A quick note ...

I have finally completed "As Angels Weep" - book 4 of The Juno Letters series. Now the task of publishing rears its ugly head ... or spine, depending on your preference of format. Look for an announcement of the published product by the end of the month.

I have begun to write Book 5, and have outlined a basic story. The tentative title is "The Scavengers" (aka, The Market Lady). There has always been a lot of speculation that General George Patton was assassinated - conspiracy theorists love that one. But did you know there was a plot to assassinate him right before D-Day? No? Can't find it in the history books? Maybe because you will only find it here, at The Juno Letters! More to come.

Wish I Was Here - a film by Zach Braff

The Indie movement needs to support its own, and we have a great opportunity to send a clear message to the status quo in the movie industry. Zach Braff has produced and directed a crowd-funded movie called "Wish I Was Here" - a comedy drama. In the great tradition of Star Wars, Jaws, and Star Trek the studio executives rejected the movie. It took a crowd-funding effort to raise the $2M to begin the project - a feat accomplished in only 48 hours.

Regardless of its eventual commercial success, "Wish I Was Here" sends a message to the film and publishing establishments - your business models are broken. The power is shifting to the creative people, and you'd better change or ... . Well, maybe that's a little too "social media" but you get the point.

Go see it when it hits the move theaters and celebrate a victory of Indie over The Black Death. (I may have had too much coffee this morning.)

More information online at: Wish I Was Here

Meet Three Angels - As Angels Weep

Book 4 of The Juno Letters series is "As Angels Weep" - inspired by this photograph taken in the 1930s. It is the story of the Kindertransport - the effort by people of conscience throughout Europe who worked to save its children:

Throughout Nazi-occupied Europe, amidst tyranny and terror, common people gathered around their kitchen tables and plotted treason. It was a crime against the state to save a life.

"As Angels Weep" is the story of just three of the survivors hidden during the Holocaust by these quiet heroes. They remain mostly anonymous. We can never know how many there were. We can never know their names. We must be content to know they existed, and stood against a great evil ... alone and resolute.

I used these three girls as the heroines of the story - and their picture gave me inspiration through the tough times, fighting writer's block, juggling story pieces, thinking "why am I doing this?" and finally finishing the first draft, and going into editing.

Look for "As Angels Weep" - Book 4 of The Juno Letters in August.

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Interested in trying an AUDIO Book? A limited number of free audio book coupons for The Juno Letters - Book 1 and Cross of Fire - Book 2 are available from AUDIOBOOKS.COM, an Amazon company ... email me at larryh@hewittmbm.com for information and the FREE COUPON.

D-Day 70 years ago

Seventy years ago today in the greatest amphibious assault in history the forces of freedom stormed the beaches of Normandy to liberate western Europe. As a student of history, I studied D-Day from nearly every angle, but nothing prepared me for what I felt as I dug my hands into the sands of Omaha and Juno beaches, and peered over the cliffs at Point du Hoc. I stood in the German command bunker overlooking the approaches to Courseulles harbor and imagined what the young German officer in charge would have seen - staring into the face of a sea of ships.

Men died on the beaches, in the flooded fields, and in the hedgerows. French civilians died in the bombardments, from the shells of tanks, the assault of infantry. By the end of the day, Allied forces carved out a thin foothold on the continent. The communes at Courseulles and Berniers were among the first to be liberated. The film of the Canadians landing at Berniers is one of the iconic images of this, the longest day.

I wrote The Juno Letters to commemorate the sacrifices of all who faced that terrible morning. It is a small effort, insignificant in the scheme of things. When I think of what these men faced, I am humbled beyond words.

I had planned to be there today, but one of my foster boys graduates from high school today. I have to be content to know that The Juno Letters books are there in the museum bookstore, and my heart is standing with all those who served on the beaches in spirit.

God bless you.

The Story Draft

How do you write?

On Linkedin there are several writers' groups that share ideas regularly. One of the ongoing discussions is about methodology - how writers craft a story, whether they write to a conclusion or let the conclusion flow from the creative aspect. As you can imagine, there are many different styles. Some are notorious outliners, and plan every detail before they begin. Others rely on more fluid process, and let the story "talk to them."

I am definitely a free-writer - thanks to a class I took years ago at Evergreen College from Peter Elbow, one of the country's sage authors and professors of writing. I write in what I call "snippets" - disconnected pieces of stories within a general theme. And the word "general" is used very loosely.

But you cannot write a novel this way. At some point you have to begin the process of assembling all these ideas and fitting them together. This is where I use my "Story Draft." The Story Draft is a spreadsheet that serves as an outline that I make when I have completed about 2/3 of the initial writing - but it is much more than that.

Each of my snippets is numbered by chapter and section, and the spreadsheet lists the number of words in each. In "As Angels Weep" - book 4 of The Juno Letters - I have five parallel stories that follow the lives of three girls who have escaped from Berlin, a Gestapo captain consumed with finding them, and the investigator seeking to locate the girls as women in the present day. Each of these separate stories were included in a single chapter initially and written pretty much from start to finish - by sections. The completed book, however, would be difficult to follow that way. That is where the number comes into play.

My story draft comes together when I take my snippet listings and rearrange them in the logical sections and breaks which become the final chapters. The numbering lets me easily find them in the initial manuscript and allows me to move sections around easily - renumbering as I go. The word numbering allows me to keep the groups of sections balanced so I don't inadvertently skew the narrative one way or another. I also color code certain relevant sub-ideas so I can make summaries of such things as sections primarily dialog, narrative, girl 1 story, back story, etc. I can tell at a glance where I have to make improvements.

When the first story draft is completed, I print the document and do editing manually - often moving sections around. It is very easy to simply make a note - "Insert 10.3 before 12.6" - for example. It also shows me where I need to cut or add narrative to achieve the balance I am after.

I am about halfway through the story draft of "As Angels Weep" and discovered that I have overwritten one girl's story and left out some important parts of the "back story" - the present day narrative. The spreadsheet view shows these anomalies clearly.

Historical Fiction - Finding Stories With the Story

History is the story of mankind - the dynamics of the lives of all people, big and small. The author of historical fiction writes against a background of known facts, timelines, people, and places yet somehow must find that unique story, that untold perspective that keeps readers engaged. For many, the historical novel is the only history they have ever read since leaving school.

Our writing shapes their views of current events, modifies their understanding of the past, and shapes their reactions to events yet to come. That reality brings with it an intellectual challenge - how to be true to history yet write a story that is purely fiction. I resolve that dilemma by following two rules:

RULE 1 - Do your homework. The setting of my novels are meticulously researched. I document my background story as if I were writing a thesis for submission for my doctorate degree. I even include citations where necessary.

RULE 2 - Find a story within the story and make it your own. I search out small stories of people and places that are generally known but for which little detailed documentation exists. I then insert my characters as actors within that story. The result is a blending of fact and fiction that at times can confound even hard core historians.

Here is an example from Chapter 12 of The Juno Letters, Book 1 of my series of the same name. You can download the actual story at the links below.

The German civilian construction organization Todt built the Atlantik Wall - the line of fortifications that stretched from Norway to Spain to keep the Allies out of Fortress Europe in 1944. A member of a French resistance cell posed as a painter and bid on a wallpapering job at Todt headquarters in Caen and stole a map of the fortifications. The map was passed to a high level French resistance operative known as Colonel Remy. It was then smuggled by boat out of a tiny port called Pont-Aven on the Brittany coast. All this is generally well known (although this is one of two versions of the event - the more interesting one).

I place my main character, Antoine Bouchard, in Pont-Aven. He then becomes the person that smuggles Remy to England, and initiates a chain of events that leads to his fateful role in the invasion of Juno Beach on D-Day - all fiction ... but entirely plausible.

Anyone checking my facts will find it hard to determine where the line between fact and fiction lies, and therein lies the key to a good story. That credibility makes my story’s D-Day climax - another story within the story - all the more realistic.

I always tell my readers that the basic elements of my novels are fiction, but I know from their feedback they don’t believe me. That is perhaps the best review of all. Good writing.

You can read this story within the story - Chapter 12, The Juno Letters; junoletters.com by downloading a free copy just for reading this post at: junoletters.com/bookcard.php

The Kindle version is published by California Times Publishing and available through Amazon. All other versions are available at junoletters.com/bookshelf.php including paperback and audio.

#writers #L.W. Hewitt #historical fiction #how to #story within a story

Signing with a Publishing Company

TodToday I signed a contract with California Times Publishing, a new book publishing company that supports the independent writing community. Like many writers, I lose a lot of creative time when I have to promote my books, so it is helpful to partner with others to achieve our mutual goals. Sure, you give up some degree of control, but no venture is ever successful doing everything by oneself. I look forward to seeing how this works out. Another chapter, another set of good stories, another adventure. What a job!