Telling True Stories

​I originally wrote academic and professional articles—obviously nonfiction, but had to study the craft of writing fiction for my debut novel, Yours in a Hurry. I’m returning to nonfiction, but with a different purpose: informational biography based on my father’s World War 2 (WW2) letters to his then fiance, later my mother. I want to tell his story in the context of the history and culture of the time including the many locations he visited from the deep American south to the jungles of Burma and the cities and Himalayan region of India.

How does a writer go about planning a project like this?

First find a resource to guide you. I found that Elizabeth Lyon’s well organized A Writer’s Guide to Nonfiction covers every topic necessary.  I’m planning the following steps, possibly not in this order, and sometimes backtracking along the way.

• Articulate the book’s purpose and refine your ideas. Lyon walks you through the process. Examples of some considerations in my case: Do I only want to describe and expand on the facts—history, locations, situations—from the letters, or do I want to add human interest aspects: How did dad’s experiences change my parent’s lives during and after the war; What was life like back home?; Do I elaborate on wartime issues shared by thousands of others? Was WW2 a different war in some ways, as Tom Brokaw posits in The Greatest Generation, because of the specific situations they faced or the character of the men and women involved? A narrator in Ken Burns’ film series, The War, reads soldiers' wartime letters home. The letters have some of the same wording as my father’s.  

 

• Write a synopsis for a proposal based on decisions from the first bullet point.

 

• Select a working title. I’d been referring to this work as Letters from the Front. But that’s been used before in a variety of ways. From Middle America to Mytikyina: A WW2 Soldier’s Story would be more descriptive. But this may be revised. As I work through the rest of the process better options may come to light.

 

• Collect what original material you have. In my case, this includes my father’s letters and photos; collateral material in a box that my mother kept including brochures and news articles about the war and places dad served; and badges, patches, and medals he received. Fortunately, he kept many pieces of paper he received while in the service, including small documents for one-day leaves.

 

• Create a bibliography for research. Our family visits many museums, historical societies, book sales, and antique and military history events. Anticipating visiting my topic I’ve searched for books, magazines and other material related to the letters which gives me the beginning of a bibliography. But there’s more out there which leads to the next point.

 

• Identify comparison books using Amazon, my library, and a web search for other pertinent books and articles. There are many out there about the China-Burma-India (CBI) theater in WW2 and the MARS Taskforce in which my father served. This also requires finding reviews of these sources that more fully describe what each book covers to determine if it really is a match. Later in a full proposal I’ll need to convince readers why this book will be different, better received or otherwise worthy of consideration amid the competition.

 

• Organize your thoughts and method for writing. Will I use an outline or other method? Some use computer spreadsheets. Others prefer to draft chronologically. Regardless, flexibility is important.

 

• How will you document your research—cards, notebooks, computer software? I begin with a basic outline. I keep a notebook with pages for each source I use, recording the book page number of each written comment as I take notes. I have a knack for remembering exactly where I wrote something and what source it is from. This helped greatly when writing my historical novel and an aviation expert reader of mine questioned one of my passages. It was satisfying when he said, “I learn something every day.”

 

• Determine your audience. Writer’s need to answer the question, “Why Should I buy your book?” In this case, potential readers include those interested in history in general or, more specifically, military history or that of the United States during the mid-twentieth century, or veterans of any war and their families since themes relating to them are eternal. Some readers like biographies in any category.

 

• Who will you share your proposal with? Once you feel confident in your knowledge and approach to the work, identify individuals who can provide an opinion regarding interest in the topic and whether the book is worth pursuing.  Who might be able to provide suggestions on improving the proposal?  My plan for development includes getting input from both CBI veterans and a specialist on Asian history. The list of possible contacts includes local veteran’s groups; a professor of Asian history; several university presses; and, several museums and historical societies specializing in WW2 or locations at which dad served. This process worked well when researching Yours in a Hurry and led to much additional information.

 

• Dilemma: Does a writer have to personally see locations they are describing for them to be real for the reader? Some writers suggest that it adds to the richness of the telling. I’ve even discussed the importance of place as a character in the novel. These WW2 letters include locations in America’s deep south, India, Burma, rest camps high in the Himalayas, trips around the Cape of Africa and through the Suez canal. Many of these trips would be time and cost prohibitive for a book of this scope. I’m reassured by an author talk given by Paula McLain who authored The Paris Wife and other best-selling historical novels which depict foreign locations. When asked if she visited these places prior to writing the books, she said no. She wrote the books and imagined the locations sitting in her writing office—a coffee house near her home. Few would say that this detracted from her excellent results.

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Burma, 1944

Doing the Work
Wiktionary now defines the  ‘yellow brick road’ of Wizard of Oz fame as a proverbial path to a Promised Land of one's hopes and dreams. The prospect of starting on a ‘yellow brick road’ toward this finished product is both exhilarating and overwhelming. I’m not a full-time writer. But the love of history and sharing these stories to introduce readers to a less familiar era is worth the effort.

Ann Otto writes fiction based on factual as well as oral history. Her debut novel, Yours in a Hurry, about Ohioans relocating to California in the 1910’s, is available online at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and Kindle. Her academic background is in history, English, and behavioral science, and she has published in academic and professional journals.  She enjoys speaking with groups about all things history, writing, and the events, locations, and characters from Yours in a Hurry and her current projects, which include a novel about Ohio’s Appalachia in the 1920’s and a compilation of her father’s World War 2 letters. She blogs about history and writing and can be reached through the website, https://www.ann-otto.com/ , or at Facebook@Annottoauthor and www.Goodreads.com.