Writing WW2 fiction - without demonizing

 

Writing historical war fiction has challenges that too many writers unknowingly stumble over. Otherwise good writing falls victim to a couple of issues:

• Writing historically accurate fiction without demonizing today's culture for the brutalities of the past.
• Creating believable characters without sounding like a 1940s B grade movie. 
• Check out Noelle Salazar's writing for this one. Though set in WWII, conversations sounded natural and issues felt current and relevant in Salazar's The Flight Girls. 
• Two other WW2 fiction books made my DNF (Did Not Finish) list in part because the language sounded like an old movie on AMC. Don't get me wrong. I love old movies, but writing a novel today that sounds like it came from my One-Act Plays class in high school has at least two problems:
• It doesn't resonate with today's reader.
• Nobody talked that way, anyway. Seriously, did your grandmother once utter, "Cliff, darling, would you be a dear and call the girls for dinner?" 

But the bigger part is the first point: historically accurate fiction that doesn't demonize another culture, even if what happened was unbelievably brutal.

Remembering the past helps assure that history doesn't repeat itself. Although it does seem to be repeating itself in some ways politically, but I digress. We're talking about not exacerbating prejudices in the name of historical accuracy.

Try these:

• Minimize ethnic slurs, even if they were widely used back in the day. 
• Mention the atrocity but without graphic detail. (It's a keyword search away if the reader really wants it. Know if you include the graphic descriptions, you're going to lose readers. IMHO.)
• Another method: balance. Insert enemy-side characters opposing the brutality. Or show sympathetic dialogue. It's healing, rather than scathing. For example, researching the Japanese side of WWII revealed more atrocities than I could stomach. BUT, I also uncovered a book that included word of dissenters, many of whom were silenced in ways eerily similar to modern political tactics. "Japan at War," by Haruko Taya Cook and Theodore F. Cook revealed, among much more, the side of Japanese culture that opposed Japan's role in World War II. (See page 26 as a beginning, if you pick it up.)
• Pick a hero on both sides. Pick a villain on both sides.

"Band of Brothers" is gripping because it's about the people behind the historical events. That's what's awesome about historical fiction. In the subtlest ways, our ancestors were the heroes we want to be today. That's worth writing about. 

I would love to hear your thoughts on creating historical fiction! Comment below or find me on Twitter at @duganjcw.

Now, go write!