By Bjorn Hasseler

The one hard and fast rule about a story is “don’t bore the reader.” The rest are recommendations—because you can find exceptions to all the other “rules.” But if you’re just starting out, please follow the recommendations until you have developed the skill to break them.

But we can talk about characterization, plot, background, conflict, and point of view elsewhere. Here, let’s discuss the basic question, how do you write a story?

There’s more than one right way. Ultimately, you have to find one that works for you. Here are a couple ways that worked for me.

Starting Out

For my Bibelgesellschaft stories, I began with a list of items I wanted to include. What was Kat Meisnerin doing? What was Horst Felke doing? What was Johannes Musaeus doing? What were the girls (Kat, Barbara Kellarmännin, Marta Engelsbergin, Alicia Rice, Nona Dobbs) up to? What about NESS? Which of them were available?

Then I added any political events that would be important to the characters. Then any Biblical manuscript or theological questions that I wanted to address.

By this point, I usually had fifteen to twenty items. About half would make it into a story, and the other half became part of the list for the next story. That was okay for starting out.

“Reed and Kathy Sue” (Grantville Gazette 64, 2016)

At some point, a thread about the Stones’ geodesic dome led to people posting letters from their characters, variously trying to tear down the dome or get it declared a historic landmark or tax it. It went all over the place. David Carrico pulled it together into a coherent story which was published as “The Tax Man Cometh” in Grantville Gazette 61. I learned how an epistolary story (that’s simply a story told in the form of letters) like this one worked.

Paula Goodlett (editor, GG 3-60) had challenged us to write stories of 3,000-6,000 words using characters who had not previously appeared in canon. I’d fiddled around with this. I started listing characters I’d like to see get some time in the spotlight, and my first four had already appeared in canon. I kept looking and on grid 8B, I found the names of up-timers who were with Mike Stearns on the eastern front. Among them were James Dexter Dunn, Reed Burroughs, Michael Marcantonio, Bruce Reynolds, Charles McDow, and four medics. Reed was listed as a house church preacher, and that was interesting. So I looked at his grid entry:

“Reed Burroughs (1974; USE Army, 1635-1636 in Saxony, 1634-1635 in Erfurt, 1633-34 in Wismar, NUS Army 1631-1633; son of Mark Burroughs, married to Kathy Sue Alcom; HS diploma plus some college; Nondenominational Evangelical, conducts a “house church” wherever he is stationed after the RoF)”

That led me straight to his wife’s entry:

“Kathy Sue (Alcom) Burroughs (1975; housewife, 1635-1636 returns to Grantville, joined her husband in Erfurt mid 1634, lived with her mother 1631-1634 while her husband was in the army and went to Wismar when her mother did; daughter of Garland and Mary Sue Alcom, married to Reed Burroughs; HS diploma; Nondenominational Evangelical)

Children Lydia Sue Burroughs (1998; nondenominational Evangelical); Thomas Garland Burroughs (1631; Nondenominational Evangelical), Mark Reed Burroughs (1633; Nondenominational Evangelical), and Mary Joella Burroughs (1635; Nondenominational Evangelical)”

A quick trip to Rainer Prem’s GridViewer site shows they married in 1996. (Putting the grid into older versions of Ancestral Quest or Family Tree Maker works, too.)

So what does this tell us?

1. Reed & Kathy Sue were a year apart in high school. They were probably high school sweethearts.
2. But they didn’t get married until Kathy Sue turned 21. That’s unusual. It’s common in the area to get married right after high school. But they didn’t.
3. They’re non-denominational evangelical Christians. And serious about it—Reed is preaching at a home church at each duty station, and Kathy Sue’s father is financially supporting it. Kathy Sue’s parents are non-denominational evangelicals; Reed’s are Methodist. So he started going to her church, not the other way around. Their kids’ names are all New Testament first name, family middle name, and it’s going to be a big family.
4. This all makes 2. more surprising until we look at their parents. Kathy Sue’s father is a twenty-year military veteran. He was also stationed in Wismar in 1634 and Erfurt in 1635. There’s going to be a little go-see-the-world-before-you-settle-down there. Reed’s father’s family had an awkward situation involving a sister’s daughter being passed off as a younger sister. So I think Reed & Kathy Sue’s parents asked them not to be in a rush to get married. Reed may have looked into joining the military, but it was 1992, and a major drawdown was in progress. Desert Storm was over, and the Soviet Union had just collapsed. So he got a job and took what classes he could at Fairmont State. Kathy Sue was working, too—I was able to locate a Christian bookstore in Fairmont. She didn’t really see the point of college when her goal was to be a mom, which is also quite common for this area.

If we combine the children’s birth years with Reed’s duty stations . . .

Married 1996

Lydia born 1998

Thomas born 1631

Reed in the NUS Army 1631-1633

Mark born 1633

Reed in Wismar

Kathy Sue goes to Wismar 1634

Stationed in Erfurt 1634-1635

Mary born 1635

Reed with the USE Army in Saxony 1635-1636

I should point out that Reed is in the NUS Army in 1631 but is neither UMWA nor a graduating senior nor prior military. I concluded they wanted his organizational skill, because being an assistant manager at a hardware store has certain similarities to Supply in the military.

At this point, I had a fairly good grasp of Reed and Kathy Sue. The next step was planning the epistolary story. It’s Reed and Kathy Sue sending letters back and forth from the invasion of Saxony in 1635: The Eastern Front to the end of 1636: The Saxon Uprising. I started out with a list of things to include, and then I listed the months from June, 1635 through March, 1636. For each month, I listed what Kathy Sue would write and what Reed would write. Then I worked out when they sent and received letters.

The mechanics of an epistolary story is making the sequence of letters work. If Kathy Sue sends certain information, Reed can’t know it or reply to it until that letter arrives. It helped me to color-code the different exchanges of letters: Initially it’s green back and forth. Then something causes Kathy Sue to send a letter without waiting for Reed’s next one to arrive. This started the orange thread, and so on. Your mileage may vary; I’m sure this isn’t the only way to keep track.

Now I had a basic map for the story—and I could modify it as necessary. I decided that each letter would have three or four things the character wanted to talk about. But these wouldn’t have been the first letters Reed and Kathy Sue had written to each other, so they’d have patterns. They’d decided to share a memory and a Bible verse each time. This was a little formulaic but it was functionally a two-level outline, and it made it very manageable to write. My goal was to write one letter at a time. This was the first time I wrote as a “plotter.”

(A plotter is someone who writes from an outline. A pantser (or discovery writer) writes by the seat of his or her pants, creating the story on the spot.)

But along the way, I was learning about Reed and Kathy Sue’s history. Or, to put it another way, I was pantsing the memories for each letter. By the time the story was done, I felt I really knew them. “Reed and Kathy Sue” was published in Grantville Gazette 64 (electronic) and IX (Baen anthology).

Reed and Kathy Sue are way too much fun for this to have been a one-off.

Reed appears in “The Aftermath” (Grantville Gazette 100), which takes place between Reed’s last letter and the final scene.

“A Week Together” Eric Flint’s 1632 & Beyond Issue 8 (2024)

Eric Flint’s 1632 & Beyond Issue 8 has their next story together, “A Week Together.” Reed is home for one week, literally between wars. Third Division is on its way from Ostra (1636: The Saxon Uprising) to Bavaria (1636: The Ottoman Onslaught). Reed has been preaching on Sundays, and Kathy Sue has been making the house church happen. In some cases, Reed is ministering to the husbands and fathers of those attending the house church. So, it’s not just Reed and Kathy Sue who are together for the week. Plus, they’re both dealing with increased responsibilities.

I wrote this story in much the same way as the earlier epistolary story. I plotted the big event for each day, and then I pantsed the details. The story (technically a novelette by length) has more characters than are recommended because part of being home is seeing everyone. You meet their families, some other characters you know from the series, and both NESS and the Bibelgesellschaft girls have cameos. There’s an Easter egg tie-in to 1637: The Coast of Chaos. I think I hid it pretty well, but see if you can find it.

At the same time, quite a bit of the story has just Reed and Kathy Sue on stage.

I think you’ll see them again.

Kathy Sue has a cameo (by letter) in “Remember Plymouth” (1637: The Coast of Chaos) and is the main character in “A Christmas Letter” (A 1632 Christmas, scheduled for 1632 & Beyond, Bonus Issue 1). The stories are set more than a year after “A Week Together.”