War stories are hard to write. The writing process itself can be hard on the author—spiritually and physically. We will cover that challenge in a future post. It can also be profoundly difficult to write these stories well, in terms of literary quality. It is challenging to write a war memoir in a way that the reader is fully absorbed, invested in the characters, and can’t put the book down.
“But my story is so gripping, so unbelievable, everyone says I should write a book, and it will be an immediate best seller.“ So many new others come to me with that sentiment.
War stories can be quite gripping when shared verbally in quick summary form. But the same stories become monotonous on the page. Why? Three hazards are especially prevalent in first-draft war stories:
- Too much action ironically results in a steady, predictable pace. Rather than increasing tension, these action scenes feel like “more of the same.”
- Wartime villains easily become “cardboard” and uninteresting.
- The goal of basic survival can become predictable too.
Essentially, these books bog down under the heaviness of the topic. Everything that made the actual experience all-consuming and relentlessly gripping at the time, can make the same story mercilessly repetitive on paper.
How to Address These Challenges
War and conflict memoirs need to rely on the same principles of good storytelling found in all solid memoirs. The author’s first priority: Find the deeper meaning of your story.
I’ve worked with war survivors, both civilian and combat who expressed a plain, simple truth: “There wasn’t any ‘meaning’ in my experience. I survived. That’s all I want to say.” Unfortunately, there is only a niche readership that reads war survival stories purely for the sake of reading about war.
Most literary memoir readers are highly selective regarding which war survival memoirs they read. To break into that broader literary readership, one must discover a deeper meaning. That meaning may not be clear to the writer until several years after the experience, and it might be related to:
- the heroic care of fellow soldiers
- surprising moments of beauty in the midst of horrors
- an unexpected journey toward forgiveness long after the war
Once the writer discovers this meaning, that theme becomes a thread that weaves through every scene. This is what hooks the reader. Readers don’t become emotionally invested in a book simply because something unbelievable is happening. Readers become emotionally invested when they connect deeply with a compelling protagonist.
It’s not the relentlessness of the action scenes that hold the reader to the page. It’s their concern about the author—the main character in the story. That investment in the author as main character comes from empathy and depth.
There is more to every war-survivor than brute (or lucky) survival alone. To capture and hold reader attention, the external story of the war must be interwoven with a refined inner story. This structural choice inherently creates variety in both pace (fast, reflective) and types of content (action, reflection).
That inner story might involve a longing that is never fulfilled. (That’s often the case.) Maybe the author survived the war, only to enter a deep depression afterwards. Maybe finally getting what they hoped for wasn’t great. Maybe they never got the peace and healing they longed for. Maybe the author actually prefers the purpose-driven nature of war over mundane civilian life.
Whatever really happened on a deeper, interior level, write that. What are you living now instead? How did hope revise itself?
Getting clear on one’s own “interior character arc” helps the author make strategic decisions about which action scenes to include in slow-time form and which passages might be summarized or left out. A strong interior story informs choices about which external scenes, which side-plots, and which supporting characters to include. Ultimately, it’s wise to craft slow-time description of action scenes that mean the most to the interior progression—either by moving that line forward or threatening it.