Mar 135 minWhen Being Right is WrongBy David Flin You expect fiction to make adjustments to historical accuracy because “everyone knows” something different. In an earlier article, reference wa...
Mar 64 minBig Historian, Little Historian.By David Flin Writing an Alternate History story involves picking a viewpoint. You can use different viewpoints, but generally, they are either looking at th...
Jan 184 minThe Write Stuff: Moral red lines By David Flin I confess that this particular article has been inspired by my recent reading of half of a book. It was one of those “realistic” books, where t...
Jan 136 minGoing Over The Top: Hail the Conquering Heroes. Some of them, anywayBy David Flin Charles Lewis was glad to be home. He’d been one of the 380,000 black soldiers who had served in the US Army during the First World War, and now...
Jan 124 minThe Write Stuff: Plot-convenient Villains and Sidekicks. By David Flin We’ve all seen it. The plot requires something to happen, and the villain or a sidekick duly obliges with the necessary actions to bring it abo...
Jan 65 minGoing Over The Top: Cry Havoc, and let slip the Pigeons of WarBy David Flin Of the seven American aviators who won the Croix de Guerre in the First World War, six were human. In the Smithsonian Museum in Washington DC, ...
Jan 53 minVignette Sunday - The Long WaitBy David Flin On the Sea Lion Press Forums, we run a monthly Vignette Challenge. Contributors are invited to write vignettes on a specific theme (changed mo...
Dec 30, 20196 minGoing Over The Top: Live and Let LiveBy David Flin Everyone knows about the Christmas Truce. This was not an isolated incident, although it is the best known. At the start of the war, armies mov...
Dec 29, 20194 minThe Write Stuff: The gentle art of killingBy David Flin In the last article in this series, I wrote about the need to be prepared to kill off characters if the plot and tone require it. In this artic...
Dec 23, 20197 minGoing Over The Top: Whizz-bangs, Mills bombs, and artillery. It was a Silent Night By David Flin It’s perhaps the single best-known incident from the First World War. The unofficial Christmas Day truce of 1914 where soldiers of both sides t...
Dec 16, 20195 minThe Write Stuff: Playing Poker with Your ReadersBy David Flin There are people who believe that poker is just a matter of bluff, and that there’s no real skill involved. I like playing poker with such peop...
Dec 15, 20195 minThe Write Stuff: Character or Cuddly Toy?By David Flin Sergeant Rock McHardman, a combat veteran of 26 action adventure novels without any redeeming features, looked down into the valley at the Hord...
Dec 9, 20196 minGoing Over The Top: ConscientiousBy David Flin In the TV sitcom Dad’s Army, it is revealed that Private Godfrey had been a Conscientious Objector during the First World War, and the characte...
Dec 5, 20193 minBut Won't The Other Side Notice?By David Flin “So, if from 1933, Nazi Germany starts building up its surface fleet, with aircraft carriers, and building lots of landing craft. That means it...
Dec 2, 20195 minGoing Over The Top: Ersatz cooking - German food shortages during WWIBy David Flin Descriptions of the First World War generally revolve around the Western Front, with a few excursions into fighting on the other fronts. The Ba...
Dec 1, 20196 minThe Write Stuff: The best laid schemes o’ mice an’ men By David Flin How many times have you seen it? The villains come up with a scheme that has more holes than Swiss cheese, or they ignore the most basic precau...
Nov 25, 20195 minGoing Over The Top: Shot at DawnBy David Flin I could not look on Death, which being known Men led me to him, blindfold and alone. Kipling: Epitaphs of War. The Coward. Amid the carnage of ...
Nov 18, 20198 minThe Write Stuff: Character and SupercharacterBy David Flin George MacDonald Fraser caught the tone exactly right in The Pyrates, when describing Ben Avery. “The sight of him was enough to make ordinary ...
Nov 11, 20196 minGoing Over The Top: Things that go bump in the night By David Flin No doubt they’ll soon get well; the shock and the strain Have caused their stammering, disconnected talk. Of course they’re ‘longing to go out ...
Nov 4, 20194 minThe Write Stuff - A concept is not a plot By David Flin I’ve come across several people who have “an idea for a story” for me. They then proceed to give me a quick outline of a passing thought. I’ve ...
