Guest Post: Writing The Storm Over Paris by William Ian Grubman

Please welcome author William Ian Grubman to the blog today. His historical thriller, The Storm Over Paris is set in 1942 and involves the war, Nazis, stolen art, and more.

Writing The Storm Over Paris

Because I am a first-time novelist, I was faced with the task of figuring out how a book is even written. Although I am an avid reader, I was treading on soft soil trying to keep balance.

I have been a student of art and art history most of my life, as well as a collector. That would prove immensely useful with the type of story I was going to create.

When I first began to type (with no clear story line in sight), I was aware that art theft and art forgery were topics that interested me, but I wasn’t quite sure how to bring the story to life. I spent a great deal of time in front of a blank computer screen.

A writer friend of mine suggested that I just begin to type. She said the story would come as I worked. She was right. I resolved my book would take place in New York City, current day. After writing what I felt was a solid prologue, I discovered my story really didn’t take place in New York, and it wasn’t current day. I needed to go back. I needed to have the story take place in Paris during World War II. This is where the research began.

To formulate the tale, I began taking notes and creating time lines but wasn’t familiar with several visuals that would require in depth research. I headed to Paris. Although I’m familiar with the City of Lights, I needed to see details: parks, buildings, places of interest and historical monuments. I filled my camera with pictures and took copious notes as well as highlighting specific points of interest on a map.

I tried to write for at least two to three hours every day, but that schedule adjusted itself according to my creative juices. My characters were coming to life in great detail, while at the same time I was researching World War II Paris.

I met with a master forger who I tracked to Orange County, California, and he gave me the necessary processes of producing paintings, aging canvas, etc. Now I had to create a way for my characters to follow his steps. Additionally, my characters would have to face the day to day encounters of Nazi occupied Paris and some of the historical events of the time.

The story began to unfold. At some point in time I needed a creative hiding place for stolen artwork. I’m not sure how or even why, but I began to research the parks of Paris. That’s when I discovered the follies in Parc Monceau. Voila! I had my hiding place. Of course, that find created a new problem. How would I get the paintings to the park? The task would have to be creative, posing obstacles along the way, yet not appear contrived.

My goal was to keep my readers on the edge of their seats. That meant some sort of danger every other page or so. Not an easy task - - - and in the beginning I thought some of the adventure seemed odd.

Enter RE-WRITE.

The story had great bones, but the delivery was rough and burdened with adjectives. Descriptions seemed overly detailed. In my effort to describe each scene, I was overloading my reader with too much information. Once again, I needed to cut and cut and cut.

Research was my daily routine. I wanted my audience to absolutely feel they were in Paris. I wanted them to know the ins and outs of war time survival as well as the anguish the Germans created for the French. So, I walked a fine line between description and boredom.

When I finally had a finished product, I began the search for an editor. I knew that I needed to find someone who would pull my book apart bit by bit. After the first edit, I reviewed the manuscript and commenced with re-writing my novel. I went through this process four times, each time producing less and less commentary. The fourth edit came back virtually clean but for a few tweaks, which I repaired in less than a few hours. I returned the book to the fourth editor for review and received two thumbs up.

Start to finish, it took me three and a half years to complete The Storm over Paris.

William Ian Grubman ©2018

William Ian Grubman is a retired businessman, philanthropist, artist, author, art collector, and performing artist from Los Angeles, California. In every sense of the word, he is a renaissance man. His website is https://www.williamgrubman.com/