Blake,
Thanks for posting your writing guidelines. I have filed them in a prominent
location for quick reference.
One suggested addition for military writers is to be clear with the use of
acronyms. I received the following comment from a reader of my novel Stay
Safe, Buddy.
"I enjoyed your book very much. My only criticism is your use of acronyms. A
reader without military experience cannot follow a lot of acronyms such as CO,
NCO, BAR, MC, AF, and so on. It detracts them from the story line. I also needed
to know how many men in a Squad, Company, Division and so on."
J. Charles Cheek
Bob,
All the more reason to write 10000 words! You must
have sent letters--kept notes--and how about pals??? Relatives must
remember something about what you said and did back then. Trace your
unit's movements. Start off that way... "We pulled out of the Pusan without Ray and
Joe..."
Blake Mooney
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Wednesday, September 10, 2003
2:32 PM
Subject: Re: Kunsan and Inchon
HAHAHA. Blake, I wrote a newspaper column for
14 years. Several years ago, I wrote a column for a sports tabloid. They
paid me a nickel a word. Often I would have to pepper it with "ands" "buts"
"howevers" and on the "on the other hands" to get it up to the required
length of 600 or 700 words.
Bob Dove
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Wednesday, September 10, 2003
1:13 PM
Subject: Re: Kunsan and Inchon
Bob,
That's a pretty good beginning of a novelette--about
10000 is all you need to add. Many great writers thought that the
novelette's length was more powerful than full-length novels as there is a
tendency--no--a need to "fill pages" with "restatements, paraphrases,
reiterations, and fantastic personal digressions, etc.," until the reader
was either dead or dying and didn't know it. The HUGE books written
by many writers today--often 900 pages!--are hack jobs. Their whole
story could be effectively told in a longish short story or novelette, but
BIG books pay more and there's the point. Since you have
experienced the actual war no one knows better how it feels to be chased
around a tree by a bear than the man who was chased around the tree by the
bear.
Try and do a quick rough draft of your most powerful
memories--ignore formats and "simple-minded" theories of
writing--tell it in the FIRST PERSON! Just
you and the bear! For helping you get
started, here are some of the most important principles most great
books follow: short stories to War & Peace tomes! All great
books seem structured around these first six points! These
are NOT associated with clever software programs that
"write" (via formulas) your story! The six are highlighted in
BOLD RED. The remaining
are important but NOT as critical as the first six!
For you information or concern, you and any other
veteran can use any aspect of this copyrighted material. I taught
writing for over 35 years at The New University School and this is
the structure (plot) line that over 90 percent of all great books
follow: "Red Badge of Courage," (Stephen Crane), "All Quiet on
the Western Front," Eric Remarque, and "For Whom the Bells Toll,"
(Ernest Hemingway). Just a few titles to keep all this simple and
direct. And please don't be misled by the following word,
"FICTIONAL." All the great books on war must always "leave the mind
of the lead character and "enter the mind of the secondary characters" via
speculations on the writer's part. Such projected and imagined
interior monologue(s) occur in all the other characters' minds!
That's the "fictional" part of all "true" stories.
A COHERENT LINE OF STRUCTURED PLOT DEVELOPMENT
How to Plot a Fictional Story
Blake Mooney©
New University School
New Orleans, LA
1963
1. Quickly establish a sympathetic lead
character from whose point of view the story is told.
2. Immediately confront lead with urgent
and vitally important problem which he must but cannot
solve.
3. Detail lead's efforts to come to grips
with problem.
4. Introduce series of rising
complications, based upon the successive dynamic of struggle and failure,
which act to take narrative forward.
5. A point of absolute crisis, the 11th
hour, where all looks bleakest, must show lead about to rally or
fail.
6. Finally, full resolution is reached
where lead satisfyingly solves original problem and effects lasting and
meaningful change on his personal life and his entire set of future
consequences. If lead fails to solve original problem lead must arrive at
a state of enlightened resignation. In either case, lead must have been
tested to the utmost before coming through or failing.
7. Lead must be focus of book throughout.
8. Lead can be either protagonist or antagonist.
9. Do not switch point-of-view from lead.
10. Avoid all non-individuated characters.
11. Avoid episodic development of story material.
12. Avoid indirect development of all characters.
13. Establish distinct motivation for all characters.
14. Establish absolute clarity and conviction to all encounters.
15. Do not improvise, wander, digress, detract, deviate, roam, zigzag,
stray, or in any way indicate writer's fatigue by flying off at a tangent
with the plot.
16. Maintain sense of proportion throughout story. Use of similes
(Like ancient trees, we die from the top), metaphors (the
spring of our life), and anecdotes (word comes from Greek meaning
"things unpublished" and are little asides or stories within the main
story line) should always be avoided if they are longer than two
lines.
NOTE: Unless specific approval to quote or copy
any part of this copyrighted document is given by the above author, any
copying or duplicating by any means will be treated as an infringement
upon the author’s copyright. Full credit must be given, if approval to
quote any or all of this document is approved. Blake Mooney©
—END—
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Wednesday, September 10, 2003
11:59 AM
Subject: Kunsan and Inchon
By this time, Sept. 10, 1950,
my company was well on its way toward the invasion feint we pulled off
at Kunsan on Sept. 13. And Maines, Clance, and Puttin had only three
days left to live.
I wish I could remember the
date we set sail from Yokohama on the British frigate Whitesand Bay. We
had to sail all the way around Japan to get to the west coast of Korea.
The trip had to take four or five days.
The next time I go to war I am
going to write some of that sort of stuff down.
Bob Dove
1st Raider Co.
Korea 1950
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Wednesday, September 10,
2003 11:18 AM
Subject: The CIB and its
worth
For those of us who have the award of the
CIB and it was issued in 1950 or so, I found out that a badge from
that time sells for around $35.00.
It is because the old ones
from WW II and Korea are solid sterling silver and the later issues
are I think 1/20 sterling, there for are only worth a few bucks to
collectors.
Collectors of military items are hot after the old
badges for their collections, so hang on to yours if it is from the
time of WW II and or Korea.
I still have the one issued to me
on 7 March 1951 and is worth more to me for what I went through,
then to sell it for a few bucks.
John
Sonley Korea 1951
Stay safe, buddy.
J. Charles
Cheek (John)
Author of
"Stay Safe, Buddy"
A Novel about
Humor & Horror during the Korean
War
www.authorsden.com/jcharlescheek
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