July 24, 2025 • 23 mins
Tom Young joins the Protectors podcast to discuss his ninth novel and third World War II standalone work, "The Mapmaker," which explores the dangerous operations of the French Resistance.
• The novel follows Charlotte Deneau, a French-American woman who uses her artistic skills to create maps of German positions for the Resistance
• Charlotte becomes hunted by the Gestapo for her exceptional mapping abilities
• The second protagonist is Philippe Girard, a French pilot flying dangerous moonlight missions for the RAF's special operations squadron
• Philippe must locate and extract Charlotte from occupied France while determining if intelligence is reliable or a Nazi trap
• Tom draws inspiration from real-life resistance figures like Virginia Hall and Violette Sabo
• Tom describes his writing process as "by the seat of his pants" rather than outlining extensively
• Writing daily with a goal of 500-1000 words helps maintain progress on long-term writing projects
• Tom's writing career began unexpectedly during an aircraft emergency layover in South Korea
• Research for historical fiction includes nonfiction books and WWII training films on YouTube
• Tom's next potential novel may explore the little-known story of Jewish teenagers who escaped Germany to Virginia before joining the US military
• Advice for aspiring writers: attend conferences, network with the writing community, and remember it's normal for first drafts to need improvement
Make sure to check out Jason on IG @drjasonpiccolo
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Hey, welcome back to the Protectors podcast.
Tom Young is back on the show.
Tom, let's talk, brother, let'stalk about your new book.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
Well, thank you so much, Jason.
It's good to see you again.
I certainly appreciate theopportunity to chat with you on
the Protectors.
My new novel is my ninth noveland of those novels it's the
third one that I've done set inWorld War II.
It's not part of a series.
Those novels, those World WarII novels, are standalone novels
(00:30):
and the mapmaker is set withinthe French Resistance.
I have two main characters.
One is a French-American womannamed Charlotte Deneau and she's
an agent for the resistance.
She was an art student and shehas turned her talents to
drawing charts and diagrams andmaps on German positions and
(00:54):
capabilities to give targetinginformation to the resistance
and to the allies.
The problem is she's a littletoo good at it and the Gestapo
knows about her and she's on therun across occupied France,
trying to stay a step ahead ofthe Gestapo, and what she really
needs is a ride because shestill has important information.
She has yet to get to theAllies and she's trying to get
(01:16):
out of France before the Gestapodrag her into an interrogation
center.
My other main character is aFrench pilot, philippe Girard,
and he flew for the French AirForce until the fall of France
and then he got out of occupiedFrance and made his way to
Britain and as the novel opens,he's flying for the British
(01:38):
Royal Air Force in what theycalled a special duty squadron
Nowadays we call it specialoperations and he flies a light
single engine aircraft, aWestland Lysander, and his job
is to fly in and out of occupiedFrance by night, navigating by
moonlight, to bring in suppliesand ammunition and so forth,
(01:58):
sometimes to pick up agents andbring them to Britain for
consultations and then fly themback into France to send them
back into the fray.
It's a hell of a way to commuteto and from work, but they
really did that in real lifeduring the resistance.
And he gets tasked with tryingto find Charlotte and bring her
(02:19):
out.
But that's not as easy as itmight sound, because she's on
the run and she can't stay inany one place for any length of
time.
And even if Philippe does getinformation about where she's
located, does he trust thatinformation?
Or is it a Nazi trap?
So that's that's the setup tothe mapmaker as it begins.
Speaker 1 (02:38):
Now, what inspired this?
Why did you pick this topic?
And was there like real lifepeople you modeled this book on
this?
Speaker 2 (02:45):
Why did you pick this topic and was there like real
life people you modeled thisbook on?
Yes, there were.
The reason I picked this topicis, by now World War II is
pretty well tilled ground forfiction.
So I try to look for some ofthe lesser known corners of
World War II history for mynovels.
And one of those lesser knowncorners at least it was lesser
known to me in the beginning wasthe air operations that
(03:06):
supported the French resistance.
You know, as an old airliftermyself, I was an Air National
Guard flight engineer.
Anything to do with airliftsfascinates me and these
characters are inspired byreallife figures.
There really were French pilots, and pilots from other
Nazi-occupied countries as well,who escaped occupied Europe and
(03:29):
flew for the RAF.
As a matter of fact, just backin May I was in Normandy and I
just happened to stumble acrossa memorial to Belgian pilots who
flew with the RAF in theliberation of France.
So all of this stuff is basedon real-world history and my
character, charlotte, isinspired by real-life resistance
(03:50):
figures, women who worked withthe resistance, people such as
Virginia Hall, violette Sabo.
Speaker 1 (03:56):
So I didn't have to make up a whole lot except
specific scenes and dialogue andthat sort of thing, but the
historical background is realyou know you talk about the
historical background, but howdoes your background like, how
do you interject yourself intoyour, into your novels as well,
(04:17):
with your background?
Speaker 2 (04:20):
well there is.
There is probably less of me inthis novel than in my previous
novels that were set inmodern-day conflicts.
For example, in my first novel,the Muller Storm, it was a war
novel set in Afghanistan and Ihad flown in Afghanistan, so my
(04:41):
experience is somewhat lessrelevant when it comes to World
War II fiction.
But some things never change.
I mean things like thecamaraderie among air crews, the
tension you feel before you gointo action, that kind of thing.
Those things are universal, sothat stuff still applies.
Speaker 1 (05:01):
Well, you know, a lot of us in the Protector
community always think we have anovel in us, and there's a lot
of inspiring writers that listento the show a ton of us, myself
included, now, we always wantto know what the process is.
So, with this, how long did ittake you to write the Mapmaker,
like from start to finish, fromthe initial idea that went
(05:23):
popping in your head Probablytwo years For all of my novels.
Speaker 2 (05:28):
It has taken me anywhere from a year to two
years to write a novel,depending on how busy I am with
other things and what's going onwith the day jobs, but I've
never written one in less timethan a year.
I know of authors who can writea full-length novel in less
(05:48):
time than that, but that's justnever worked for me and for you
and anybody else in theProtectors community who feel
you have a novel in you.
Go for it.
By all means, start putting pento paper.
I urge people who areinterested in writing novels to
get connected with the writingcommunity.
(06:08):
Go to as many writersconferences and workshops as
your schedule and your walletwill allow, because that does
two things for you it helps youhone your craft and it also puts
you in contact with people whocan help you.
That's how you meet agents andeditors and so forth.
So by all means, go for it.
Speaker 1 (06:29):
Yeah, absolutely.
Networking is one thing Ialways tell people.
It doesn't matter what processyou're in right now, start
building that network whenyou're coming to these books.
I've talked to a lot ofdifferent authors over the years
and everybody has differentprocesses, some of them heavily
outline and some just let thestory go organically as you're
(06:50):
writing it Now.
Do you outline heavily or howdoes your process work?
Speaker 2 (06:55):
I would rather take a beating than write an outline.
I've never done it that way.
I've never done it that way theway I do a novel is.
I'll begin with a good idea ofwhat the conflict is going to be
(07:16):
, who the characters are and howthe novel will open.
I'll have a vague idea of how Iwant to end it and I won't have
any idea of what happens in themiddle and I'll literally make
it up as I go along.
And when I first started writingnovels I thought I was crazy to
write that way, because in highschool we're all taught the way
you're supposed to do it byoutlining.
But that just never worked forme.
And now that I've been doingthis for a while and meeting
other writers and going toconferences and things, I would
(07:37):
unscientifically guesstimatethat about 60% of the novelists
I run into do it the way you'resupposed to do it an outline and
about 40 percent of us do whatwe call writing by the seat of
our pants.
And the distinction betweenthose two approaches to writing
(07:57):
a novel is so well known thatyou know if you go to a writer's
conference and you go down tothe bar on the first night and
you're chatting with somebodyand you ask them to get to know
you questions.
One of them is always so.
You're an outliner or a pantser?
Speaker 1 (08:12):
You know, when you're talking about like the writing
process and outlining andwriting organically, it kind of
gets down to like the actualsitting down and writing.
How do you sit down and write?
Is it like a daily routine?
Are you like, hey, I'm going todo 400 words tonight, I'm going
to do a thousand words?
How do you write?
Speaker 2 (08:38):
It's a daily routine nowadays, Now that my life is in
a place where I am able to dothat, and I do my best work
first thing in the morning.
So if I'm actively working on anovel, first thing in the
morning I'll make myself astrong cup of coffee and sit
down at the computer and usuallywhat I do is I tell myself I
have to write at least 500 words, and sometimes I make it a
thousand words, but I'll set aword count goal and if I reach
(09:00):
that goal in two hours, great.
Now I'm going fishing for therest of the day.
But if it takes untildinnertime, it takes until
dinnertime.
But in terms of finding time towrite, that reminds me of a
funny story about how I actuallyfound time to begin writing my
first commercially successfulnovel, and that was the
(09:22):
Afghanistan war novel titled theMullah Storm, which came out in
2010.
I was still flying in the AirNational Guard at that time.
I was a flight engineer on theC-5 Galaxy and in 2007, I had
had an idea for an Afghanistanwar story rolling around in the
(09:42):
back of my head for some time,but I was just so busy flying
and everything else, I justdidn't have time to sit down and
write it.
And then one day in 2007, I waswith the C-5 crew and we were
flying a load of cargo into OsanAir Base, South Korea.
And on the way into Osan we hadmultiple problems with the
airplane.
We lost a generator, so we hadelectrical problems.
(10:04):
We blew out a hydraulicgenerator, so we had electrical
problems.
We blew out a hydraulic system,so we had hydraulic problems.
And then there were a couple ofother things going on with the
aircraft.
I don't remember everythingthat was wrong with that darn
airplane, but it was enough thatwe declared an emergency and as
we approached and landed atOsan, we were greeted by the
flashing lights of the crashtrucks.
But fortunately we landedsafely.
(10:26):
And as we taxied off the runwayand down the taxiway and across
the ramp into parking, wedripped a trail of hydraulic
fluid like a wounded pterodactyl.
And when we shut down thatairplane and started writing up
everything that was wrong withit and started talking to the
maintenance people, we found outwe were going to get stuck for
days waiting for parts.
(10:46):
So I found myself at Osan withtime on my hands.
Parts.
So I found myself at Osan withtime on my hands.
So the next day I woke up inAircrew building it's actually a
nice hotel-like facility thereat Osan and I walked to the BX,
the base exchange, and I boughta yellow legal pad.
And then I went to the coffeeshop and I got myself a big,
strong cup of black mil-speccoffee and I sat down on a couch
(11:09):
in air crew building and Iwrote at the top of that legal
pad Chapter One and that becamemy first successful novel.
It was published by Putnam.
It led to a six-book series andthen, after that series, I
turned to historical fiction setin World War II.
So you might say this allstarted with an aircraft
emergency in South Korea.
Speaker 1 (11:31):
Well, you know, thank God for that aircraft emergency
and nobody got hurt.
But hey, you know what thething is with this.
It's like you need thatcatalyst, that step-by-step
point Right Now.
Your writing has changed overthe years as far as your setting
, like where you're sitting towrite.
Now, when you're actuallyphysically writing, do you sit
in silence?
Do you sit in front?
Speaker 2 (11:53):
of the TV.
Do you have music going?
What kind of music?
I always write in silence.
I never have music on when I'mwriting and when the weather is
nice, my favorite place to writeis right here on my deck.
If it's cold, I'll bedownstairs in my study and the
computer will be wherever I wantto be to write.
(12:13):
But when I got my firstcontract with a publisher and
the contract included a deadlinefor another novel, I realized
OK, if you're going to do thisprofessionally, you need to be
able to write when you have timeand not just when you feel like
it.
So you know, writing out hereon my deck or down in my study
(12:35):
is ideal.
But I've written in the crewbunk of airplanes.
I've written in a tent inAfghanistan.
You learn to write when youhave time and not just when the
spirit moves you.
Speaker 1 (12:49):
And you know, when you're throwing historical facts
in with fiction, how do youmake sure that it's accurate
when you're doing the writing?
Speaker 2 (12:56):
That's a good question.
You want to be as accurate asyou can but at the same time you
have to realize well, in mycase, for example, with a World
War II novel, there's alwaysgoing to be somebody out there
who knows more about the M1rifle than I do.
There's always going to besomebody who knows more about
the B-17 Flying Fortress than Ido.
(13:18):
You're never going to learn itall, but you try to do enough
research so you don't make anyegregious mistakes.
And along the way, all writersdo make some technical errors
and along the way, all writersdo make some technical errors
but you try to minimize that.
So I do a lot of reading ofnonfiction books.
And oddly enough, youtube is agreat resource now because
(13:40):
somebody probably severalsomebodies has done us authors
and historians a great favor byuploading a lot of World War II
training films to YouTube.
And the training films they didback then were terrific.
You know, back then the WarDepartment enlisted a lot of
A-list Hollywood talent to write, produce and appear in those
(14:00):
training films.
They were really, really goodand you can find one on anything
you can imagine how to fieldstrip an M1, how they packed
parachutes back then, how theyoperated those great big
backpack radios, how to do thechecklists from startup to
shutdown on all of the aircraftof that era.
(14:21):
It's just amazing what you canfind.
Speaker 1 (14:24):
You know that gets into, like you know, info
dumping and making sure theyhave the accuracy and stuff.
But you don't want to go toocrazy with that stuff.
Exactly Because everybodyalways knows something more than
you, and the more you go intothat, it's almost.
I always look at these thingsas kind of like a courtroom,
like no matter what, whateveryou say, it has to be accurate
(14:45):
or the defense is going to belike boom all over you.
Speaker 2 (14:47):
Right and and answer the question that was asked and
nothing but that.
And that's relevant to fictionwriting too.
You want to use just enoughtechnical detail for
authenticity, but you don't wantto overdo it.
The best piece of writingadvice I ever got was from one
of my mentors who said let thereader overhear the technical
(15:10):
details.
Ernest Hemingway put it adifferent way.
He said if you know a subjectwell, enough.
Speaker 1 (15:19):
You know what to leave out.
You know you bring up Hemingwayand you bring up a lot of other
authors here and there likewhen we talked before.
Speaker 2 (15:30):
But who's your biggest influence?
You think it would be hard topick one biggest influence
because I have a lot of literaryheroes and Hemingway is one of
them.
But I will fess up to howanother of my literary heroes
impacted part of how I wrote theMapmaker.
But I've always admired thenovels by Herman Wook, world War
(15:51):
II novels like the Winds of Warand War in Remembrance.
And if you read those novelsyou see that he intersperses
them with memoirs from afictional German general,
general Armin von Ruhm.
And he does that to give youthe German perspective as the
story advances, that give youthe German perspective as the
(16:13):
story advances.
So I kind of stole an idea fromhim and I intersperse the
mapmaker with memos from Gestapoofficer Klaus Barbie as he's
reporting to Berlin how he'spursuing Charlotte and other
resistance agents.
And of course those memos arecompletely fictional.
(16:33):
I made up those memos.
Unfortunately I did not make upKlaus Barbie.
He was all too real.
In fact he was known as theButcher of Lyon.
He was known to have personallytortured resistance agents and
for a long time he evadedjustice.
He got out of Europe at the endof World War II and he lived in
South America for decades underthe alias Klaus Altman, but
(16:57):
then, in 1971, the Nazi hunters,serge and Beata Klarsfeld,
identified him as living inSouth America.
After a lengthy process, he wasextradited to France where he
stood trial for war crimes, andin 1987, he was convicted and
sentenced to life in prison.
But he did not live long afterthat.
(17:19):
He died of cancer in 1991.
Speaker 1 (17:23):
Yeah, I like.
One thing I like about readingbooks like this is getting
history and learning and piquingyour interest in understanding
history, because history repeatsitself.
One thing I do want to ask isand this is one of our final
questions because I really wantpeople to pick up the map maker
and just kind of keep these.
I've been keeping my authorinterviews really short just
(17:45):
because I want people to get thegist of it and to be able to go
out there and read itthemselves.
But there are a lot of aspiringwriters.
I told you that before.
It's like what piece of advicewould you give them when they're
first getting off on this?
Speaker 2 (18:00):
The main thing I would say is, as we discussed
before, go to conferences, go toworkshops, network and make
time to sit down and write andremember that it's a long-term
project.
Don't be intimidated bythinking oh my goodness, I've
got to write 80,000 words.
Well, you don't have to write80,000 words today.
(18:21):
Today, just tell yourselfyou're going to write 500 words
and that's a pretty reasonablegoal.
You can make yourself write 500words even on a day when you're
not really feeling it, but ifyou do that every day, at the
end of the year you have amanuscript of significant length
.
And another thing that I tellpeople to keep in mind is don't
(18:43):
be discouraged if your firstdraft isn't good.
It's the job of a first draftto not be good and to lay the
groundwork for your second,third, fourth, fifth draft,
which is going to be better.
There's nothing magic ormysterious about riding.
It's a learned skill, just likeflying an airplane or shooting
(19:06):
a rifle or learning a martialart.
It's a skill like any otherskill you can learn.
Speaker 1 (19:13):
Now what is up for Tom Young next?
Speaker 2 (19:17):
Ah, good question.
I don't know exactly what mynext novel is going to be, but
it might be another World War IInovel, and I've been
researching some otherlesser-known corners of World
War II history, including alittle corner of World War II
and Virginia history here in thestate of Virginia where I live.
(19:37):
But and this is something thatpeople even here don't don't
know about Not many peopleanyway but there was a group of
38 young Jewish teenagers whowere studying at an agricultural
school in in Germany, studyingat an agricultural school in
(20:00):
Germany.
A Jewish businessman in the USarranged to get them out of
Germany.
He wanted to save as manyJewish refugees as he could, so
we arranged for them to getvisas to come and work on a
large farm that he had bought.
He pulled it off, but he did itbarely in the nick of time.
(20:25):
Either the day before or the dayafter Kristallnacht the Gestapo
raided that school and the malestudents were sent to
Buchenwald.
But the US found out about this, communicated to Berlin.
This was before Pearl Harbor,so we were still a neutral
country.
Then the State Departmentcommunicated to Berlin hey, you
just arrested a bunch of kidswho have visas to come to the US
.
Maybe it's not in your interestto tick off a large industrial
(20:45):
country that is neutral.
So these kids were releasedfrom Buchenwald.
Not a lot of people werereleased from Buchenwald, but
these guys were.
But then later, after they cameto the US and the US got
involved in the war, most ofthem joined the US military and
one of them went back toBuchenwald as part of Patton's
(21:09):
Third Army.
That's quite a story.
So that's that's what I've beenresearching lately.
Speaker 1 (21:14):
That'd be a really cool story.
I I think that's your next one.
It's going to be like thislittle, like little Jewish soft
group going to head over there.
Speaker 2 (21:23):
Yeah, yeah.
Oh okay, you're giving me ideas.
Speaker 1 (21:27):
Yeah, it's almost like.
Yeah, I think that'd be reallycool.
It'll like you know, I havethis idea in my head of like Red
Dawn.
Speaker 2 (21:44):
You know in my head of like red dawn, you know you
have the teens who become likeyou know the resistance.
Yeah, it's pretty cool.
Oh man, it's funny how fewpeople know that story.
In fact, a few years ago Ihappened to be hunting on a farm
very close to the farm wherethese kids were working before
they joined the military.
And I'm talking to my buddy wholives on a nearby farm and I'm
telling him the story I justtold you and I I said have you
ever heard of that?
And he said no, no, I've neverheard of that.
And I said oh man, it happenedright over there.
Over that tree line is whereall this stuff.
(22:06):
And even people in the localarea don't know.
Speaker 1 (22:09):
Oh my gosh, you could have like the dirty dozen type
of like yeah, I see the wholething going here with the kids,
whole thing going here with thekids.
They know the area, they knowthe layout, so they're almost
like a guerrilla force, you knowtrained in the us and oh, it's
gonna be gum.
I'm excited, here we go.
Speaker 2 (22:24):
I think the real life figure who was part of patton's
third army was, was there morein uh, in an advisory role, with
an intel role?
But you know, with, withfiction you can with fiction.
Speaker 1 (22:34):
You do what you want.
It's a covert covert thing.
It's classified.
Nobody even knew what was goingon.
Speaker 2 (22:40):
Exactly.
Speaker 1 (22:48):
And they were assassinating key figures that
were part of the Germans, thecamps.
Hey, I'm writing this in myhead with you.
I'm here with you.
Just give me a text or a call.
We got this thing going.
Speaker 2 (22:55):
Keep talking and I'll just take notes.
Speaker 1 (22:57):
Yeah, exactly.
Hey, Tom, I appreciate youcoming on, but everybody make
sure you check out the Mapmakerand definitely, definitely,
definitely pick it up.
Speaker 2 (23:05):
Well, thanks so much, Jason.
I certainly appreciate theopportunity to chat with you and
your audience.
It's always good to see you.
Hey, welcome back to the Protectors podcast.
Tom Young is back on the show.
Tom, let's talk, brother, let'stalk about your new book.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
Well, thank you so much, Jason.
It's good to see you again.
I certainly appreciate theopportunity to chat with you on
the Protectors.
My new novel is my ninth noveland of those novels it's the
third one that I've done set inWorld War II.
It's not part of a series.
Those novels, those World WarII novels, are standalone novels
(00:30):
and the mapmaker is set withinthe French Resistance.
I have two main characters.
One is a French-American womannamed Charlotte Deneau and she's
an agent for the resistance.
She was an art student and shehas turned her talents to
drawing charts and diagrams andmaps on German positions and
(00:54):
capabilities to give targetinginformation to the resistance
and to the allies.
The problem is she's a littletoo good at it and the Gestapo
knows about her and she's on therun across occupied France,
trying to stay a step ahead ofthe Gestapo, and what she really
needs is a ride because shestill has important information.
She has yet to get to theAllies and she's trying to get
(01:16):
out of France before the Gestapodrag her into an interrogation
center.
My other main character is aFrench pilot, philippe Girard,
and he flew for the French AirForce until the fall of France
and then he got out of occupiedFrance and made his way to
Britain and as the novel opens,he's flying for the British
(01:38):
Royal Air Force in what theycalled a special duty squadron
Nowadays we call it specialoperations and he flies a light
single engine aircraft, aWestland Lysander, and his job
is to fly in and out of occupiedFrance by night, navigating by
moonlight, to bring in suppliesand ammunition and so forth,
(01:58):
sometimes to pick up agents andbring them to Britain for
consultations and then fly themback into France to send them
back into the fray.
It's a hell of a way to commuteto and from work, but they
really did that in real lifeduring the resistance.
And he gets tasked with tryingto find Charlotte and bring her
(02:19):
out.
But that's not as easy as itmight sound, because she's on
the run and she can't stay inany one place for any length of
time.
And even if Philippe does getinformation about where she's
located, does he trust thatinformation?
Or is it a Nazi trap?
So that's that's the setup tothe mapmaker as it begins.
Speaker 1 (02:38):
Now, what inspired this?
Why did you pick this topic?
And was there like real lifepeople you modeled this book on
this?
Speaker 2 (02:45):
Why did you pick this topic and was there like real
life people you modeled thisbook on?
Yes, there were.
The reason I picked this topicis, by now World War II is
pretty well tilled ground forfiction.
So I try to look for some ofthe lesser known corners of
World War II history for mynovels.
And one of those lesser knowncorners at least it was lesser
known to me in the beginning wasthe air operations that
(03:06):
supported the French resistance.
You know, as an old airliftermyself, I was an Air National
Guard flight engineer.
Anything to do with airliftsfascinates me and these
characters are inspired byreallife figures.
There really were French pilots, and pilots from other
Nazi-occupied countries as well,who escaped occupied Europe and
(03:29):
flew for the RAF.
As a matter of fact, just backin May I was in Normandy and I
just happened to stumble acrossa memorial to Belgian pilots who
flew with the RAF in theliberation of France.
So all of this stuff is basedon real-world history and my
character, charlotte, isinspired by real-life resistance
(03:50):
figures, women who worked withthe resistance, people such as
Virginia Hall, violette Sabo.
Speaker 1 (03:56):
So I didn't have to make up a whole lot except
specific scenes and dialogue andthat sort of thing, but the
historical background is realyou know you talk about the
historical background, but howdoes your background like, how
do you interject yourself intoyour, into your novels as well,
(04:17):
with your background?
Speaker 2 (04:20):
well there is.
There is probably less of me inthis novel than in my previous
novels that were set inmodern-day conflicts.
For example, in my first novel,the Muller Storm, it was a war
novel set in Afghanistan and Ihad flown in Afghanistan, so my
(04:41):
experience is somewhat lessrelevant when it comes to World
War II fiction.
But some things never change.
I mean things like thecamaraderie among air crews, the
tension you feel before you gointo action, that kind of thing.
Those things are universal, sothat stuff still applies.
Speaker 1 (05:01):
Well, you know, a lot of us in the Protector
community always think we have anovel in us, and there's a lot
of inspiring writers that listento the show a ton of us, myself
included, now, we always wantto know what the process is.
So, with this, how long did ittake you to write the Mapmaker,
like from start to finish, fromthe initial idea that went
(05:23):
popping in your head Probablytwo years For all of my novels.
Speaker 2 (05:28):
It has taken me anywhere from a year to two
years to write a novel,depending on how busy I am with
other things and what's going onwith the day jobs, but I've
never written one in less timethan a year.
I know of authors who can writea full-length novel in less
(05:48):
time than that, but that's justnever worked for me and for you
and anybody else in theProtectors community who feel
you have a novel in you.
Go for it.
By all means, start putting pento paper.
I urge people who areinterested in writing novels to
get connected with the writingcommunity.
(06:08):
Go to as many writersconferences and workshops as
your schedule and your walletwill allow, because that does
two things for you it helps youhone your craft and it also puts
you in contact with people whocan help you.
That's how you meet agents andeditors and so forth.
So by all means, go for it.
Speaker 1 (06:29):
Yeah, absolutely.
Networking is one thing Ialways tell people.
It doesn't matter what processyou're in right now, start
building that network whenyou're coming to these books.
I've talked to a lot ofdifferent authors over the years
and everybody has differentprocesses, some of them heavily
outline and some just let thestory go organically as you're
(06:50):
writing it Now.
Do you outline heavily or howdoes your process work?
Speaker 2 (06:55):
I would rather take a beating than write an outline.
I've never done it that way.
I've never done it that way theway I do a novel is.
I'll begin with a good idea ofwhat the conflict is going to be
(07:16):
, who the characters are and howthe novel will open.
I'll have a vague idea of how Iwant to end it and I won't have
any idea of what happens in themiddle and I'll literally make
it up as I go along.
And when I first started writingnovels I thought I was crazy to
write that way, because in highschool we're all taught the way
you're supposed to do it byoutlining.
But that just never worked forme.
And now that I've been doingthis for a while and meeting
other writers and going toconferences and things, I would
(07:37):
unscientifically guesstimatethat about 60% of the novelists
I run into do it the way you'resupposed to do it an outline and
about 40 percent of us do whatwe call writing by the seat of
our pants.
And the distinction betweenthose two approaches to writing
(07:57):
a novel is so well known thatyou know if you go to a writer's
conference and you go down tothe bar on the first night and
you're chatting with somebodyand you ask them to get to know
you questions.
One of them is always so.
You're an outliner or a pantser?
Speaker 1 (08:12):
You know, when you're talking about like the writing
process and outlining andwriting organically, it kind of
gets down to like the actualsitting down and writing.
How do you sit down and write?
Is it like a daily routine?
Are you like, hey, I'm going todo 400 words tonight, I'm going
to do a thousand words?
How do you write?
Speaker 2 (08:38):
It's a daily routine nowadays, Now that my life is in
a place where I am able to dothat, and I do my best work
first thing in the morning.
So if I'm actively working on anovel, first thing in the
morning I'll make myself astrong cup of coffee and sit
down at the computer and usuallywhat I do is I tell myself I
have to write at least 500 words, and sometimes I make it a
thousand words, but I'll set aword count goal and if I reach
(09:00):
that goal in two hours, great.
Now I'm going fishing for therest of the day.
But if it takes untildinnertime, it takes until
dinnertime.
But in terms of finding time towrite, that reminds me of a
funny story about how I actuallyfound time to begin writing my
first commercially successfulnovel, and that was the
(09:22):
Afghanistan war novel titled theMullah Storm, which came out in
2010.
I was still flying in the AirNational Guard at that time.
I was a flight engineer on theC-5 Galaxy and in 2007, I had
had an idea for an Afghanistanwar story rolling around in the
(09:42):
back of my head for some time,but I was just so busy flying
and everything else, I justdidn't have time to sit down and
write it.
And then one day in 2007, I waswith the C-5 crew and we were
flying a load of cargo into OsanAir Base, South Korea.
And on the way into Osan we hadmultiple problems with the
airplane.
We lost a generator, so we hadelectrical problems.
(10:04):
We blew out a hydraulicgenerator, so we had electrical
problems.
We blew out a hydraulic system,so we had hydraulic problems.
And then there were a couple ofother things going on with the
aircraft.
I don't remember everythingthat was wrong with that darn
airplane, but it was enough thatwe declared an emergency and as
we approached and landed atOsan, we were greeted by the
flashing lights of the crashtrucks.
But fortunately we landedsafely.
(10:26):
And as we taxied off the runwayand down the taxiway and across
the ramp into parking, wedripped a trail of hydraulic
fluid like a wounded pterodactyl.
And when we shut down thatairplane and started writing up
everything that was wrong withit and started talking to the
maintenance people, we found outwe were going to get stuck for
days waiting for parts.
(10:46):
So I found myself at Osan withtime on my hands.
Parts.
So I found myself at Osan withtime on my hands.
So the next day I woke up inAircrew building it's actually a
nice hotel-like facility thereat Osan and I walked to the BX,
the base exchange, and I boughta yellow legal pad.
And then I went to the coffeeshop and I got myself a big,
strong cup of black mil-speccoffee and I sat down on a couch
(11:09):
in air crew building and Iwrote at the top of that legal
pad Chapter One and that becamemy first successful novel.
It was published by Putnam.
It led to a six-book series andthen, after that series, I
turned to historical fiction setin World War II.
So you might say this allstarted with an aircraft
emergency in South Korea.
Speaker 1 (11:31):
Well, you know, thank God for that aircraft emergency
and nobody got hurt.
But hey, you know what thething is with this.
It's like you need thatcatalyst, that step-by-step
point Right Now.
Your writing has changed overthe years as far as your setting
, like where you're sitting towrite.
Now, when you're actuallyphysically writing, do you sit
in silence?
Do you sit in front?
Speaker 2 (11:53):
of the TV.
Do you have music going?
What kind of music?
I always write in silence.
I never have music on when I'mwriting and when the weather is
nice, my favorite place to writeis right here on my deck.
If it's cold, I'll bedownstairs in my study and the
computer will be wherever I wantto be to write.
(12:13):
But when I got my firstcontract with a publisher and
the contract included a deadlinefor another novel, I realized
OK, if you're going to do thisprofessionally, you need to be
able to write when you have timeand not just when you feel like
it.
So you know, writing out hereon my deck or down in my study
(12:35):
is ideal.
But I've written in the crewbunk of airplanes.
I've written in a tent inAfghanistan.
You learn to write when youhave time and not just when the
spirit moves you.
Speaker 1 (12:49):
And you know, when you're throwing historical facts
in with fiction, how do youmake sure that it's accurate
when you're doing the writing?
Speaker 2 (12:56):
That's a good question.
You want to be as accurate asyou can but at the same time you
have to realize well, in mycase, for example, with a World
War II novel, there's alwaysgoing to be somebody out there
who knows more about the M1rifle than I do.
There's always going to besomebody who knows more about
the B-17 Flying Fortress than Ido.
(13:18):
You're never going to learn itall, but you try to do enough
research so you don't make anyegregious mistakes.
And along the way, all writersdo make some technical errors
and along the way, all writersdo make some technical errors
but you try to minimize that.
So I do a lot of reading ofnonfiction books.
And oddly enough, youtube is agreat resource now because
(13:40):
somebody probably severalsomebodies has done us authors
and historians a great favor byuploading a lot of World War II
training films to YouTube.
And the training films they didback then were terrific.
You know, back then the WarDepartment enlisted a lot of
A-list Hollywood talent to write, produce and appear in those
(14:00):
training films.
They were really, really goodand you can find one on anything
you can imagine how to fieldstrip an M1, how they packed
parachutes back then, how theyoperated those great big
backpack radios, how to do thechecklists from startup to
shutdown on all of the aircraftof that era.
(14:21):
It's just amazing what you canfind.
Speaker 1 (14:24):
You know that gets into, like you know, info
dumping and making sure theyhave the accuracy and stuff.
But you don't want to go toocrazy with that stuff.
Exactly Because everybodyalways knows something more than
you, and the more you go intothat, it's almost.
I always look at these thingsas kind of like a courtroom,
like no matter what, whateveryou say, it has to be accurate
(14:45):
or the defense is going to belike boom all over you.
Speaker 2 (14:47):
Right and and answer the question that was asked and
nothing but that.
And that's relevant to fictionwriting too.
You want to use just enoughtechnical detail for
authenticity, but you don't wantto overdo it.
The best piece of writingadvice I ever got was from one
of my mentors who said let thereader overhear the technical
(15:10):
details.
Ernest Hemingway put it adifferent way.
He said if you know a subjectwell, enough.
Speaker 1 (15:19):
You know what to leave out.
You know you bring up Hemingwayand you bring up a lot of other
authors here and there likewhen we talked before.
Speaker 2 (15:30):
But who's your biggest influence?
You think it would be hard topick one biggest influence
because I have a lot of literaryheroes and Hemingway is one of
them.
But I will fess up to howanother of my literary heroes
impacted part of how I wrote theMapmaker.
But I've always admired thenovels by Herman Wook, world War
(15:51):
II novels like the Winds of Warand War in Remembrance.
And if you read those novelsyou see that he intersperses
them with memoirs from afictional German general,
general Armin von Ruhm.
And he does that to give youthe German perspective as the
story advances, that give youthe German perspective as the
(16:13):
story advances.
So I kind of stole an idea fromhim and I intersperse the
mapmaker with memos from Gestapoofficer Klaus Barbie as he's
reporting to Berlin how he'spursuing Charlotte and other
resistance agents.
And of course those memos arecompletely fictional.
(16:33):
I made up those memos.
Unfortunately I did not make upKlaus Barbie.
He was all too real.
In fact he was known as theButcher of Lyon.
He was known to have personallytortured resistance agents and
for a long time he evadedjustice.
He got out of Europe at the endof World War II and he lived in
South America for decades underthe alias Klaus Altman, but
(16:57):
then, in 1971, the Nazi hunters,serge and Beata Klarsfeld,
identified him as living inSouth America.
After a lengthy process, he wasextradited to France where he
stood trial for war crimes, andin 1987, he was convicted and
sentenced to life in prison.
But he did not live long afterthat.
(17:19):
He died of cancer in 1991.
Speaker 1 (17:23):
Yeah, I like.
One thing I like about readingbooks like this is getting
history and learning and piquingyour interest in understanding
history, because history repeatsitself.
One thing I do want to ask isand this is one of our final
questions because I really wantpeople to pick up the map maker
and just kind of keep these.
I've been keeping my authorinterviews really short just
(17:45):
because I want people to get thegist of it and to be able to go
out there and read itthemselves.
But there are a lot of aspiringwriters.
I told you that before.
It's like what piece of advicewould you give them when they're
first getting off on this?
Speaker 2 (18:00):
The main thing I would say is, as we discussed
before, go to conferences, go toworkshops, network and make
time to sit down and write andremember that it's a long-term
project.
Don't be intimidated bythinking oh my goodness, I've
got to write 80,000 words.
Well, you don't have to write80,000 words today.
(18:21):
Today, just tell yourselfyou're going to write 500 words
and that's a pretty reasonablegoal.
You can make yourself write 500words even on a day when you're
not really feeling it, but ifyou do that every day, at the
end of the year you have amanuscript of significant length
.
And another thing that I tellpeople to keep in mind is don't
(18:43):
be discouraged if your firstdraft isn't good.
It's the job of a first draftto not be good and to lay the
groundwork for your second,third, fourth, fifth draft,
which is going to be better.
There's nothing magic ormysterious about riding.
It's a learned skill, just likeflying an airplane or shooting
(19:06):
a rifle or learning a martialart.
It's a skill like any otherskill you can learn.
Speaker 1 (19:13):
Now what is up for Tom Young next?
Speaker 2 (19:17):
Ah, good question.
I don't know exactly what mynext novel is going to be, but
it might be another World War IInovel, and I've been
researching some otherlesser-known corners of World
War II history, including alittle corner of World War II
and Virginia history here in thestate of Virginia where I live.
(19:37):
But and this is something thatpeople even here don't don't
know about Not many peopleanyway but there was a group of
38 young Jewish teenagers whowere studying at an agricultural
school in in Germany, studyingat an agricultural school in
(20:00):
Germany.
A Jewish businessman in the USarranged to get them out of
Germany.
He wanted to save as manyJewish refugees as he could, so
we arranged for them to getvisas to come and work on a
large farm that he had bought.
He pulled it off, but he did itbarely in the nick of time.
(20:25):
Either the day before or the dayafter Kristallnacht the Gestapo
raided that school and the malestudents were sent to
Buchenwald.
But the US found out about this, communicated to Berlin.
This was before Pearl Harbor,so we were still a neutral
country.
Then the State Departmentcommunicated to Berlin hey, you
just arrested a bunch of kidswho have visas to come to the US
.
Maybe it's not in your interestto tick off a large industrial
(20:45):
country that is neutral.
So these kids were releasedfrom Buchenwald.
Not a lot of people werereleased from Buchenwald, but
these guys were.
But then later, after they cameto the US and the US got
involved in the war, most ofthem joined the US military and
one of them went back toBuchenwald as part of Patton's
(21:09):
Third Army.
That's quite a story.
So that's that's what I've beenresearching lately.
Speaker 1 (21:14):
That'd be a really cool story.
I I think that's your next one.
It's going to be like thislittle, like little Jewish soft
group going to head over there.
Speaker 2 (21:23):
Yeah, yeah.
Oh okay, you're giving me ideas.
Speaker 1 (21:27):
Yeah, it's almost like.
Yeah, I think that'd be reallycool.
It'll like you know, I havethis idea in my head of like Red
Dawn.
Speaker 2 (21:44):
You know in my head of like red dawn, you know you
have the teens who become likeyou know the resistance.
Yeah, it's pretty cool.
Oh man, it's funny how fewpeople know that story.
In fact, a few years ago Ihappened to be hunting on a farm
very close to the farm wherethese kids were working before
they joined the military.
And I'm talking to my buddy wholives on a nearby farm and I'm
telling him the story I justtold you and I I said have you
ever heard of that?
And he said no, no, I've neverheard of that.
And I said oh man, it happenedright over there.
Over that tree line is whereall this stuff.
(22:06):
And even people in the localarea don't know.
Speaker 1 (22:09):
Oh my gosh, you could have like the dirty dozen type
of like yeah, I see the wholething going here with the kids,
whole thing going here with thekids.
They know the area, they knowthe layout, so they're almost
like a guerrilla force, you knowtrained in the us and oh, it's
gonna be gum.
I'm excited, here we go.
Speaker 2 (22:24):
I think the real life figure who was part of patton's
third army was, was there morein uh, in an advisory role, with
an intel role?
But you know, with, withfiction you can with fiction.
Speaker 1 (22:34):
You do what you want.
It's a covert covert thing.
It's classified.
Nobody even knew what was goingon.
Speaker 2 (22:40):
Exactly.
Speaker 1 (22:48):
And they were assassinating key figures that
were part of the Germans, thecamps.
Hey, I'm writing this in myhead with you.
I'm here with you.
Just give me a text or a call.
We got this thing going.
Speaker 2 (22:55):
Keep talking and I'll just take notes.
Speaker 1 (22:57):
Yeah, exactly.
Hey, Tom, I appreciate youcoming on, but everybody make
sure you check out the Mapmakerand definitely, definitely,
definitely pick it up.
Speaker 2 (23:05):
Well, thanks so much, Jason.
I certainly appreciate theopportunity to chat with you and
your audience.
It's always good to see you.
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