I had an idea for this character who is an incredibly skilled special forces soldier who recently went missing in action. When he returns to his home country, he is offered the opportunity to join a highly classified unit under the condition that he gives up his identity or personal freedom until he dies. The special forces do a lot of interesting stuff, but unfortunately we get very little insight into what they actually do. We know they perform tasks that normal troops are unable to. So what does the army do when even their special forces can't complete the task? They recruit this group. The problem is, I have absolutely no clue what this group would do. To avoid it becoming a cliche war-flick, I feel like they don't get deployed like other troops, but instead they use unconventional methods to accomplish their objectives. These people are definitely not without floor. In my first chapter, the recruiter describes every as "not caring whether or not they survive as long as they get the job done". They want ex-special forces type people who are willing to do something out of the ordinary. Any ideas?
Hi Aaron, It's a difficult proposition [for me to think of something original] because you're trekking a well-worn road. Obvious scenarios would involve your super-special forces operating illegally... but that's been done to death (though that's no reason why you couldn't do it with an original spin). One thing that springs to mind [no idea if it's original or not] would be infiltration – have your super-soldiers work their way into sensitive positions in foreign armies, like the long-game the Russians played with their spies during the cold war (set a person in place, wait for a decade till person gets to a sensitive spot, then voila – pay day]. Except in your case it would be soldiers not spies. It'd be quite an advantage for a general to have command of the other army's troops... Good luck with it.
That's interesting. The story is going to be primarily about the main character and what a loser he is despite all his achievements in life, but I also wanted to offer something interesting that wasn't just your normal "man vs himself" story.
There are a lot of books both fiction and non fiction about what special forces do - having a good read of those would be a start. One thing you'll note is that they are mostly written by Ex SF personel , if you're not its difficult to pull off convincingly that aside one possibility might be to update on things SF have done in the past - for example C&C in vietnam made covert raids into laos and cambodia , so you could imagine modern day SF making raids into north korea, or into Iran or similar ... or take it one step further perhaps your SF unit operates in putatively freindly countries which is why its so top secret
