A.J. Maguire

Tag: Historical Fiction

  • Writing the Unpopular

    Persona is almost finished. In fact, I’ve got approximately two chapters left to write. This is three chapters more than I had outlined, but something happened near the end that surprised me and, now that I look at it, really makes sense for the story. 

    It’s always fun when things work out this way. It means my subconscious brain probably knew this was coming and it took a while for my conscious self to recognize it.

    Anyway, I’ve mentioned before that Autumn tends to spur me into creative-mode. I get new ideas for different stories, or better ideas for current projects, and I start to have a crap-ton of fun. September through December tend to be my happiest months because I am in the middle of this surge of creativity.

    I don’t know why, I don’t know how, I just know it works.

    And this year, having tackled my first historical fiction with Persona (heavy on the emphasis with fiction) I have come up with a new project dealing with the Civil War.

    Well, the Civil War and the frontier. The two tend to go hand in hand since soldiers who fought in the war and survived would head West out of some instinct to get as far away from the battlefield as possible.

    This will be challenging on several fronts. First of all, I really don’t know much about the Civil War. I’ve picked up some documentaries to help remember what I was taught in history class and, funnily enough, have been enjoying them whenever I have a minute between homework and housework and the kiddo.

    Secondly, Dan Wells joked about the fact that nobody reads Westerns anymore. (He’s one of the authors on Writing Excuses, a podcast I sincerely hope every author listens to.) Given that this project would eventually find its way into the West I had to cringe a bit. But, I’d rather write a book that I would love to read than write a book based on trends.

    Even if that trend is several years long.

    No, really. I checked out the Western shelf in Hastings to discover it was drastically smaller than every other section and had all of five prominent authors on it — including Louis L’Amour.

    And I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised by this since I’ve never actually read a Western myself. I watched Lonesome Dove when I was a kid, and High Noon in school, but I can’t say I’ve actually picked up a book that followed gunslingers and the like.

    I did read a truly terrible romance novel based in the Old West. I won’t name the author or anything, but I will say that I scoffed through the first fifty pages and then stopped reading.

    So I am faced with a new challenge here. I love the story concept and the character — I always start with a character and this one is named Alex Huntly — and I’ve wanted to write something that dealt with the West and pioneers since I was in High  School. But the truth is that it probably won’t find a home with a publisher.

    My gut instinct is to write it anyway. I imagine a lot of people would tell me it is a waste of time, but then I have to examine why I write in the first place. And the truth is, I don’t write to please other people. I write the story in front of me because it’s the story that inspires me; be it fantasy, science fiction, historical fiction or, Heaven help me, a Western.

    So! As soon as Persona is done I’ll start the groundwork on this new novel. If only three people in the world read it then that’s fine.

    On a side note, I’ll be using NaNoWriMo to complete the last 15,000 words of Usurper. Trenna fans will be happy to know that this third book in the Sedition series should be out next year, barring any complications with the publisher.

     

  • Endings and Hate Therapy

    Carver Edlund said it best in Supernatural; “Endings are impossible.”

    You have to tie everything up, bring all of the characters into a place of resolution and no matter what you do it will always feel like you missed something. In fact, on the next few edits it’s very likely that you’ll find one or two subplots that never got resolved.

    Don’t panic. It happens. That’s what editing is for, after all.

    My first published book Sedition went through four different endings. Witch-Born had three and Deviation (due to release in 2014) had five. That’s a lot of re-writing and re-plotting. It was frustrating and I went through weeks of what I like to call my “hate therapy.”

    Basically, “hate therapy” is when I become disgusted with everything I’ve written. From what I understand every writer has this problem at some point. We all come to a place where we stare at our work and can find nothing salvageable about it.

    The inner critic comes out in full force, identifying poorly worded sentences, cliché’s we hadn’t noticed before, and weak characters that suddenly remind us of tin soldiers. You know, identical soldiers made of tin with no inner workings, no motivation, and no reason to exist.

    By now you’re wondering why I call this “therapy.” There doesn’t seem to be anything therapeutic about loathing your own work.

    I learned a couple years ago to embrace this natural period of a writer’s life. When I’m in the middle of “hate therapy” I know I am being too hard on myself and, at the same time, am able to identify some very important things.

    Like tin soldiers running rampant on the page.

    But instead of dwelling on how bad it is I embrace it as a challenge to fix those things I’ve done wrong.  That’s when it becomes therapy. When I turn all that angst into a productive outlet I almost always find myself enjoying the work again.

    Persona is coming near to its ending. For those following it online you’re still in chapter fourteen, but I am in the middle of chapter eighteen. (By the way, I dislike chapter fourteen and will be editing it.)

    I’ve always had a particular place in mind for Persona’s ending. In fact, I have stubbornly re-worked and worked again and altered my outline in order to preserve this ending. Timelines are crazy hard to keep in check when writing fiction, especially if you’re dealing with something as well documented as World War II.

    But about a week ago I had a eureka moment and figured out how my characters get from point A to point B (the ending) without screwing anything up. The timeline is mostly preserved. The actions make sense. More importantly, this ending leaves a profound impact on the characters and, hopefully, the reader.

    Persona and Saboteur are the only two books I’ve written where I knew the ending before I got there. To be honest, I don’t know if this is a good or bad thing. Knowing the ending still gives me a struggle because I find myself working harder to make sure the entire book deserves the ending that I’ve planned.

    I still have to go through “hate therapy”, it just happens earlier on in the book. But at least I don’t have to re-write several scenes like I did with Sedition, Witch-Born and Deviation.

    So … Yes. Endings are impossible. They’re heartbreaking, irritating, and hard work but if we do it right then it’s all worth it.

     

     

  • Writing In A Different Genre

    I am primarily a Fantasy and Science Fiction author.  The three books I have out for sale right now are all fantasy and I do have a science fiction scheduled to be released next year.  So when I started work on my historical fiction novel Persona I felt like a fish out of water.

    Suddenly moving shadows had nothing to do with lurking monsters.  And the idea of genetic enhancements stretching the limitations of the human body wasn’t an option.  Suddenly I had to deal with real people, real problems, and real settings.

    To make matters worse, I chose to limit my point of view character.  Normally I write within two or three characters, but in Persona I limited myself to just one, just Megan.  Because I wanted this to be a “Who am I?” story I wanted the so-called camera lens to be focused entirely on Megan as she struggles through Nazi Germany.

    And these were the best decisions I could ever have made.

    Let me tell you what I’ve learned about the writing craft through this experiment.

    1) My other writings are severely lacking in setting.  Yes, you can see some imagery and I give a sketch of what you’re looking at, but the settings in my other books don’t have the character that it should.

    2) I have learned how to reach deeper into the personality of a character through Megan.  By limiting myself to Megan I can now see how very vague I’ve been with other characters.  (Even my beloved Trenna, though I think she’s purposefully private in many matters.)

    3) The use of a theme-based outline has been supremely enlightening.  Rather than just following the plot to its conclusion, this outline has been able to focus my writing on Megan’s journey to self-discovery.

    I’ll use an example from this weeks posted chapter.  We’re in chapter seven and Megan comes home to find a POW hiding in her bathroom.  That’s all plot and action.  My outline goes further to the main question of the scene; What will Megan do with this man, and what does it say about her when she does it?

    There are more practical issues that I’ve learned during this process as well, most of them having to do with taking ownership of the story and my craft.  But the main thing I want to say is that this decision, to write something outside of my comfort zone, has been incredible.  I highly recommend any author to try it.

    Pick a genre outside of what you normally write and commit yourself to it.  If it’s just a short story then that’s fine, the point is to look at how writing within this new genre is different.

  • Fact vs. Fiction – Chapter Six (Persona)

    All right, here we go again!

    For those unaware, these posts are following my historical fiction novel Persona as I serialize it online for free.  You can find Persona at its story blog or at its Wattpad address.  Because it’s my first historical fiction, I’ve opted to post pieces of the research I’ve had to do for the book …

    Hence, Fact vs. Fiction Chapter Six!

    Fact:  I have a massive orange and white male cat.  He is very vocal and a great deal of fun and I opted to immortalize him in this novel because … well … I’m the author and I can.

    However, his name is not Grendel.  In fact, a friend of a friend had a cat name Grendel once and I just loved the name so much that I opted to use it here.

    Fiction:  You’ll notice I had Megan keep the lights on all night.  Given the war and all the bombings that were going on, that is very unlikely.  It’s a small detail, I know, and I’ll probably change it during the next round of edits.

    Fact:  Cat box vs. litter box.  I researched and found that litter wasn’t exactly a thing back then.  In fact, it wasn’t really invented until 1947 by a guy named Ed Lowe.

    My Americanized view of pets is completely different from what was likely the norm.  While I know pets have been around for quite some time, I’m sure if Grendel were a real cat living in a real country estate like this that he would most likely be comfortable outside.

    In fact, he probably would have been in charge of catching rodents in and around the house.  (My own cat would be in heaven.  He goes nuts when he can take on a spider.)

    But this poses the problem of Gunter, since we learn here in this chapter that he’s been coming out to VanBuren’s place to care for the pet.  I’m sure this is a matter of my American culture and the way I was raised with pets, but I don’t think I’m going to change it.

    Fiction:  Herr Rahn’s reaction to Megan is highly fictional.  In all likelihood, the SS (Schutzstaffel) would have tossed Megan into a camp very quickly, with or without the word of a high-ranking naval officer to aid her.  I’ve implied that VanBuren’s wealth probably had something to do with the way she has been treated, but … yeah … it’s unlikely.

    This is just one of those moments where I’m hanging a large “FICTION” sign on it.  I hope readers can suspend their disbelief long enough for the story to progress.

  • The Wattpad Experiment So Far

    All right, I’m a month into the serialization of Persona and I have to admit that I’m loving it.  There is a lot more work involved given that I’m having to write and edit all in the same week, but for some reason this process is really working for me.

    A typical week goes something like this;

    Monday – Review/edit the chapter meant to go up on Tuesday.  Write 1k words on the new chapter.  (I have a 6 chapter buffer so I’ll never be late.)

    Tuesday – Stagger out of bed around 5:45 AM, review the chapter to go up one more time.  Post on Blogger and Wattpad.  Announce on Facebook, Google+ and Twitter.  The rest of the writing day (I do have a full time job I have to go to) is spent writing on the newest chapter.

    Wednesday – Type up new chapter and print it out.

    Thursday – Edit.

    Friday – Edit and then save in several places (because I’m terrified of something happening and then not having the post up on time.)

    Saturday and Sunday I don’t write at all.  I enjoy time with my son.  (We’re totally going to the Zoo today.)

    Now, I’m going to go ahead and admit that this process would not work if I hadn’t made an outline of the book months ago.  That outline has been edited and revamped several times due to research — my character gets to survive a bombing in the town she’s residing that I didn’t know about when I first wrote the outline — so it looks kind of messy.

    But this outline is also far different from anything I’ve ever used before.

    Instead of using plot points to guide me through the chapters, I’ve used character arc points.  Remember that Persona is my “Who am I?” story, so every scene is following Megan as she grows and learns more about who she really is.

    Much of Chapters 1 – 4 are things happening to Megan that are beyond her control, such as the boat sinking and who picked her up, but her reactions to these problems are just as important as when she finally gets to start taking action.

    And, in truth, she started taking action in Chapter 3 when she chose to lie.  But she doesn’t really see that in herself yet.

    Anyway, the outline has two columns.  The first column is the normal process.  (And for some reason I still use Roman Numerals when I’m doing this.)  It shows physical action, things that need to happen or things I need to point to that have already happened to help keep a sense of fluidity within the book.

    The second column is all about the arc.  Such as Megan’s confusion of loyalties.  Her mother was German, after all, and she’s not the sort of person to go picking up a gun and choosing one side over another.  She sees too many real people in front of her to allow for that.  This causes a lot of conflict for her.

    When she’s confronted by the POW — Sam Layton, by the way.  If you’re following the serialization then you’ll get to meet him soon — she is also confronted by the fact that she has to choose a side.

    That’s a major arc point.

    Anyway, so far it is a lot of fun.  I’m a little nervous for next month since I have a couple of new classes starting.  Yay for summer school!  But I do have that 6 chapter buffer to sustain me.

  • Fact vs. Fiction – Chapter Four (Persona)

    All right!  Just a quick heads up for anyone who doesn’t know what this is about … My WWII story Persona is being serialized and posted online for free via Wattpad and its story blog.

    Because this is historical fiction I’ve had to do quite a bit of research to help me wade through it.  I know I’ve only touched the surface of what I should know about that time period, but in the meantime this is what I’ve got so far.

    Fact vs. Fiction – Chapter Four

    Fact: Vernacular … you’ll notice VanBuren called Megan Frauline Vonclese in Chapter Three, but here in Chapter Four I’ve dropped it to call her “Miss Vonclese”.  I did that on purpose.  As I’m writing primarily for an English-speaking audience — I speak English, I write in English, I understand things in English — I thought it best to help equate what ‘Frauline’ means roughly in … you guessed it … English.

    Way back in Chapter Two I used the word “Nein” as well, because I wanted to make it clear who was plucking her out of the ocean.  I use German sporadically throughout the book but don’t want to frustrate readers with too much of it. (Remember, I’ve got a primarily English-speaking audience.)

    Fiction:  I don’t go into too much detail with the port authority and everything.  This is for two reasons; one, I’m really not familiar with how the Nazi party would have handled this particular situation; and two, VanBuren is rich enough to circumvent the normal processes anyway.

    However, it’s safe to say that if Megan were a real person and had somehow been rescued by a German vessel in the middle of WWII, she would not have been show this much lenience.  She’d likely be sent to a camp somewhere to wait out the war.  I acknowledge this and then point emphatically at the word “fiction”, asking for … well … some suspension of disbelief.

    Fact:  Frostbite!  This was actually researched for Chapter’s 3 & 4 due to Megan’s lengthy stay in the water.  I learned that, in the event of frostbite, you actually have to keep appendages (such as Megan’s poor feet) in water and slowly acclimate them to warmth over a period of time.

    Also, those parts of the body that have suffered frostbite cannot be used until they are completely healed.  (Which explains why Megan was in bed for all of Chapter Three.)

    Having never suffered frostbite myself, I am only imagining that two to three weeks after the injury Megan would still feel some tenderness on her rescue toes.  Especially given she hasn’t actually been allowed to walk for much of that time while the feet were healing.

    Fiction:  The bakery scene.  Honestly, I’m not sure how good Wilhelmshaven looked after the 1941 bombing of the port town.  I’m not certain they would have kept a bakery open in such a targeted area during the war.

    But I needed a place for Megan to meet up with Schuler.  It’s possible that I could alter this scene in a future revision to show Megan and VanBuren making their way to the train depot instead.

    Author’s Note:  Now that I look at it, the depot does seem like a better place to send her.  I will likely change it. 

  • Fact vs. Fiction — Chapter Three (Persona)

    For those following along with the serialization of Persona, here is the Fact vs. Fiction page for Chapter Three.

    So far this whole experience has been incredibly fun!  If you’re just hearing about it, Persona is my WWII novel that is currently being serialized online for free.  You can find it at its Wattpad address or at its story blog.

    But here’s the battle of Fact vs. Fiction in Chapter Three!

     

    Chapter Three – Fact vs. Fiction

     

    Fact:  When I was in high school I took German as my second language.  (We totally watched The Sound of Music and The Great Escape during school.  It was awesome.)  But I remember our teacher Mr. Vanburen (yes, I totally snagged his name because he was one of my favorite teachers and I wanted to immortalize him somehow) said that there were different dialects in the German language.  It is much like anywhere else, I imagine, with different accents coming out.

     

    Doctor Who fans will remember the Ninth Doctor being accused of coming from the north (of Britain) and his response was; “Lots of places have a north!”

     

    So!  The idea of Uncle George’s “language game” isn’t too far-fetched.  It’s a little weird, but that gets explained as time goes on.  Uncle George isn’t the most honest of fellows, after all.

     

    Fiction:  I shoved Megan into a converted storage room on board the ship because I really didn’t know where they would keep a stranded girl on board.  I always imagined it was positioned just beside or inside the sick bay so that Herr Schuler could see to her.  Let’s face it, this sequence of events is very fictional and I doubt they had a manual for what to do when they picked up a half-drowned woman.

     

    Fact:  There really is a place called the Jade Bight.  In Germany it’s called Jadebusen and it’s a bay just south of Wilhelmshaven.  I had to mention it somewhere because, quite frankly, that’s the coolest sounding name in the world.

     

    Fiction:  This is only a quasi-issue because Megan isn’t in the military and really doesn’t know what’s going on, but in the event someone was taken on board a ship like this they would most likely be kept alive.  The whole “remand her into custody of the port authority” is semi-realistic.  VanBuren would need to give her to his superiors, who would then direct her to military intelligence for interrogation and then relocation to a camp.  (More about this in Chapter Four.)

     

    Fact:  My original draft of this story had four other POW’s on board the ship, which Megan was kind of interrogated through because Wycoff forced her into the same room with them and then listened to see if she revealed anything.  She then set about trying to help rescue these four men, which she managed during a bit of a battle, but she still got stuck going to Germany because she had to act as a distraction in order for the men to run.

     

    It was a fun sequence, but after quite a bit of research I dug up the fact that it was very unlikely for prisoners to be taken on board ships like this.  Which meant if I had Megan rescued then I had to dump the other four guys.  I mean, I was already stretching the whole suspension of disbelief, so I needed to trim it down.

     

  • Fact vs. Fiction Chapter Two – Persona

    Chapter Two – Fact vs. Fiction

     

    Fiction:  I have Megan on board the SS Ceramic and for all intents and purposes she’s headed for London to meet her Uncle George.  However the SS Ceramic was actually headed toward Australia, not England.  Which, of course, is a bit of a problem.  But because I wanted to highlight the tragedy of the Ceramic I went ahead and kept it.

    Fact:  The SS Ceramic had just gone past the Azores when it was hit.  Here’s another little site about this event in history — It even has a big picture for you.

     

    Fiction:  Here in Chapter Two I have Megan picked up by the Germans.  Let’s go ahead and admit that this was unlikely to happen.  Granted, Henke of the U-515 did pick up Mr. Munday, but that wasn’t a normal scenario.  (Note that in Chapter One Denton does mention to Megan that prisoners were not often taken on board a ship.)  But as this is a fiction book, I went ahead with this section in the hopes that readers could suspend their disbelief long enough to get Megan into Germany.

    Author’s Note:  Because of how controversial the whole sinking scenario felt to me as the writer, I do have a draft of this novel where Megan is shown already in Germany when the war starts.  I have her in a big rush for the border but by the time she gets there everything has closed down.  However, I like this opening better  and since I’m giving it away for free it I decided to keep it.  

    Fact:  The fate of Sapper Eric Munday!  After being rescued from the sea by the enemy, Sapper Munday was interrogated and then taken as a Prisoner of War, where he remained until the end of the war.  There are some books out there about him (which I admit I have not read but fully intend to.)

    Fiction:  The timeline of the sinking is off.  Apparently Ceramic sustained its first hit somewhere around 8 PM but didn’t actually sink until the final torpedo’s struck it around midnight.  Also, here in the second chapter I have the storm abating in the morning when in fact it was around 8 AM when the really big winds started up and the stranded passengers started capsizing.

  • Choices

    Well, tomorrow I’m going to have a guest post from RJ Blain, who is another relatively insane author I’ve been stalking on Google+ for a while now.  (I don’t think it’s really stalking when she’s in another country, but … eh … we’ll let her decide where the creepy boundary is.)

    Anyway, you’ll love her.  She’s crazy and likes chocolate.

    I thought about putting the post up tonight but had one of those “writer” moments today that I just had to get out.  Honestly, it’s amazing I can remember this eureka moment since a bird quite literally attacked me thirty seconds after I had it.

    I’m not kidding.  This little black bird flew right into my back.  I thought maybe it was an accident but it came back and proceeded to dive bomb me again.  I nearly swung my sandwich bag at it, but thought I might get bird-crazy on my Italian Subway sandwich somehow and decided to just run instead.

    Yeah.  I ran from a bird.  I’m not proud.

    In my defense, it had beady black eyes and reminded me of those nasty crow things from Snow White and the Huntsman.

    Where was I? … Oh, yeah … the Eureka moment.

    One of the elements that is severely lacking in my fiction (or at least my early fiction, I have been working on this) is that of choice.  What I mean by that are major choices, choices that the character knows won’t end well no matter which direction they pursue.

    ALERT:  The following examples are spoilerific!  DO NOT READ if you hate spoilers. 

    Example #1:  Doctor Who The End of Time.  That’s like the last episode David Tennant was in and he gets to a point where he has to choose between shooting the Master, or Rassilon (Timothy Dalton’s character).

    For a dude who has spent the last several years adamant about not killing anyone, this is seriously a bad decision for him.  We get to see him flipping between aiming the gun at Dalton or the Master and then Dalton again and then the Master.  (And in the end he chooses neither, but … eh … it was the fact that he was put in the position to have to make such a choice that added tension to that climax.)

    Example #2: Supernatural What is and What Should Never Be.  Poor Dean Winchester finds himself having to make a very serious decision in the end of this episode.  He was attacked by a djinn and is in this dream world where his mother is alive and his family is mostly intact while the djinn slowly consumes his blood.

    For a guy who has a history of putting his family (and innocent lives) in front of himself, he is suddenly confronted with a choice; stay and live in the “world” that has been created for him, or gut himself in the dream in order to wake up.

    Of course, there’s no guaranteeing that he’s right and that he’s in a dream at all, so the decision also has the fear of mortality laced into it.

    Sweet, holy tension, batman!

    Dean delivers this wonderful line just before he goes to shove a knife into his gut, too —

    “No, I’m sure.  I’m like … ninety percent sure.  I’m sure enough.”

    ….

    You see what I’m saying here, right?

    It’s all about choice.  In fact, we can sum plot up as being Character A must choose Path A, B, or C.

    All right, so that’s an oversimplified look on plot, but it really does work.  Characters are defined by the choices they make — at least the good one’s are.  So my eureka moment today was when I realized that I hadn’t really given my characters tough enough choices to make.

    Rock, meet hard place.

    And then the bird attacked me.

    There might have been more to that eureka moment but I was busy running.

    You can’t get avian crazies when a bird dive bombs you, right?  It’s not like a freaky bird plague I should be worried about?

     

  • Research

    This week I rewrote almost all of Chapter One of the WWII project, which I think I might title Sullied Heritage instead of Crossweathers, but we’ll see.  (Many thanks to Tressa Green for taking a moment out of her day to  help me brainstorm.)  In the middle of the rewrite I came across several problems that deal completely with research.

    I couldn’t for the life of me find record of the Elaine, though I know I found it in an obscure book several years ago.

    That wasn’t too much of a problem, I just started researching different boats that sunk and came upon the Ceramic.

    However, the Ceramic sunk right around midnight and there was a massive storm going on at the same time (which accounts for how many souls were lost at sea after the sinking).  The original draft had the boat sinking in the late evening with the sun setting.

    So my rewrite had to change the time, date, and weather.  But all of that is really OK with me because I feel like it’s a stronger chapter because of it. (Of course, I’m rewriting stuff that I wrote almost ten years ago, so it’s bound to be stronger now.  I think I could sneeze a sentence better now than I wrote back then.)

    All of these changes got me to thinking about how different it is to research things today.  Ten years ago I was in the library a lot and even purchased several books on WWII to help me.  I do still love the library, but a lot of the information I need is far easier to get a hold of via the internet.

    Such as the rationing in both America and Germany.  Or the names of which boats were taken down by submarines in the Atlantic.  Or the bombing in Ulm in 1944 (which I didn’t know about until I started this research).

    There are some things that I learned through people, though.  Such as the yellow pill that was rubbed into margarine in order to make it look like butter.  (I’m not kidding.  Apparently that’s real.  I’ll never look at margarine the same way.)  Or the eyeliner women used in order to draw a line on the back of their legs so that they appeared to be wearing pantyhose.

    I say all that to get to the main point, which is that I super love the Googles.  I got more information out of one night of research than I had in hours scouring the library ten years ago.  And it inspired me to add a Fact vs. Fiction page onto the story blog for the WWII novel (which is still scheduled to begin release June 1st.)

    This page will take what I put in the story — such as the sinking of the Ceramic — and explain what really happened versus what I chose to include in the book, with a little bit about why I chose to do it that way.  It’s mostly for those history buffs out there.  Or people who might be curious.  And, of course, for me, since I find the whole process of researching this novel fascinating.