Total War

June 29, 2016June 28, 2016 ~ Meg ~ 19 Comments

More of my research on World War One – by Meg Sorick

“Wisdom is an arrow seldom used in the quiver of government.” -Historian Barbara Tuchman

The First World War was a ‘total’ war in the sense that the civilian populations and the entire economies of the warring nations were fully mobilized to support the effort. No longer was the conflict limited to fighting between professional armies. Rather an entire generation of young men was conscripted to join the decimated troops on the frontline. It was a war of attrition, slow and deadly. The armies dug in and slaughtered each other with little ground gained or goals achieved. The Battle of the Somme in 1916 is an example.

The battle, an offensive staged by a combined British and French force, began in July and lasted five months. On the first day alone, the British lost 57,000 men. When all was said and done, the British and French had advanced about 6 miles (9.7 km) on the Somme, on a front of 16 miles (26 km) at a cost of 419,654 British and 202,567 French casualties, against 465,181 German casualties. Lloyd George called it, “the most gigantic, tenacious, grim, futile and bloody fights ever waged in the history of the war.”

And so it was until it was supplanted by an even more horrific battle the following year. In July of 1917 the assault began on the village of Passchendale in the Ypres Salient. General Douglas Haig, commander of the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) was confident he could take the village in a matter of hours by simultaneously attacking German positions. But the reality of the situation was that rains had turned Flanders into a muddy mire and thousands of men were quickly bogged down. They became sitting ducks for the German guns and died from a combination of wounds and the diseases that festered in the muck they were forced to fight and live in. At the end, Canadian forces eventually prevailed but at the cost of a quarter million British soldiers. And for what? No German communication lines had been cut and the army’s morale was in tatters.

The Joy of Research

June 1, 2016May 31, 2016 ~ Meg ~ 54 Comments

One of the most important things a writer must do besides actually write a story is to do research. Nothing can ruin a book, short story or non-fiction/opinion piece more than messing up on the details. A lazy researcher makes for a mediocre writer.

As I research my current project, a story that crosses time to the era during and around The Great War and its aftermath, I’ve been burying myself in books and articles about the battles, troop movements, the commanders, the subsequent Spanish Flu pandemic. I’m perusing books of photography, reading collections of wartime poetry and even collections of letters sent home from the different theaters of war. All of this material will give me a better grip on what the people of that era were enduring as they lived through those monumental times.

Granted, writing a story out of time and in such complex conditions requires a great deal of research and quite frankly, I might be going overboard with it. But here’s the thing… I am profoundly interested in The Great War, and therefore, the research is a joy, not a burden. When the book is finished, the characters that I create will accurately portray the attitudes and experiences of the people of that period.

It follows then that good writing, dependent on good research, naturally emanates from an author who writes about a subject, in a genre, during a time period that he or she is extremely interested in. Writers set themselves up for failure when they choose to write something they wouldn’t read themselves.

Before I go on, I must say that I’m not advocating limiting yourself to just one style of writing. For example, nothing says a romance writer can’t write science fiction. Or a science fiction writer can’t author a noir thriller. It’s important to test and stretch your writing skills, get out of your comfort zone. But, you have to love it! You can get into trouble if you choose to write something with which you don’t relate or in which you have no interest. Why would a writer do that?

Trends in fiction or pop culture can have an impact on what you choose to write about. If you feel compelled to follow those trends, maybe even for perceived financial reasons, the result will be a body of work that is not backed by your enthusiasm, your fascination and your love for the words you have penned. The research will be a drudgery, and likely will lack the scope and depth necessary to give the bones of the book flesh and blood. Without your passion fueling it, the project may bog down and never be completed. That, my friends, is a waste of your precious time. The question is how much and what type of research should you do?

As an overview, here are some items that may need to be researched for your story and/or book.

Time and space/place – if writing in a period of history, a geographical location you are not familiar with, or both, extensive research will be needed to create the landscape, set the scene and the mood for the story.

Weather/climate – get your seasons straight! Related to place/space, weather for the locale should be appropriate for the seasons. It will determine what clothing your characters will wear, have an impact on their activities, driving conditions and so forth.

And speaking of driving conditions… what sort of transportation is common in the place where your story is set? Make sure buses, trains and subways actually provide service to that city. Is there an airport? Do flights really connect to the places where your characters travel? Does everyone depend on automobiles for transportation? If so, on what side of the road do they drive? Where does the driver sit?

Regarding characters:

What is their race/ethnicity? Is it the same as yours? If not, don’t make assumptions, or worse, write cliches and stereotypes. There are resources for writing a character of a different ethnic background online. Even better, interview a friend or coworker and get first-hand knowledge.

Even within a country there may be great regional differences. Language or dialects, religion, socioeconomic conditions can vary widely within a large nation.

Employment – don’t give your characters a job you know nothing about. Alternatively, make sure you have access to someone in their particular field that you can ask questions and from whom you can get detailed feedback.

Age – an older writer may have trouble relating to the experiences of a modern day child/teen/young adult, unless of course, they have children that age. Additionally, a young writer will not know what it feels like to be an old person. Ask parents, grandparents, older neighbors and friends.

Even habits like smoking, drinking, gambling… or exercise regimens like running, weight lifting, or sports like golf or tennis might need to be researched to get the terminology correct.

That is by no means an exhaustive list but it may give you an idea of the details that, even if they are not directly included in the narrative of your story, will give it the sound and feel it needs to be authentic and entertaining. I hope this demonstrates how being fascinated by your subject matter will make research a joy and not a burden!

The Spanish Flu of 1918- Research Discoveries

May 25, 2016May 25, 2016 ~ Meg ~ 54 Comments

I’ve been researching for my story Here Lies a Soldier by reading as much as I reasonably can about the time period. Honestly, too much and I’d be ready to jump off a bridge… One part of the story involves The Spanish Flu Epidemic –albeit ever so peripherally– and I wanted to educate myself on the plague that killed some 50 million people worldwide in 1918, more than 10 times the number killed by The Great War.

Rather than ‘reinvent the wheel,’ pulling tidbits and random facts from all over the place, I am in the process of reading a book about the flu: Living With Enza -The Forgotten Story Of Britain and the Great Flu Pandemic Of 1918.

Thusly, the information I am going to share with you has been taken from this work. The author —Mark Honigsbaum— has compiled and sifted through a huge amount of data to write this book. Here are some of the things I found interesting and frankly, horrifying.

Some facts about influenza:

The term influenza most likely derives from the Italian phrase ‘influenzi coeli’ meaning ‘influence of the heavens.’ By the mid 18th century it was more common to hear the term, ‘influenzi di freddo’ or influence of the cold. It was in this sense that the term entered the English language in 1743.

Influenza viruses spread aerially, usually in small droplets expelled when someone coughs or sneezes, and tend to be more stable in cool dry conditions. Researchers have also discovered that at around 5 degrees C (41 degrees Fahrenheit) the virus transmits for about 2 days longer than at 20 degrees. A popular (and morbid) children’s rhyme of the time may actually be spot on. It goes like this:

I had a little bird
Its name was Enza
I opened the window
And in-flu-enza

The Spanish Flu in particular:

The Spanish Flu was so virulent because of its genetic makeup. There are 3 types of influenza viruses: A, B, and C. The B type produces classic winter flu while the C type rarely causes disease in humans. The A type, however, is the one responsible for the great pandemics of history. Because viruses are not cells, they do not have DNA to organize their replication. Rather, they use 8 delicate strands of RNA which codes for proteins and enzymes on the surface of the virus. Trouble arises during replication because the RNA cannot copy perfectly. Errors called ‘antigenic drift’ occur when the avian or swine strain of the virus is exchanging genes with the human host. The result is a new subtype of the virus. Then once inside the new host, the 8 strands of RNA randomly shuffle, generating an entirely new virus for which the human immune system has no antibodies. With no defense, the virus can spread like a wild-fire.

The rate of mortality fell disproportionally on young adults, usually the least vulnerable of a population. The 1918 flu struck suddenly and without warning. One moment a person was up and about, the next day they would be lying incapacitated, coughing up greenish-yellow sputum. The final stage came when their lungs filled with fluid, prompting the heart to leach oxygen from the head and feet, resulting in a dark purple staining across the lips and cheeks of the victim.

Possible contributing factors:

The effects of gas attacks during the war. Gasses like phosgene and chlorine were not only capable of disabling and killing on contact, they also acted as soil contaminants denying valuable ground to the enemy. In all, it is estimated that some 150,000 tons of poison gasses – the equivalent of a modern day supertanker – were dumped on the killing fields of Flanders and Northern France during the last 2 years of the war, saturating the soil to the point where it became impossible for attacking troops to hold territory without large numbers of men having to retreat to field hospitals with suppurating blisters, damaged lungs, and eyes.

The most mutagenic of all gasses – mustard gas – 12,000 tons of which was dumped on the Western Front in 1917, accounted for 400,000 casualties. According to John Oxford, Professor of virology at Queen Mary’s Medical School of London and military historian Douglas Gill: these agents may have prompted ‘stepwise mutational changes’ in the influenza virus. And in combination with the bitterly cold conditions that prevailed at the Western Front in the winter of 1917, and the stresses and strains of war, it is possible such contaminants would have lowered men’s resistance to the flu.

That is a lot of information and I’m only part way into this fascinating book. If this subject interests you at all, I recommend reading it. As I continue my research, I’ll share some more of what I learn along the way. Or if you think this is terribly boring, let me know in the comments!