Dunn
10	German
11	Dunn
11	German
11	Cross
12	Pamela
12	Donovan
12	FDR
13	Dunn
13	Cross
13	German
14	Marston
15	Dunn
15	Cross
15	Dunn
16	Dunn
17	German
18	Marston
19	Dunn
20	Miller
20	Miller
21	Dunn
22	Miller
23	Dunn
24	German
25	German
26	Lawson
27	FDR
28	German
28	German
29	German
30	Dunn
31	German
32	Marston
33	Dunn
33	Miller
34	Saunders
35	German
36	Dunn
37	Miller
38	German
38	Dunn
38	German
39	Dunn
40	Miller
41	Dunn
42	Miller
43	German
44	Churchill
45	Dunn
46	Churchill
46	German
46	Churchill
47	Dunn
48	Miller
48	Miller
49	Claire
50	Pamela
51	Dunn
52	FDR
53	Dunn
53	German
54	Dunn
55	Madeline
55	German
56	Dunn
57	German
57	Dunn
57	Dunn
57	Dunn
57	Dunn
58	Dunn
59	Dunn
60	German
61	Dunn
62	Churchill
63	Dunn
64	Dunn

Here's how each character's appearances add up as a percent of the total chapters.

POV	%
Dunn	42%
German	22%
Miller	11%
Churchill	7%
Marston	4%
FDR	3%
Madeline	3%
Pamela	2%
Cross	2%
Donovan	1%
Saunders	1%
Lawson	1%
Claire	1%
Total	100%

My main characters in bold, take up 82% of the total, with the minor characters taking the rest. 

In the new novel there are only 5 POVs. Each story has different needs.

The key advice I can give you is: if you decide to plot your book in a similar fashion, always remember that the story is the boss. Don't always put a POV chapter in a certain place just because the spreadsheet pattern says to; you have to adjust all the time so the story stays tight, tense, and true.

Help your readers come to love your characters, care about whether they survive, and cheer for them when they do. 

Thanks for stopping by today.

Starting today, I'm going to post the name of the book I'm currently reading, with the Amazon link if there is one.

D-Day, June 6, 1944; The Climactic Battle of World War II by Stephen E. Ambrose.

On page 257 of 583.

Pearl Harbor - Sunday, December 7, 1941

At 7:48 AM Hawaiian time, the Imperial Japanese Navy attacked the United States Navy docked in Pearl Harbor.

Please take a moment to remember those who died.

Here are some good links:

President Roosevelt's speech - youtube

http://www.nps.gov/valr/index.htm

http://www.history.com/topics/pearl-harbor

http://www.history.navy.mil/photos/events/wwii-pac/pearlhbr/pearlhbr.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attack_on_Pearl_Harbor

A worthwhile movie. Some criticize it for the love story, but it's a good depiction of the events leading up to and then the attack itself.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0213149/

Happy Thanksgiving!

Wishing you and your family a safe and Happy Thanksgiving.

Ronn

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.