For your pleasure, Thom Stark answered a few questions about his book, May Day - Book One of American Sulla. He has also given us some insights into his writing process. Please join the Author Trap in welcoming another excellent author to our home page.
Q: How long did it take you to write with this book?
A: The first draft of May Day – Book One of American Sulla took me almost exactly 15 months to write. I spent another two months tightening and polishing, before I turned the manuscript over to my editor, Hilary Lauren, author of the excellent novel Killing Karl. Because she took on the editing task for free, it was about another two months before she was able to complete that task, and the book finally was ready for publication.
I’m currently at work on War – Book Two of American Sulla, and I expect to complete the first draft of it by the beginning of spring, 2015. I hope to finish writing Revolution, which will be Book Three, by the summer of 2016. Altogether, the three volumes of American Sulla will most likely run between 400,000 and half-a-million words, so it’s a pretty big project. I started writing May Day in March, 2012, so, if I can finish the whole novel in a mere four years, I think I’ll have done well.
Q: Did this project take a lot of research?
A: There’s a lot of real-world detail in American Sulla, and it’s critical to me not to violate the reader’s willing suspension of disbelief, so I spend, on average, three hours of research for every hour of actual writing. As an example, the chapter where the captain of the USS Alligator scans the sky from the bridge on top of his submarine’s “sail”, then makes his way down through the boat to the deck, where Lieutenant Young’s Marine recon squad lands in a helicopter, and he reads the five-paragraph order Young carries for him took me approximately three full days of research. I had to track down details on everything from the nightvision lenses he looks through (the actual model number I specify does not yet exist, but it’s right in keeping with that manufacturer’s nomenclature and update schedule) to the architecture of the Virginia class of fast-attack submarines, to the height of the sub’s fully-extended sensor array, to the designation for Marine reconnaissance units, to the structure of military OPORDs. (It turns out that there are usually a great many more than five paragraphs in a typical Operational Order, but the military still refers to them as five-paragraph orders, because they have five standard sections: Situation, Mission, Execution, Administration, and Logistics, and Command and Signal.) All that research went into just over 1,000 words of prose.
And don’t even get me started on the amount of work that went into the two chapters that take place in the Senate Chamber! Simply understanding Rule XXII of the Senate’s Rules and Procedures – which deals with the process for invoking what’s called “cloture” – took me nearly a full day, and I’m a fairly quick study. Then there were details like the layout of the dais, the pattern of the carpeting in the chamber, the design and construction of the gavel … all of which are merely mentioned in passing. It was really demanding, as was the chapter that takes place in the House Chamber, where Esau Piltch commits his unpardonable mistake, because C-SPAN addicts are undoubtedly familiar with every one of those minutiae.
But it was all worth it, if my readers – even those who are experts in the many, many different locales, technologies, customs, and accouterments that appear in the book –simply nod, go “uh-huh,” and just continue reading when a detail within their particular area of expertise comes up in the text. That goal justifies all the work I put into researching May Day, and it’s the reason I’m continuing to put in just as much research while writing War.
In fact, writing War is going to require even more study than did May Day, because of the the conflict with Pakistan. There’s so much I need to learn about everything from 21st century Navy weapons systems to Joint Special Operations Command procedures, to Pakistani military capabilities, to aerial and undersea combat before I can write those chapters convincingly. Frankly, the prospect is a little daunting.
Luckily, I enjoy learning new things, so I actually welcome the challenge.
Q: How long did it take you to write with this book?
A: The first draft of May Day – Book One of American Sulla took me almost exactly 15 months to write. I spent another two months tightening and polishing, before I turned the manuscript over to my editor, Hilary Lauren, author of the excellent novel Killing Karl. Because she took on the editing task for free, it was about another two months before she was able to complete that task, and the book finally was ready for publication.
I’m currently at work on War – Book Two of American Sulla, and I expect to complete the first draft of it by the beginning of spring, 2015. I hope to finish writing Revolution, which will be Book Three, by the summer of 2016. Altogether, the three volumes of American Sulla will most likely run between 400,000 and half-a-million words, so it’s a pretty big project. I started writing May Day in March, 2012, so, if I can finish the whole novel in a mere four years, I think I’ll have done well.
Q: Did this project take a lot of research?
A: There’s a lot of real-world detail in American Sulla, and it’s critical to me not to violate the reader’s willing suspension of disbelief, so I spend, on average, three hours of research for every hour of actual writing. As an example, the chapter where the captain of the USS Alligator scans the sky from the bridge on top of his submarine’s “sail”, then makes his way down through the boat to the deck, where Lieutenant Young’s Marine recon squad lands in a helicopter, and he reads the five-paragraph order Young carries for him took me approximately three full days of research. I had to track down details on everything from the nightvision lenses he looks through (the actual model number I specify does not yet exist, but it’s right in keeping with that manufacturer’s nomenclature and update schedule) to the architecture of the Virginia class of fast-attack submarines, to the height of the sub’s fully-extended sensor array, to the designation for Marine reconnaissance units, to the structure of military OPORDs. (It turns out that there are usually a great many more than five paragraphs in a typical Operational Order, but the military still refers to them as five-paragraph orders, because they have five standard sections: Situation, Mission, Execution, Administration, and Logistics, and Command and Signal.) All that research went into just over 1,000 words of prose.
And don’t even get me started on the amount of work that went into the two chapters that take place in the Senate Chamber! Simply understanding Rule XXII of the Senate’s Rules and Procedures – which deals with the process for invoking what’s called “cloture” – took me nearly a full day, and I’m a fairly quick study. Then there were details like the layout of the dais, the pattern of the carpeting in the chamber, the design and construction of the gavel … all of which are merely mentioned in passing. It was really demanding, as was the chapter that takes place in the House Chamber, where Esau Piltch commits his unpardonable mistake, because C-SPAN addicts are undoubtedly familiar with every one of those minutiae.
But it was all worth it, if my readers – even those who are experts in the many, many different locales, technologies, customs, and accouterments that appear in the book –simply nod, go “uh-huh,” and just continue reading when a detail within their particular area of expertise comes up in the text. That goal justifies all the work I put into researching May Day, and it’s the reason I’m continuing to put in just as much research while writing War.
In fact, writing War is going to require even more study than did May Day, because of the the conflict with Pakistan. There’s so much I need to learn about everything from 21st century Navy weapons systems to Joint Special Operations Command procedures, to Pakistani military capabilities, to aerial and undersea combat before I can write those chapters convincingly. Frankly, the prospect is a little daunting.
Luckily, I enjoy learning new things, so I actually welcome the challenge.
Read more of this interview and find out about our author Thom Stark here: http://thebooktrap.weebly.com/author-...