EXPLORING HISTORY TO WRITE A BETTER STORY. In Beyond Fear and its sequel, The Empire Builder, I delve into history to give my characters a sense of being that defines their perception of the world that surrounds them. As a boy, my central character, Mac, is captivated by the magic of flight. Flight in all its myriad forms, especially the pilots, like the great German Ace, Adolph Galland, Major Fred Preddy, the great USAAF P-51 Ace, the ego-eccentric genius Howard Hughes, and the quintessential queen of the air, Amelia Earhart. They became his friends and the principles of flight they embraced became his world. But, of all the air history he would incessantly shuffle through, the disappearance of Amelia Earhart over the Pacific, was his greatest curiosity. For hours, he would pour over every detail of her last flight and order every map of the Marshall Islands he could find. Not to mention every map of the Pacific, that would give him a trace of her last flight path from Papua New Guinea to Hawaii. In Beyond Fear, I say, Amelia went down on the Milli Atoll in the Marshall Islands, where women-starved Japanese soldiers drinking saki and pounding taiko drums happily welcome her to their island. I may have been closer to the truth than I imagined.
Posted on: Thu, 22 Jan 2015 17:48:30 +0000
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