Military Thriller - Realism versus Readers

rgroberts

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Is anyone else working on a military thriller? I've just finished what I hope is my final edit and am about to start marketing a manuscript, but I'd love to bounce ideas off of anyone else in the same boat. One of my specific challenges is how to de-Navyify enough of my story to make it make sense for people who have never served. (I spent 10 years in the Navy, and although I've been a "normal" person for 3.5 years now, some things just don't leave you.) I also wonder sometimes if I'm putting in too much detail and dialogue that would exist in these situations but might bore readers.

How do you balance realism and repetition? For example, a lot of orders in the Navy get "repeatbacks," where the person receiving the order repeats it back to affirm it's the correct one. This is realistic, and it would sound wrong to me without it, but am I going to bore people out of their minds?

I've tried to limit my number of infodumps on technology and ships (though I know some folks in the genre love that stuff, it bores me as a reader, so I hate writing it), but how much is too much? How much is not enough? I've read a lot in the genre, even if it isn't my genre of choice, but some of it is so awful and unrealistic that I want to throw a book across the room instead of finishing it. Some of it is super correct and terribly written. Where is the happy medium?
 

onesecondglance

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Hi rgroberts,

a lot of those issues are the same ones SF and fantasy writers have - it boils down to how much detail to include to properly portray a world the reader is unfamiliar with.

The answer there, unfortunately, is "however much the reader needs to know". This really is an artistic decision in your hands, and how well you do it can be make or break for the reader, so yeah, I understand your pain.

What I would say is that readers of speculative fiction *want* to be immersed in other worlds. They want that unfamiliarity. Partly it's escapist, and partly its because trying to make sense of someone else's perspective can help you get a better grip on your own. I'm not a military fiction reader or writer, but I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of that translates across. So I would definitely not "de-Navify" your story too much, and certainly not to the extent that it could have been written by a civilian.

"Info dump" is a pejorative term, meaning "a boring screed of information or exposition", so you should have zero info dumps. You can have screeds of info or exposition, as long as they're not boring! So if you think what you've written is boring, either cut it or make it more interesting. A technique SF&F writers use it to weave information into the story as they go along, rather than dumping it all in one place. Tell me a couple of relevant details here and there where it would improve my understanding of what's going on, but don't give me a technical manual, and don't kill the pace.

The trick is to provide the "feel" of a different culture without going overboard (boat puns ftw). To take your example of repeating back orders - show it a couple of times to establish its presence and its normality, but after that reduce it or leave it out. You could just say "He repeated the order as usual" or similar, and eventually the reader will understand it's implied without you needing to spell it out.

It's like teaching someone to drive. There are a ton of small things you need to tell a new driver about initially, but once they're familiar and comfortable those small things become invisible.

Here's the fun part. Once you've established some of these smaller details, you can play with them to show character - e.g. the way a character does the repeatback might show that maybe they might disagree with the order, or the tone of their voice might betray their fear, enthusiasm, etc. But for this to be effective, you have to provide the reader with the knowledge up front that this reaction isn't normal.

This is where the real art lies with worldbuilding, using the details of a world - be it a fantastic one, or just a different life than the reader knows - to add layers of meaning. You know stuff from your ten years service that it takes ten years' service to understand; stuff that requires a ton of context and prior knowledge to grasp what it means and why it's important. So give your readers a crash course. Give them that context and knowledge gradually, build on that, and then reward their attention with details that make use of that context.

Hope this helps!
 

cbenoi1

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How do you balance realism and repetition? For example, a lot of orders in the Navy get "repeatbacks," where the person receiving the order repeats it back to affirm it's the correct one. This is realistic, and it would sound wrong to me without it, but am I going to bore people out of their minds?

Do your characters go to the bathroom? I'm sure they do. You just never write about that unless something really bad happens when they go pee. See, a story is a piece of life with the boring parts taken out. You have to decide which parts are 'standard' and which ones are deviations from the standard and make those important. A repeatback is normal. Comes a point people get it. Orders are the rhythm of a Navy ship and repeatbacks become vague echoes riding down the bulkheads like wavelets hitting a beach. But a one second delay in a repeatback means hesitation, such as when the XO's mind goes "Really? Oh. Shit." then snaps back to military protocol. THAT's worth writing about.

-cb
 
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ShouldBeWriting

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Have you had beta readers look it over? Especially non-military betas? That's really your best bet for finding out what's too much and what's good enough.

Great advice! I worked at length with a law enforcement officer on a pivotal scene in my book to make sure I got every detail exactly right and that events would unfold in a realistic way. After he signed off on the scene, I got input from two readers, both agreeing the events depicted were unbelievable.
 

rgroberts

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Thank you all for the great advice! It's terribly gratifying to know that I'm thinking along the same lines most of you are advising I go. Although the Navy is my jam, this isn't my usual genre (I'm more of a fantasy girl at heart), so I wanted a sanity check.

What I would say is that readers of speculative fiction *want* to be immersed in other worlds. They want that unfamiliarity. Partly it's escapist, and partly its because trying to make sense of someone else's perspective can help you get a better grip on your own. I'm not a military fiction reader or writer, but I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of that translates across. So I would definitely not "de-Navify" your story too much, and certainly not to the extent that it could have been written by a civilian.

"Info dump" is a pejorative term, meaning "a boring screed of information or exposition", so you should have zero info dumps. You can have screeds of info or exposition, as long as they're not boring! So if you think what you've written is boring, either cut it or make it more interesting. A technique SF&F writers use it to weave information into the story as they go along, rather than dumping it all in one place. Tell me a couple of relevant details here and there where it would improve my understanding of what's going on, but don't give me a technical manual, and don't kill the pace.

The trick is to provide the "feel" of a different culture without going overboard (boat puns ftw). To take your example of repeating back orders - show it a couple of times to establish its presence and its normality, but after that reduce it or leave it out. You could just say "He repeated the order as usual" or similar, and eventually the reader will understand it's implied without you needing to spell it out.

This is a fantastic point, and thank you for making it. I lived in the Navy world for so long that I think of it as "normal" - for me, writing in this genre is so much less work than fantasy since I don't have to world build! (Leaving aside the fact that it's about 20 years in the future, so I have to extrapolate technology, but that's fairly straightforward compared to building an entire world.) I hadn't really thought about how people want to be immersed in the world; I just have to make sure I translate it enough so a layman can understand. I think I've done that, but I once I started worrying...well, you guys probably know how that goes.

I think your definition of info dump is a lot different than mine...I've always thought of even the pertinent and interesting descriptions as "info dumps," so it's nice to see that you can provide that kind of information within the plot without it being considered too much. I've tried to keep it only where relevant and to slim it down to the minimum that people need, so hopefully I'm okay. I hate reading tech manuals (both in the Navy and in my current job) so the likelihood of me writing one is astonishingly slim.

Do your characters go to the bathroom? I'm sure they do. You just never write about that unless something really bad happens when they go pee. See, a story is a piece of life with the boring parts taken out. You have to decide which parts are 'standard' and which ones are deviations from the standard and make those important. A repeatback is normal. Comes a point people get it. Orders are the rhythm of a Navy ship and repeatbacks become vague echoes riding down the bulkheads like wavelets hitting a beach. But a one second delay in a repeatback means hesitation, such as when the XO's mind goes "Really? Oh. Shit." then snaps back to military protocol. THAT's worth writing about.

-cb

This is an interesting way of looking at it. For me, it yanks me more out of the story to say that someone repeated something more than just having the words in there. I let it fade into the background sometimes, but others it feels more natural just to leave it in. I'm going to have to think on this one - thank you!

Have you had beta readers look it over? Especially non-military betas? That's really your best bet for finding out what's too much and what's good enough.

I have, and they've been okay with it so far. Not a one of them has been in the service, and they seem to agree that the flow works. I may be overthinking this one... :)