Tactical Writing, Hands-On Realism
When I read reviews of my books, one of the things that I am most proud of are the comments from people who know a place, a method, a system, a weapon and who mention that I have captured the correct look, feel and emotions associated with them.
The best way I know how to accomplish that is to lay hands (eyes, mind, feet) on what I write about so that I know how it feels, looks, smells, moves, reacts and affects my characters, their thoughts, emotions and their environments
There is no way to know that a Barrett .50-caliber sniper rifle kicks like a 12-gauge magnum-load slug without shooting those weapons.
And no way to describe the process of zeroing a scope, or settling down for a 300-yard shot without doing that myself over and over again so that all of the details are so firmly implanted that I become the character, there at that time. 300-yards is the longest at my local range. (Obviously I needed to extrapolate for Mira Longbow’s awesome shots in Die By Wire.)
I wrote about the need for good description last week (THE BIG MISTAKE IN MY HATED NEW THRILLER: FORGETTING TO SHOW, NOT TELL) and how it has made finishing the current book very hard to write and to finish.
I describe things — show them — best when I can visually set myself into the scene. It’s almost like an induced, conscious hallucination where I am not writing fiction so much as describing a reality I have stepped into.
But, in the process of research, I have to leave a lot of interesting facts and situations on the cutting room floor. It’s a waste, so I’ve started a way to use some of that information without boring readers with too much detail.
That new method is Tactical Trekker where I can spin off the research that doesn’t make it into the current book.
Tactical Trekker also serves as a sort of digital library to store details for a future book.
I plan to develop it from a blog into a full-fledged digital publication. I did that latter with Wine Industry Insight which also started as a simple blog and then developed into a major wine industry site that publishes the largest circulation daily news update in North America.
