Okay, sorry if I misunderstood you earlier.

The lack of character development is part of a compromise I’ve had to make throughout the book. The novel is already 120,000 words; I’ve had an agent outright refuse to even look at it unless I removed at least 30,000 words. The average publisher won’t print anything from a new author that’s over 80,000 words. The maintenance company guys weren’t central to the story, so I only put what I felt I had to about their backgrounds.

Thanks for the insight, you’ve given me some important stuff to think about.

I actually don’t want you to go into the other territory at all – more so because the link I gave is not about what readers want but how they react (tvtropes is not about improvement, but observation – it also is a huge timesink so don’t get lost surfing there). The only lesson one can take from the article is that sometimes, to appear realistic, one has to tone down what one experienced: Real world examples include Dick Winters from “Band of Brothers”, whose real-world exploits were even more impressive than what the series showed.

My other point goes more like this: Since you do not flesh out any other character, the scenario seems to be built around the purpose of exposing bad leadership, which -to me- feels distracting from the actual story that is advancing here.

And yet the proof of that bad leadership, the loss of lives, is less tangible with all those faceless soldier lying around. In cinema, I’d probably say something like “don’t tell me, show me”. Now I would not recommend going as far King did in “The Stand”, dedicating a whole chapter to a character before killing them off (it works, it works well, but not on just 300 pages). Moorcock did a nice version in “Dorian Hawkmoon”, summing his battle up with small paragraphs starting with “How xxx died:”, giving a good summary of what is happening and why it matters, taking just a little more time than describing the scene itself takes. Note: Both are memories from books I read decades ago, I am working from faulty memory here.

Then again, maybe I care too much about scenario and characters and too little about the message. What you are writing is working out quite nicely, as I already said.

Tobias,

I didn’t develop those characters very much because they aren’t, in the big picture, very big or important characters. I pretty much just need the reader to know DeLeon is a nice guy but weak and inexperienced leader, and Olivares is a douchebag who thinks he knows everything.

I haven’t had time to read your link, but I’ve had the discussion about realism vs. what fiction readers actually want to read. One of my guiding principles has been, “I want any combat vet or street cop to read this and say, ‘yeah, this is real'”. Unfortunately, that doesn’t sell well. Ridiculous, nonsensical crap like the Jack Reacher series is hugely successful, realism isn’t. I wrote Proof of Our Resolve in as close to a totally realistic sense as I could, knowing that would turn off readers who want to read about 6’10” tall, 300-pounds-of-solid-muscle, ultra super ninja Special Forces assassins who kill millions of enemy with backflipping hatchet attacks. I spoke to a literary agent about this very subject recently; I told him that since I know the truth about combat, I would be insulting real combat vets if I wrote BS like that. He was a little surprised, but when I explained it he understood.

I realize you weren’t suggesting I go full unbelievable, and I appreciate the link. But I decided if the choice is between being a bestselling writer of unbelievable crap or being a relatively unknown writer of real soldiers’ stories, “I’ll take writing real soldiers’ stories for $100, Alex”. 🙂

Chris

That leads to my only criticism for this chapter, which is similar to what I wrote about the briefing earlier: Considering there are a lot of people being killed, we don’t get to know anything about them. It feels to me like their only point is to illustrate how despicable people like Olivares and DeLeon are (which, naturally, feels a bit preachy, but hell, I enjoy Heinlein and Correia, so I can stand preachy). You don’t have to make the other characters heroes or even smart, but give them some names and a short, but too late moment of bravery. For inspiration, read some Guy C. Kay or G.R.R. Martin, they know how to give minor characters a moment in the limelight to make a world feel alive. It works well with the guys in black (proving you do not need to do a Tarantino dialog about something unrelated to make characters come alive)

Besides that: Great pacing, good writing (better and better), crafty cliff-hanger. Definitely buying the book.

Thanks JR, I hope to have the book out before too long and hope you enjoy it.