Writing Naval and Military Fiction

1. Writing Naval and Military Fiction
Western Naval Historical Association
Expanding Naval History IV
February 19-20, 2021
George Galdorisi

2. So You Want To Be a [Fiction) Writer?
Western Naval Historical Association
Expanding Naval History IV
February 19-20, 2021
George Galdorisi

3. “For me, I gotta write, and it’s the adventure of it that’s
hooked me. As the writer, I can do it all. I get to be the
National Security Advisor who recommends the action
to the President who must commit the forces. I’m the
senior officer who sends his men into action and who
feels the pain if they don’t make it back. I’m the enemy
and the defender; logistician and staff planner. But
most of all, I’m a young man again, that fresh
lieutenant who must lead his men into battle.”
Dick Couch
“So you Want to be a Writer”

4. “History is what the historians and writers
say it is.”
Norman Polmar
(Forty books – and counting)
But before we move into fiction….

5. Some Iconic Non-Fiction Writers
• Walter Isaacson
• David McCullough
• Rick Atkinson
• Laura Hillenbrand
• Ian Toll

6. Leave No Man Behind:
The Saga of Combat
Search and Rescue
- Blind Man’s Bluff meets The
Terrible Hours
- Balancing a compelling story
with the full historical record
- Not just a story of heroic
combat rescues over 100 years
- Also describes how successful
and unsuccessful CSAR efforts
led to better technology, tactics,
techniques and procedures
- 642 pages, 80 pages of end-
notes and citations
- Four years of work…but if we
never sold a book….

7. The Kissing Sailor
- One of the two most iconic
photographs in American
history
- The most iconic and most
reproduced LIFE photo ever
- Taken by the father of photo-
journalism
- The almost seven-decade
mystery behind the photo
- Five Ps: The picture, the place,
the publication, the people and
the proof
- The picture should never have
taken – the three principals
- And the book might never have
been written….

8. Why Else Should We Write?

9. “No one ever made a decision because of a number.
They need a story.”
Daniel Kahneman
Quoted in:
Michael Lewis
The Undoing Project

10. It Takes Courage to Write

11. "Give me six lines written by the most honorable of
men, and I will find an excuse to hang him."
Cardinal Armand Jean du Plesssis,
duc of Richelieu

12. Some Things That Sam Tangredi Suggested
That We Talk About This Afternoon
• Why did you decide to start writing novels?
• Is it harder than non-fiction?
• How did you know you would be successful?
• How do you decide what to write?
• What are the processes/stages in writing a novel?
• How did you find a publisher?
• How do you know it's ready to submit?
• Can you offer any advice regarding writing novels?

13. Some Things That Sam Tangredi Suggested
That We Talk About This Afternoon
• Why did you decide to start writing novels? Chaos
• Is it harder than non-fiction? No
• How did you know you would be successful? Didn’t
• How do you decide what to write? WTAI
• What are the processes of writing a novel? WTAI
• How did you find a publisher? Persistence
• How do you know it's ready to submit? WTAI
• Can you offer advice regarding writing novels? WTAI

14. Some Things That Sam Tangredi Suggested
That We Talk About This Afternoon
Personal Journey – The Storytelling Part
• Why did you decide to start writing novels? Chaos
• Is it harder than non-fiction? No
• How did you know you would be successful? Didn’t
• How did you find a publisher? Persistence
The rest of this story will address the “We’ll Talk About
It” bullets from the previous slides in a hugely
compressed format – but more on that later

15. The Secrets Behind Every Successful Novel
(Including Naval and Military Fiction)
While there is no one-size-fits-all for writing a successful novel –
one that people will pay to read – there are some commonsense
steps that that majority of successful writers use to ensure
success. While some have written and published novels without
using a “checklist” to follow these rules, they likely did follow
them, they just didn’t do it deliberately or consciously.

16. Mainstream or Genre?
Which Way Should You Go?
• Mainstream fiction: The plots acts as a skeleton
upon which the writer adds layers of action,
characterization theme, symbolism, background and
mood, until a living thing has been constructed.
• In genre fiction: The plot is usually the skeleton and
the tendons and the vital organs and the muscle.
Other elements of the writer’s art – characterization,
theme, background – are seldom given such full
expression as in mainstream work.

17. Endgame

18. Let’s Deconstruct
a Novel Treatment
• Cover
• Organization
• Organizing Impulse and High Concept
• The “Old” OpCenter Dies
• The “New” OpCenter is Born
• New Character Details
– Preamble
– Those who spend a great deal of time
physically at OpCenter
– Those who deal with crises overseas
in each scenario
– Those who deal with crises
domestically in each scenario
• OpCenter Plot and Scenario Plan
– Preamble
– Short Plot Synopsis
• For us, this was 17,000+ words

19. Let’s Deconstruct
a Narrative Outline
• Cover
• Front matter
• Chapter summaries
– Separate sections
– One or two paragraphs per
section
• Epilogue
• For us, this was 19,000+
words

20. Imagining and Producing Your Novel
• Your Original Idea: The Spark That Starts the Process
• Three Things That You Must Do – We’ll Focus on One
• This Isn’t a One-Time Inoculation

21. What Should You Write About?
• Whatever you are passionate about
• “You’re in a bar with your friends”
• What my first agent always asked:
– What are you really passionate about?
– What do I wish I had more time for?
– How would I spend year as a “professional dilettante?”
– What do I think about when I’m alone?
– What do I worry about and what issues concern me most?
– What have I done that people seem curious about?
– Is there a topic where friend turn to me for advice?

22. Your Original Idea:
The Spark That Starts the Process

23. Only You Are the Steward of Your Original Idea
• It is your idea and your idea alone
• You have to nurture it, don’t share it yet
• It is the foundation of your book
• Above all else, it is the spark of inspiration for you
• Don’t do too much, let it germinate
• Come up with another idea, is the first still the best?

24. Can You State Your Idea In One Sentence?
• If you can’t do this, start over and find a new one
• This one sentence ignites your creative focus
• It is often the core of the pitch to sell your book
• Remembering just one sentence keeps you focused

25. Ideas Can Be Absolutely Anything
• A high concept
• A theme
• A plot
• A character
• A “what if”
• A setting or scene

26. Outward vs. Inward Focus
• A situation idea is outward focused
• Your situation idea focuses on a plot and a problem
• A character idea is inward focused
• Your character idea focuses on character and intent
• The key to success is to have your book do both

27. Ideas Can Be A High Concept
• In a post-apocalyptic world, what if the top .1% is
delineated by length of life rather than wealth?
• Burners

28. Ideas Can Be A Theme
• What is more important? Honor or loyalty?
• Duty, Honor, Country

29. Ideas Can Be A Plot
• On the same day, six different years, the Time Patrol
must keep the shadow from changing our timeline.
• Time Patrol

30. Ideas Can Be A Character
• A housewife and female assassin must uncover the
truth of the men in their lives in order to uncover
their destiny.
• Bodyguard of Lies

31. Ideas Can Be A “What If”
• What if people going into the Witness Protection
Program really disappear?
• Cut Out

32. New York Times, Publisher’s
Weekly & USA Today Best-
Seller!
What if a prince in a Middle
Eastern country wanted to get
the United States to attack
another country so his
country could later win a fight
with that country?

33. New York Times, Publisher’s
Weekly & USA Today Best-
Seller!
How does the commanding
officer of a U.S. Navy ship
keep the North Koreans from
capturing her crew after they
run aground on a small island
after losing a gun battle with
North Korean ships?

34. First book of the Rick Holden Thriller
Series - from Braveship Books
What if the most senior officers in
the United States military are so
dissatisfied with the President that
they concoct a scheme to have the
President direct a major military
operation, and then have that
operation fail in order to drive the
President out of office?

35. Second book of the Rick Holden
Thriller Series - from
Braveship Books
What if the Islamic Republic of
Iran is killing Americans in
terrorist attacks and other actions
and the United States is not taking
action? And what if a carrier strike
group commander with a wide
array of strike assets at his
disposal decides to create and
incident that has Iran’s
fingerprints all over it and uses
this as an excuse to extract his
own vengeance on Iran? Can he
be stopped?

36. Let’s talk about three of the most
important ingredients in writing a
successful novel…especially a thriller

37. Characterization
Plotting
Action
You must do
all three well!

38. Plotting

39. “There are only two plots: The hero takes a journey and
a stranger comes to town.”
Timothy Spurgin
“The Art of Reading”
The Great Courses

40. The Classic Plot
• The writer introduces a hero or heroine who has just been –
or is about to be – plunged into terrible trouble
• The hero or heroine attempts to solve his or her problem but
only slips deeper into trouble
• As they try to climb out of the hole they’re in, complications
arise, each more terrible than the one before, until the
situation could not become more hopeless, then one final
unthinkable complication arises and makes matters worse.
• At last, deeply affected and changed by his awful experiences
and intolerable circumstances, the hero learns something
about himself and the human condition. He then understands
what he must do to get out of the dangerous situation in
which he has wound up. He takes the necessary actions and
either succeeds or fails, succeeding more often than not.

41. “There is only one recipe for a bestseller and it is a very
simple one. If you look back on all the bestsellers you
have read, you will find they all have one quality, you
simply have to turn the page.”
Ian Fleming
How to Write a Thriller

42. James Hall – Hit Lit
• Gone with the Wind
• Peyton Place
• To Kill a Mockingbird
• Valley of the Dolls
• The Godfather
• The Exorcist
• Jaws
• The Dead Zone
• The Hunt for Red October
• The Firm
• The Bridges of Madison County
• The Da Vinci Code

43. Let’s take a deep-dive into one well-known
way to design or deconstruct a plot….

44. “Deconstructing” a Movie Log Line
The subject of the sentence will describe (1) an
imperfect but passionate and active protagonist. The
verb will depict (2) the battle. And the direct object will
describe (3) an insurmountable antagonist who tries to
stop the protagonist from reaching (4) a physical goal
on account of (5) the stakes, if the goal is not reached.

45. I keep six honest serving-men
(They taught me all I knew);
Their names are What and Why and When
And How and Where and Who.
Rudyard Kipling
The Elephant’s Child

46. Fanning the Flame: From a Spark to a Fire
• Since every idea has been done before, now what?
• Your idea turns into a story as you fan the flame
• Fan the flame with Kipling’s help:
– What? Plot
– Who? Characters
– Why? What’s at stake
– Where and When? Setting
– How? Beginning, Middle, and End
• Your idea won’t change
• You are going to do it differently

47. Turning Your Log Line
Into a Narrative

48. The
Freytag
Pyramid

50. Let’s Use This to Dissect a
Book We All Are Familiar With
• Pride and Prejudice
• Ulysses
• War and Peace
• Anna Karenina
• Don Quixote
• Little Women
• The Wizard of Oz

51. Action

52. “I do not over-intellectualize the production process. I
try to keep it simple: Tell the damned story.”
Tom Clancy

53. Resources
• E.E. Forster Aspects of the Novel
• Francine Prose Reading Like a Writer
• Richard Curtis How To Be Your Own Literary Agent
• James Hall Hit Lit
• Dr. Linda Seger
– The Art of Adaptation
– Advanced Screenwriting
• Robert Masello
– Robert’s Rules of Writing
– Writer Tells All
• The Great Courses, especially, Jane Friedman How to Publish
Your Book

54. Slides and Resources Posted:
http://www.georgegaldorisi.com/
Email Address
george@georgegaldorisi.com

56. Mr. Clancy said none of his success came easily, and he would
remind aspiring writers of that when he spoke to them. “I tell
them you learn to write the same way you learn to play golf,” he
once said. “You do it, and keep doing it until you get it right. A lot
of people think something mystical happens to you, that
maybe the muse kisses you on the ear. But writing isn’t divinely
inspired — it’s hard work.”
Tom Clancy
Quoted in the New York Times
October 2, 2013

58. “Some men want to die with their boots on. When I cash in my
chips, I want to be slumped over the keyboard. And they can
plant me with my word processor. I may wake up and want to
write about it.”
Dick Couch
(Fifteen books – and counting)
Shipmate, April 1993

59. Questions?
59

60. Backups

61. The Wizard of Oz
Exposition
The exposition stage of the story sets the scene and introduces
the characters. In The Wizard of Oz, the exposition is everything
that happens from the beginning of the story to the tornado. We
meet all the major characters. Dorothy runs away with Toto and
meets Professor Marvel; and on her way back to the farm,
Dorothy is overtaken by the storm.

62. The Wizard of Oz
Inciting Incident
Next comes the inciting action, which is the event that
introduces conflict into the story. This is a bit tricky in The
Wizard of Oz, because there are two elements in the story that
might be called the conflict:
• One is the conflict between Dorothy and Miss Gulch, because Miss
Gulch wants Dorothy’s dog put to sleep. This is what causes Dorothy to
run away from home, leading to the blow to the head she receives
during the tornado. In this sense, we might consider Miss Gulch’s
threat the inciting moment.
• But this conflict becomes more complicated when the tornado
transports Dorothy to the Land of Oz. There, Dorothy’s house lands on
the Wicked Witch of the East and kills her, and the Wicked Witch of
the West threatens to kill Dorothy in revenge.

63. The Wizard of Oz
Rising Action
The rising action is where the plot becomes more complicated
and exciting, building tension. This includes Dorothy’s departure
from Munchkinland, her meetings with the Scarecrow, the Tin
Man and the Cowardly Lion, her arrival in Emerald City; her
audience with the Wizard, and her capture by the witch:
• During this part of the story, small obstacles are thrown in the path of
Dorothy and her companions, and the two conflicts mentioned during
the inciting incident are reemphasized.
• The two conflicts are then explicitly linked when the Wizard tells
Dorothy he’ll help her get back to Kansas if she brings him the witch’s
broom.
• Dorothy and her companions then face their most difficult challenge,
with Dorothy getting carried away by the flying monkeys and her
companions breaking into the witch’s castle to rescue her.

64. The Wizard of Oz
Climax
The climax is the most dramatic and exciting event in the story.
In The Wizard of Oz, the climax comes when Dorothy and her
friends are trapped in the witch’s castle, and Dorothy kills the
witch by dousing her with a bucket of water. At that moment,
much of the story’s tension is released because at least one of
the conflicts, the one between Dorothy and the witch, is ended,
and the plot begins its descent down the other side of the
pyramid.

65. The Wizard of Oz
Falling Action
The next element is the falling action, which is made up of
events that result directly from the moment of climax. The
element after that is called the resolution, where the character’s
conflict is resolved:
• After Dorothy has killed the witch, she take the broomstick back to the
Wizard. He solves the problems of Dorothy’s three companions, and
agrees to take Dorothy back to Kansas himself.
• This is the falling action: it shows the results of the death of the witch,
but it doesn’t resolve Dorothy’s second conflict, the fact that she
wants to go home to Kansas.

66. The Wizard of Oz
Resolution
The resolution comes when the Wizard accidentally takes off in
his balloon without Dorothy, and Dorothy learns from Glinda
the Good Witch that she could have taken herself back to
Kansas at any time just by using the ruby slippers. At this point,
Dorothy’s conflict is finally resolved. The threat from the witch is
liquidated, and she realizes that she always had the power to go
home.

67. The Wizard of Oz
Dénouement
The denouement is the ending of the story, when order is
restored. At this point, we are often shown the characters one
more time so we can see what happened to them. In The Wizard
of Oz it’s the final scene in Dorothy’s bedroom, where she is
reunited with Aunt Em and Uncle Henry and the now-familiar
farmhands:
• In some stories the denouement simply shows that order has been
restored, and the world is now back to the way it was. But this isn’t
usually the case, and it’s certainly not the case in The Wizard of Oz.
• Dorothy is back home, but everything is not back to the way it was
before she went to Oz. Dorothy’s understanding of herself and her
place in the world have profoundly changed.

68. Characterization

69. “There are only two plots: The hero takes a journey and
a stranger comes to town.”
Timothy Spurgin
“The Art of Reading”
The Great Courses

70. “There are only two plots: The hero takes a journey and
a stranger comes to town.”
Timothy Spurgin
“The Art of Reading”
The Great Courses

71. James Hall – Hit Lit
• Gone with the Wind
• Peyton Place
• To Kill a Mockingbird
• Valley of the Dolls
• The Godfather
• The Exorcist
• Jaws
• The Dead Zone
• The Hunt for Red October
• The Firm
• The Bridges of Madison County
• The Da Vinci Code

72. Presenting Character Traits Thoughtfully
• How many major and minor characters to have
• All major characters must have a biography
• Develop a “job description” for each character
• You will know what your characters will do
• You are writing a novel – not a movie script
– You have to get your characters from Point A to Point B
– Your characters are not dead when they’re off the page
• What is each character doing?
– On stage
– Off stage

73. Take a female character who is on her way to her high school
reunion. She’s 50, attractive, divorced, and has had no contact
with her graduating class since she left Iowa for Berkley in
1985. There was a guy she jilted when she went off to
school. Develop her.
• Personal: strengths, weaknesses, phobias, attitude toward
men, attitude toward all others, etc.
• Family: siblings, relationship with mom/dad, rivalries
• Relationships: good/bad/difficult, marriage(s), children?
• Occupation: attorney, doctor, college professor, executive,
runs a dot.com startup, etc.
• Physical: height, weight, hair color, best feature, worst
feature, etc.
Present her in a way that’s not a “police blotter”

74. New York Times, Publisher’s
Weekly & USA Today Best-
Seller!
Let’s color in one character,
Anne Sullivan, Op-Center’s
Deputy Director

75. “Anne Sullivan was a retired General Services
Administration super grade who had made a career in
Washington. She knew all about the government,
including government contracting, hiring, firing, and
funding, and how to sidestep the issues. These were
things Williams never had to deal with, even during
his multiple tours in Washington.”

76. “Unlike Williams, Sullivan came from money. Her
father had fashioned a successful and lucrative career
in finance with Bain Capital Ventures. Between that
family money and her GSA retirement, she was
looking forward to a comfortable life. She enjoyed the
D.C. social and cultural scene and traveled often,
primarily to Europe and especially to Ireland. That
plan was interrupted when Williams recruited her—
charmed her, really, she readily admitted—to be his
deputy.”

77. New York Times, Publisher’s
Weekly & USA Today Best-
Seller!
Let’s color in one character,
Kate Bigelow, Commanding
Officer, USS Milwaukee
(LCS-5) Freedom-Class Littoral
Combat Ship

78. “Kate Bigelow was a graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy. She’d
gone to the Academy for two reasons: to play lacrosse and to
sing. Coming out of Montgomery Blair Prep in Silver Spring,
Maryland, her two passions had been playing lacrosse and
singing in her school glee club and church choir. She was an all-
state midfielder and also had a strong voice. Her grades were
good if not outstanding, but the Academy women’s lacrosse
coach saw her play and liked what she saw. Lacrosse was a
rough sport, even the woman’s game, and Kate Bigelow, while
owning a technically sound game, was not above flattening an
opposing player with a legal hit. She started for three years on
the lacrosse team, beating Army two of those three years, and
had sung in the Catholic Choir and the Naval Academy Glee
Club.”

79. “Kate had graduated in the upper half of the bottom third of
the Class of 2002. She’d never really considered a full career in
the Navy as a seagoing officer, two things intervened that kept
her from leaving the service. She found she liked U.S. Navy
sailors and she had a knack for leading them. Secondly, she
found command intoxicating. There was nothing like it on the
outside, so she stayed in the Navy. She had previously
commanded an MCM ship like Defender that now followed
them out of Sasebo.”

80. First book of the Rick Holden
Thriller Series - from
Braveship Books
Let’s color in one character,
Lieutenant Laura Peters,
Intelligence Officer, U.S.
Southern Command

81. For Laura Peters, it was an opportunity for professional growth
that might not come her way again. It was not surprising she
loved what she was doing. The daughter and only child of a
Navy chief petty officer, she had been the apple of her father's
eye. Master Chief Donald Peters had risen through the ranks as
far as he could, but he always wanted to be an officer. That
goal, unfortunately, had eluded him. When it was clear his
marriage would produce no sons, he regaled Laura with the
opportunities that beckoned in the Navy. The master chief
knew enough about how the Navy worked and what it looked
for in its officers—and particularly its need to recruit more
women officers—that he groomed his daughter throughout
high school to make her a shoe-in for winning a Navy ROTC
scholarship.

82. She had thrived at the University of Virginia, earning top
grades, and lettering in cross-country, squash, and tennis.
Sensing that the Navy was still not enlightened enough to fully
accept women as equal partners commanding ships and
aircraft squadrons, she opted for the intelligence field upon
graduation, correctly surmising that it would provide a more
level professional playing field and afford her the opportunity
to prove herself and advance through the ranks. In her seven
years since graduation she had sought out only the toughest
assignments, usually registering firsts, breaking ground where
female officers had not gone before.

83. Second book of the Rick
Holden Thriller Series - from
Braveship Books
Let’s color in one character,
Lieutenant Anne Claire
O’Connor, F/A-18E/F Super
Hornet Pilot, USS Carl Vinson

84. Anne Claire O’Connor came by her bent for naval aviation
naturally. The only child of now-retired Captain Jeff “Boxman”
O’Connor, who had flown F-4 Phantoms in Vietnam and gone
on to command his own carrier air wing, she had grown up in
the midst of the lore of naval aviation. An honor student and
varsity athlete at Coronado High School in southern California,
she had won an appointment to the U.S. Naval Academy and
had excelled there as a swimmer. Tall, slim and attractive, at
five foot nine and a lithe 130 pounds, Anne O’Connor turned
heads. She knew her good looks didn’t help her blend as a
naval aviator—there were fewer than two dozen women
among Carl Vinson’s over two hundred pilots and naval flight
officers. Unlike everything else she did in her life, she failed in
her mission to not stand out.

85. O’Connor was also worried. Not of what would happen in the
air. No, she was worried because of Bingo. Commander Craig
“Bingo” Reynolds was the Stingers executive officer and he was
not the kinder, gentler type. As a brand-new lieutenant,
O’Connor had absorbed more than a fair share of Bingo’s
wrath. She didn’t know if he was trying to make it hard on her
because she was one of only four women officers in the
squadron. She was terrified because he would be in the
Stingers’ Ready Room and would see her come in late.
O’Connor looked out on the waters of the Arabian Gulf and into
the perpetual haze that hung in the skies. As she got ready to
taxi her aircraft back to its original position on deck, she
wondered what part she would play in any conflict. One thing
she did know—she’d be ready.

86. Here’s a better example

87. When he finished packing, he walked out onto the
third-floor porch of the barracks brushing the dust from
his hands, a very neat and deceptively slim young man
in the summer khakis that were still early morning
fresh.
James Jones
(From Here to Eternity, opening sentence)

88. "Jones packs a hell of a lot into that first line. He tells
you it's summer, he tells you it's morning, he tells you
you're on an Army post with a soldier who's obviously
leaving for someplace, and he gives you a thumbnail
description of his hero. That's a good opening line."
Ed McBain in Killer's Payoff

89. Plot or Characterization
• You have to have plot to make the reader turn pages
• People are the story and the whole story
????????????????????????????????????????????????
• Plot has the entertainment value to pull the reader
along
• The characters are the vehicle, the tools through
which you tell your story
• Readers want you to tell them a story
• Dialogue brings your characters to life!

90. Whew…that’s a lot of information…I’m
drowning
Can you distill it down into everyday
terms?
What do you mean by plot- and character-
focused?

93. “There are authors and artists and then again
there are writers and painters.”
Ian Fleming
How to Writer a Thriller

94. “Listen, Stephen King used to write in the washroom of his trailer
after his kids went to sleep. Harlan Ellison wrote in the stall of a
bathroom of his barracks during boot camp. Elmore Leonard got
up at 5 AM every morning to write before work. Every time my
alarm goes off at 5 AM and I don’t want to get up, or I would
rather sit down after work and play a videogame, I think about
those guys. Take care of your family. They need you and love you.
Make time for them. Then stop screwing around and finish your
damn book.”
Bernard Schaffer
Whitechapel: The Final Stand of Sherlock Holmes