Writing What You Know

When What You Know Is Bombs

We were soldiers once…and bored in planning meetings.

Hey gang!

People sometimes ask how much of Relics of the Fallen is “real.” As my Royal Navy buddy would put it, fair one. I spent years as an Army EOD technician, some of them on teams supporting tip-of-the-spear type guys, and the group dynamics in the book are drawn straight from small specialized units I served alongside. The banter and gallows humor. The way professionals under real pressure actually talk to each other, which is nothing like how Hollywood usually writes it.

(I said usually. There are some great examples of inter-team ribbing, humor, or slang-heavy term-of-art speak in a few shows and movies. The way the operators and the Texas Rangers joke with each other in Sicario. Casual light insults—or occasionally, not so light insults—in Fury. And although it’s less of a “real world” movie, the noticeable alteration in the way the team in Extraction communicates on the radio once things start to get hairy.)

What’s not real, obviously, is the alien-artifact-recovery-program part. (As far as I know?)

The thing I wanted to get right is that competence and humor aren’t opposites. The best guys I served with were sharp enough to save your life and funny enough to make you forget you were scared while they did it. These men (and a few ladies) could operate at the highest level of tactical proficiency while still keeping everyone around them calm. This impressed the hell out of me, and I’m grateful that I was lucky enough to just be a small part of some of those organizations. That’s the tone I chased for the whole book, and it’s the tone I’m chasing in everything I write since.

I’m endlessly fascinated by stories that “get it right,” no matter the subject matter. Lawyer friends will tell me that My Cousin Vinny, of all things, is one of the most accurate depictions of a real jury trial in all of cinema. This sounds bizarre to me, but I’m intrigued by it. And it gives me an excuse to watch it or talk about it, which is great, because I loved the movie even before I knew that. I’ve heard teachers or cops or cowboys say this movie or book got it right, or was closer to the truth than the rest. I love that.

If you’re a veteran and something in the book rang true—or false!—I genuinely want to hear about it. That feedback loop matters more to me than reviews. If you’re a veteran of something else—law enforcement, education, roughnecking, or if you were the door gunner on the space shuttle—I’d like to hear what show, movie or book “got it right” about your field.

Okay. Great talk, gang. I’ll see you out there.