Lessons Learned From Writing Novel #1

My second weekly post is about how writing Novel #1 (Whittled Away) impacted writing Novel #2. First, a few commonalities of Novels #1 and #2:

• They are both books of Civil War historical fiction centered on single companies of Confederate soldiers from Texas.
• Both companies were real: In the first book it’s The Alamo Rifles – Company K of the 6th Texas Infantry, recruited in San Antonio; and in the second novel it’s The Leon Hunters-Company C of the 5th Texas Infantry, recruited in Leon Country.
• Both books trace the historical combat and campaigns of the two companies. Only one time did the paths of the two regiments lead them to participate in the same battle, and that crossing of the vector lines will be part of Novel #3, as it took place in 1863 at the Battle of Chickamauga.
• To keep my facts right, I relied on several history books of the regiments and the respective brigades to which the two companies belonged.
• Beyond that, I found and used primary source memoirs and diaries written by common soldiers in the units to support my fictional main characters’ actions, and ensure a realistic view of our terrible, and endlessly fascinating, Civil War.

Like any fledgling novelist, I learned a great deal while writing my first book. Here are six lessons I learned from #1 that impacted writing #2:

First, I questioned if history or the characters should drive the plot. In other words, were my fictional characters primarily a means to tell the combat history of the Alamo Rifles? Or, were the historical battles a vehicle to tell a gripping personal tale of being a soldier in the Civil War. Naively, I started with the first perspective, but found by the half-way mark that the second perspective had taken over. I learned that characters ARE the plot, so do them well.  Hence, in writing Novel #2, I never questioned that characters trump plot when making the countless decisions that drive the story.

Second, I discovered that even as the author, I could stomach only so much of the heavy side of war- the horrors of the killing, the human goo, and so on- without becoming too weary to turn the next page. Weren’t you ready for the first half hour of the movie Saving Private Ryan to finish? I was hypnotized by the depiction of the D-Day carnage on Omaha Beach, but was relieved when it was over.  The upshot is that Novel #2 has fewer pages describing the intense days of combat.

Third, I very much enjoyed writing the cameo romantic interlude enjoyed by one of the minor characters in Novel #1, and I think that single chapter added some welcomed spice and poignancy that made the book better. Therefore, I decided before I started Novel #2 that one of the main characters would be a woman, and there would be romance, not just as a recess from the war, but as a key facet of the story.

Fourth, writing Novel #1 took several years of sputtering, repeatedly making stutter-starts and stops. Time and again, I grew frustrated in the difficulties of developing believable and likable characters, and often felt overwhelmed by the scope of the story I was telling.  Finally, I reached the point where I was half through the historical war, and I seemed to be gaining a grip on the characters. I was growing confident of my writing skill, and within the next six months I finished the second half of the book.  The simple lesson learned was that experience matters, at least it did for me. Novel #2 took only a year to write from start to completion of the manuscript in draft form, a huge improvement from the several years the first book consumed.

Fifth, I learned while writing Novel #1 that I have a hard time creating bad guys. I kept trying to bring the dark ones into the light, to save them, to show that none of us are bad to the bone. In Novel #2, I was determined not to fall in that trap again, so I focused on making the bad men real stinkers, not two dimensional, but really foul fellows. Hopefully, some of you will let me know later if I succeeded.

Finally, the years of the Civil War were a very sexist and racist time in American culture. I knew from the beginning that I could not write a credible novel set in the early 1860’s and avoid those issues. Moreover, how I addressed them would impact the reception of my novel and define the audience. Think about Mark Twain’s great American novel, Huckleberry Finn.  His inclusion of the derogatory “n” word in the dialogue among his characters has marred today’s acceptance of his masterpiece, even though the term was commonly spoken at the time he wrote the book.  To a lesser extent the inclusion of profanity and sex presented similar interesting challenges. Would I choose to write a book that would be similar to a G, PG, or R rated film? In 2013, I knew an author could easily slide in much more profanity and sex without criticism than did Mark Twain in Huckleberry Finn in 1885, but not the racial slur Twain repeatedly included.

I found this problem to be a tightrope over dangerous waters. I tried one approach then another while writing Novel #1. Eventually, I reached a place where I felt I was reasonably honest to the language, attitudes, and customs of the 1860’s, and comfortable as a writer in 2013. Hopefully my readers would not be accusing me of writing erotic, sexist or racist literature, but would still catch the hints harking to the things I could not write.

Having not been raked over the coals for the final choices made in Novel #1, I kept the same compromises between how we think things were then, to what mainstream readers will accept now, in Novel #2.

My next post will focus on fishing for a title for Novel #2.