Guest Post: Terry W. Ervin II on "While Getting Small Things Right Might not be Readily Apparent, it Remains Important"

Long time readers of this blog known that I am a big fan of Terry’s work. If you have not read Flank Hawk you need to remedy that immediately. Please welcome back Terry W. Ervin II with a few thoughts about why the research matters…

While Getting Small Things Right Might not be Readily Apparent, it Remains Important

When a reader decides to read one of my novels, he or she is committing both money and time—valuable commodities that could easily be spend elsewhere. Because of that, I strive to tell the best story I can, which includes doing the necessary research. To me necessary means getting the big things right, along with the small, peripheral ones.

For example, in my debut novel, Flank Hawk, one of the factors that led to the post-apocalyptic setting was a handful of nuclear warheads penetrating the U.S. ballistic missile defense systems and detonating. Pulled from two chapter starts:

Nestled in Cheyenne Mountain, NORAD had been on full alert. Coordinated satellites viewing the earth in the infrared part of the spectrum recorded the demise of one ballistic missile while radars, including the Cobra Dane early-warning in the Aleutian chain and the X-band floating on a nearby platform, tracked the two surviving sub launched missiles as they climbed…

…A battery of six interceptor rockets from silos at Fort Greely in Alaska and four more from California’s Vandenberg Air Force Base raced skyward. An experimental tracking and intercept aircraft from the Vandenberg base was already aloft. While it strained for altitude, airmen activated its advanced tracking and targeting systems, and prepared its powerful laser should any warheads survive the kill vehicles housed in the interceptor rockets.

To get it right required hours of research, learning the basics of the US missile defense systems and equipment, capabilities, and locations along the West Coast. Only a fraction of what I dug up and organized actually made it to the pages of the novel, and limited to a few paragraphs on two few pages, but the point of research isn’t to show off all the work I did. It’s to incorporate only the necessary details that enhance the story.

As an author, I strive to get it right for the reader, not only for the story, but because the readers out there have varied knowledge and experience. I’d be embarrassed to get an email from a disappointed reader, telling me I’d gotten it wrong—especially something that I could’ve gotten right.

Another example comes from Relic Tech. It’s a science fiction novel that involves some interstellar space travel. One of the things I incorporated was time dilation, which is a phenomenon that occurs as a ship travels through space. The closer a ship comes to approaching the speed of light, the greater the time variation there is between those aboard the traveling ship as compared to planet side individuals.

In Relic Tech, the time dilation was along the lines of minutes and hours, rather than months and years. Still, Security Specialist Keesay (the main character) uses a 20th century watch not controlled by the ship’s chronometer to track the phenomenon. It’s only a minor point in the plot, as Specialist Keesay attempts to predict when the civil transport Kalavar will actually emerge at its destination, as opposed to what’s been told to the crew.

Not only did it take considerable time and effort to research and calculate the time dilation based on the Kalavar’s rate of travel, but it was also important to remain consistent with the distances between the star systems and exoplanets, (only a few fictional) incorporated into the storyline, and how long the actual travel between them would take based on a ship’s speed.

For my most recent release, Thunder Wells, I travelled to the Toledo metro park where much of the novel’s early action takes place. I’d ventured there often as a youth, and even completed my Eagle Scout Service Project there (building soil erosion dams). But that occurred a long time ago, so my younger daughter accompanied me on a trip, where I took notes and many pictures.

I also took advantage of Google Maps, using the view offered to follow roads travelled. While I’d been down many of them, driving doesn’t always allow the time to pick up adequate details.

All of the above examples (and more) took time, a lot of time—time that some might argue wasn’t really necessary. Nevertheless I did it, the reading and cross referencing, all the charts, figures and calculations, and had some of it double-checked by my former college roommate, who majored in physics and minored in astronomy, and is now a math professor.

Mria Helping Research Metro Park

Would the reader know if I made it all up? If I remained orderly and consistent, but sort of played a little fast and loose with the rate of travel and distances, and ignored the relatively minor time dilation? Probably not. Would they have cared? Maybe not. After all, I don’t write what might be termed hard science fiction. Nevertheless, I owe it to the reader, to get as much right as I reasonably can. Even the little things, because I believe they add up, giving my novels, such as Thunder Wells, depth, authenticity, and consistency.

Readers willing to invest time and money on my novels? I owe them at least that much.

Terry W. Ervin II ©2016

Terry W. Ervin II is an English teacher who enjoys writing fantasy and science fiction. Beyond his new release, Thunder Wells, his Crax War Chronicles (science fiction) includes Relic Tech and Relic Hunted, and his First Civilization’s Legacy Series (fantasy) includes Flank Hawk, Blood Sword and Soul Forge. His short story collection, Genre Shotgun, contains all of his stories previously published in magazines, ezines and anthologies.

When Terry isn’t writing or enjoying time with his wife and daughters, he can be found in his basement raising turtles.

To contact Terry, or to learn more about his writing endeavors, visit his website at www.ervin-author.com and his blog, Up Around the Corner, at uparoundthecorner.blogspot.com.