To be clear about the title of this post: no, I do not have firsthand childhood memories of World War II. I was born in 1968, twenty-three years after the war ended. By the time I became aware of names like Pearl Harbor, Hitler, and Hirohito, the war was at least thirty years in the past.
My grandfather, however (pictured above) was a WWII combat veteran. He served in the Atlantic in the US Navy. His experiences were roughly similar to those depicted in the 2020 Tom Hanks movie, Greyhound.
From a very young age, I was captivated by history. And what better way to learn about history, than by listening to the stories of a relative who actually took part in it?
My grandfather regaled me with his accounts of Egypt, Russia, the United Kingdom, and Syria. He also told me stories about fighting the German U-boats and Messerschmidts.
My grandfather was, in many ways, my first “action hero”. His experiences, though, were very common among men of that generation, who have been called (for good reason) the Greatest Generation.
I don’t remember a thing about World War II. But some of my fondest childhood memories involve listening, with rapt attention, while my grandfather told me about it. He has been gone for decades now, but I still miss him, and I miss his stories. He gave me an enduring interest in World War II, and it isn’t surprising that the war should show up in some of my stories.
The other day, one of you emailed me to get my take on an age-old debate in writing, filmmaking, and storytelling circles:
Which matters more…the big, highly original idea, or the execution of the story, regardless of its originality?
Many writers fret constantly about people “stealing their ideas”. They put off writing because they “don’t have any original ideas”. They worry about forgetting ideas.
So which is more important? There is evidence for both.
Star Wars took off in 1977 partly because it was such an original idea. Here we had the rough equivalents of cowboys and samurai warriors in space. There had never been anything like that before.
In 2013, I first read about The Americans in the television and movie review section of a magazine. The highly original premise of The Americans— deep undercover Russian spies in Reagan-era America—instantly intrigued me.
The Americans intrigued a lot of people. The Americans ran from 2013 to 2018. During that time, the Cold War period drama received high marks from reviewers and viewers alike. The series has a 96% positive rating on Rotten Tomatoes. The Google composite review score is 4.8 out of 5. That’s pretty close to unanimity, at a time when people widely disagree about almost everything.
Nevertheless, it is easy to imagine The Americans having become nothing more than a Tom Clancy-esque knock-off for cable television. Why didn’t that happen?
The Americans is, indeed, based on a highly innovative “big idea”, what movie and fiction folks like to call “high concept”. But it is in the execution that The Americans really shines: the depth and arc of the characters, the nuts and bolts of each episode.
Plenty of stories succeed in the world of books and film without being very “high concept” at all. Consider the success of Downton Abbey. There is no high concept in Downton Abbey. It is little more than a soap opera set in Edwardian England, in fact.
When I watched the first episode of Downton Abbey, I didn’t know what I was going to think of it. But I was blown away. Not because of the “big idea” (there was none), but because of the execution: characters and individual episodes. The success of Downton Abbey is all in the execution.
An example in the book world would be Jonathan Franzen’s The Corrections. Jonathan Franzen is inconsistent as a writer. (He takes an average of about 6 years to write each book.) He is eccentric as an individual. But he scored a home run with The Corrections in 2001.
I remember getting my hands on this book over the Christmas holiday of 2001. I sat down and read it cover-to-cover, over a period of about 48 hours.
There is no high concept in The Corrections, either. A highly autobiographical novel, The Corrections is a fictionalized adaptation of people and events from the author’s life. But the world that Franzen creates in this book, while mundane, pulls you in. It pulled me in, and it pulled in millions of other readers, too.
***
On the opposite side of this coin are the high concept stories that fall flat because of poor execution.
We have all been bored by stories with incredibly high stakes: literally the end of humanity, in some cases. They bore us because of flaws in characterization, pacing, or depth.
This shows up in a lot of 2- and 3-three star Amazon reviews, that begin with phrases like, “I really wanted to like this book, but…”. Others outright say, “Great idea, but poor execution.”
For me, The Expanse fell into this category. This was true of both the book(s) and the Syfy series.
The premise of The Expanse did intrigue me: neither a near-future alien encounter tale, nor a space opera set in deep space, The Expanse is set a few centuries from the present, within our solar system.
But when I actually dug into the first book, it left me cold. The characters were flat, and there were too many of them. The narrative was unfocused. I had the same reaction a few years later, when I tried the Syfy series. I just couldn’t get into it.
Some of you will disagree with me, of course, but I’m not the only one who found the execution of The Expanse lacking. And I am not someone who dislikes science fiction. I loved the original version of Battlestar Galactica in the 1970s, as well as the “reimagined version” in the 2000s (though with some reservations).
Battlestar Galactica, whether in the hands of Glen A. Larson in the 1970s, or SyFy in the 00s, featured good execution.
But was Battlestar Galactica high concept? Highly original?
20th Century Fox certainly didn’t think so. In 1978, 20th Century Fox sued Universal Studios for allegedly ripping off Star Wars. The lawsuit claimed that Battlestar Galactica had filched more than thirty distinct ideas from Star Wars.
Whether you accept this notion or not, there is no doubt that the original BSG rode the coattails of Star Wars, which was then a monolithic phenomenon of popular culture.
And the rebooted BSG wasn’t original at all. It was based on the 1978 series, which owed much to Star Wars.
***
I’m therefore going to come down on the side of execution over big, original idea.
There are so many stories that we’ve all seen time and time again:
The rough-edged police detective who chafes against “the brass”, but will go to any length to catch a criminal…
The star-crossed lovers…
The ex-green beret whose daughter has been kidnapped…
Bosch is based on Michael Connelly’s Harry Bosch novels. The Harry Bosch novels are about a big-city homicide detective, Hieronymus “Harry” Bosch.
I don’t think that Michael Connelly would mind me saying: that’s a very old idea. Nothing original at all in the “concept”! But the Harry Bosch novels represent some of the best genre fiction out there.
Why? Because Michael Connelly’s execution of the character of Harry Bosch, of the murder cases, is so darn good.
Originality, in other words, might be overrated. To be sure, there is a place for it. (It is also a bad idea to jump on literary bandwagons; but that’s a separate topic for another day).
It is probably better to focus on the superlative execution of a “good” story idea—even if it’s been done before—versus waiting around for one superlative idea to come the writer’s way.
The big item here is The Rockland Horror 3, which is presently in the editing/final revision stage.
The Rockland Horror 3 will be somewhat longer than the previous two books in the series. Both The Rockland Horror and The Rockland Horror 2 were around 72K words. The third book will be closer to 90K words.
This is one reason why it’s taking a bit longer to complete. But I think you’ll like the final result.
I’m working on some other projects as well, including a World War II epic. More details to come.
The next installment of The Rockland Horrorseries is set in 1917, early in the age of the automobile.
That, of course, means Henry Ford’s iconic Model T. The Ford Motor Company manufactured the Model T between 1908 and 1927.
The Model T was mass-produced with simple specifications. The car originally came only in black, though a few other color choices were added in later model years.
The Model T was also quite affordable. The base price for a 1916 Model T Runabout was just $345, or $8,324.76 in 2021 dollars. This was, obviously, much cheaper than just about any car manufactured for the U.S. market today.
But this simplicity came at a price. If the Model T was cheap (even by early 20th-century standards) it was also far more difficult to use than modern vehicles.
The Rockland Horror 3 (now in production) will be a horror novel, not a book about early automobiles. But the story does involve some car chase scenes, and I wanted to make these scenes reasonably authentic.
My maternal grandfather was born in 1921, and even he never owned a Model T. Driving the Model T is one of those experiences that has passed out of “living memory”, so to speak.
I therefore went to YouTube, where there were, indeed, a few videos about starting and driving the Model T. I’ve embedded two of them here.
You probably already know about the crank start. But even that isn’t the worst of it. To start a Model T, you had to arrange a series of switches and levers inside the car in the right combination. Then you had to “choke” the engine by priming it with gasoline, and then…
Here’s a little about the story, and why you’ll enjoy it if you like a.) East Asian settings, and b.) adventure.
North Korean abductions of Japanese citizens
In my prior professional existence, I was deeply involved with Japan. I learned the Japanese language, and even worked as a translator for a time. I also worked for years in the Japanese automotive industry. I made many trips to Japan.
One of the ongoing issues I learned of in Japan was the so-called ratchi mondai 拉致問題, or “abduction problem”. This intractable matter came up whenever there was talk of Japan and North Korea resuming ordinary diplomatic relations.
Throughout the 1970s and part of the 1980s, North Korean agents abducted numerous Japanese citizens on Japanese soil. (Japan and North Korea are quite close, geographically.) These ordinary Japanese people, who happened to become targets of the North Koreans, were taken to North Korea and forced to work in a variety of capacities. Many were employed against their will as Japanese language instructors.
North Korea’s abductions didn’t stop there. In 1978, North Korea abducted Shin Sang-ok and Choi Eun-hee. Shin Sang-ok was a well-known South Korean movie director. Choi Eun-hee, his former wife, was a successful actress. The pair spent about eight years in North Korean captivity. They worked directly for Kim Jong-il, the future Supreme Leader of North Korea. Shin and Choi were tasked with making films for North Korea’s movie industry (against their will, of course.) They finally escaped in 1986.
North Korean abductions and Americans
I knew there was a story there. I wanted to write a story about an American kidnapped by the North Koreans, though. So far as my research could determine, there had never been a documented case of the North Koreans abducting an American on foreign soil.
But why couldn’t it happen? After all, thousands of Americans travel to Japan and South Korea every year. Many are skilled business and technical experts, human assets that Pyongyang would surely covet. And North Korean agents are known to be active in both Japan and South Korea.
An American abducted and taken to North Korea
THE CONSULTANT is the story of Barry Lawson, a successful business consultant from Chicago who finds himself in the wrong place at the wrong time.
And then he finds himself in North Korea.
Barry Lawson is an aging Lothario in his late forties. He has a way with the ladies, and this has often gotten him into trouble. Barry is divorced, with two children.
When Barry is approached by an attractive woman at a bar in Osaka, Japan, he can’t resist….even though he knows better.
This is a decision that he’ll soon regret. Within hours, Barry Lawson, successful business consultant and ladies’ man, must find a way to survive in—and hopefully escape from—the hellhole that is North Korea.
He’s not the only foreigner there, though. Barry he meets a Japanese man, Shoji Tanaka, whom the North Koreans abducted from Hokkaido (in northern Japan) when he went out for cigarettes one night.
Barry also meets Anne Henry, a woman who knows the Korean language. Anne, it turns out, has a traumatic abduction story of her own.
***
That’s all for now. I don’t want to ruin the book for you.
THE CONSULTANT is available in paperback and Kindle. (An audiobook is in the works.) You can presently read THE CONSULTANT in Kindle Unlimited, as well.
Want to preview THE CONSULTANT? You can do so below.
Most writers tend to change over time. Stephen King’s most recent offering, If It Bleeds, is quite distinct from his early breakout novels like Carrie, ‘Salem’s Lot, and The Shining. If It Bleeds is almost like a book from a different author.
King is one of the best-known examples of writers who’ve changed, but there are many others.
***
I haven’t been writing and publishing for as long as Stephen King, of course. But I’ve been at it for about a decade now, and that’s long enough for my story interests and narrative style to undergo significant changes.
Relatively early in the game, I wrote and published a short story collection, along with three novels: Blood Flats (2011), Termination Man (2012), and The Maze (2013).
The short story collection, Hay Moon and Other Stories, has remained on Amazon since 2011. Readers have liked it, and it sells fairly well, as short story collections go.
But the aforementioned novels were a different matter. These are all standalone novels, and in a mix of genres. A marketing nightmare. Although reviews were generally positive, sales languished.
***
These three novels are all long books, well in excess of 100K words. (Blood Flats is about 180K words). This past year I decided that it would be a good idea to take the books off the market for a time, give them a thorough reread, and decide if they needed to be altered, republished as originally written, or scrapped.
I’ve written so much in the intervening years, that rereading these books was a bit like reading three books written by another person. I remembered the general plots of each novel, of course; but I had also forgotten huge swaths of the stories.
I was pleasantly surprised to find out that all of these novels are, well…pretty darn good.
I subjected these books not only to an author’s reread, but also to an external proofread. A handful of typos were found and corrected (though not many).
I’ve rereleased these books and put them back in Kindle Unlimited. Here they are, with Amazon links and descriptions:
Blood Flats:Lee McCabe is on the run from the law, mafia hitmen, and rural meth dealers. A gun-blazing chase through the badlands of Kentucky.
Termination Man:Sex, lies, and corporate conspiracies! A workplace thriller for fans of John Grisham and Joseph Finder.
The Maze:Three ordinary people step into an alien world of magic and nonstop danger. A modern-day parallel world fantasy with the soul of a thriller!
***
If the above story descriptions appeal to you, then I think you’ll like each of these books. And you can presently read them for free in Kindle Unlimited.
My coming-of-age supernatural thriller, Revolutionary Ghosts, is set in 1976. The tale’s hero, an Ohio teenager named Steve Wagner, has a summer job at McDonald’s.
I’m an admitted cardio addict. I usually spend about an hour on my exercise bike each day, in addition to my thrice weekly weightlifting sessions.
Why? First of all, because I used to be a fat guy. But that’s another story for another time.
Cardio is important for writers. Yes, that’s right, you heard me: Cardio is important for writers.
Nature’s mood drug
Most writers suffer from anxiety and depression. (I am prone to both.)
Exercise is nature’s mood drug. Forget the crap that the pharmaceutical companies are peddling. You don’t need prozac, Ritalin, and all that crap from Big Pharma.
And you certainly don’t need cannabis. Don’t get me started on the current (and utterly idiotic) cannabis craze.
Exercise floods your body with serotonin. It’s free! No prescription required! Completely legal in all fifty states!
And while exercise is addicting, it’s a good form of addiction.
Reading and brainstorming
Time spent on the exercise bike is also a great time to catch up reading. I read whenever I’m on my bike, or on the Stairmaster at the gym.
But what about actually writing? Or preparing to write?
When the weather in southern Ohio is pleasant (and it often isn’t pleasant), I sometimes go for walks.
I find walking to be conducive to brainstorming. If an aspect of a story is puzzling me, I can usually work it out during a walk.
I’m not alone in this regard, by the way—Charles Dickens famously walked as many as twenty miles a day. He plotted his stories in his head during these long peregrinations.
Dickens also suffered from insomnia. It wasn’t uncommon for him to go walking at two o’clock in the morning.
If you’re a writer, then exercise should be a regular part of your routine. Especially cardio. And Charles Dickens, no less, would agree with me.
