Why we research before writing

I suppose I might have posted this under either "Research" or "General Writing," but I don't think it quite fits either so I'll drop it here. My rant du jour is dropping fairly specific information into a novel as filler, I suppose in the name of "authenticity" -- and getting it wrong. The result is potentially jarring, and it can momentarily (or longer) knock the reader right out of the story.

One of my favorite authors wrote a book (actually a series of books) in which some of the protagonists were civilians on detached assignments aboard naval vessels. Because on an early assignment one of these civilians was attacked and almost killed by a disgruntled Navy officer, the parameters established for future such assignments were that (a) there would always be at least two such civilians on any such assignment, and (b) in terms of "pecking order" the leader of each civilian team would be considered for purposes of protocol (but not command) to hold a rank equivalent to Captain in the Navy.

Fast forward to a scene in which the civilian team is part of an exploratory group that is shuttled to a landing area to probe an unknown and potentially hostile land mass. Security for the landing team is provided by a squad of Marines, under the command of a Marine Major. As the landing craft opens up and the team starts to disembark, the Marine Major says something like, "My men will take the point, Captain."

One of the other civilian members of the team says in an aside to the civilian leader, "That was a subtle way of reminding you that he outranks you."

The problem with that is that a Marine Major does NOT outrank a Navy Captain. In the Army, Air Force, and Marines, the rank of Captain is a grade O-3, which is one notch below Major (O-4). But in the Navy, the O-4 rank is Lieutenant Commander and the O-3 rank is Lieutenant. In the Navy, a Captain is an O-6 -- two levels above a Marine Major.

It's a very minor point in a very readable book, but it's a point that would jump out at any reader who was in the military. It stopped me in my tracks. I've been out of the Army for more than 50 years and this little goof made me stop reading and think, "Wait -- what did she just say there?" It completely interrupted the flow of the narrative, which I think was unfortunate -- and was also totally unnecessary and avoidable.

[/rant mode]

 

Yeah, Captain is pretty high in the Navy. Would it be reasonable to say that there is roughly one Captain per vessel, possible a little higher due to land based crew? I would think Major would be much more numerous and hold less rank in comparison.

 

Considering that Navy ships (especially other than amphibious assault ships, which the ship in this novel was not) generally have small Marine contingents if they have any at all, I would not expect any proliferation of Majors. The Marine Corps officer rank system follows the same structure as the Army -- Major is a field grade officer (battalion level or higher), not a company-grade officer.

I believe generally a navy ship would have not more than one captain on board, at least in any chain of command capacity. The deal with these civilian specialists was that they were to be treated by the Navy crew with the same respect and deference as a Navy captain -- but they held no actual command rank. It's sort of like my rank in the Army in Vietnam. I was a Specialist 5, pay grade E-5. That rank no longer exists. Today, all E-5s are sergeants. We had E-5 sergeants when I was in, too, but sergeants held command rank. We specialists didn't. In those days the specialist rating went all the way up to Spec 7 (E-7), but in terms of command authority a Corporal (E-4) outranked a Spec 7.

So in the novel, the honorary Captain rating was just that -- it was honorary, it wasn't a command rank. But it was specifically stated to be equivalent to a Navy Captain, so a Marine Major would not have outranked the civilian "Captain."

 

Honestly, I know absolutely nothing about military/naval ranks. If I was on board, I'd salute everyone, just in case, but don't imagine I'll ever need worry about it. My take, for what it's worth, is that the author is actually making the very point you make. The Major is a lesser rank, but he is making the point that, in operational terms, the honorary Captain means diddly when bullets might be flying. He is impressing on the civilian that, even with a lower rank, he is in charge, outranking in the only sphere that matters, commanding the members of the unit and deciding upon tactics. That's how I read the bit you've quoted, though might have understood it differently without your explanation.

 

That would make sense, except for the second civilian's comment about the Major showing off that he outranks the civilian leader by referring to him as "Captain."

I dunno. maybe it even works with that taken into account -- but it didn't work for me, and that was the point behind my posting about it.

 

I think @B.E. Nugent 's interpretation would be emphasized more if 'Captain' were in italics, implying a change in inflection on the part of the Major. Maybe the comma is meant to imply that, but I think also using italics works better. One of the things that's easier to do on film.

 

I thought All Marines always outranked Everyone Else. At least that's what a former true love told me. Guess which branch of the service he was in.

 

There's always the problem that people who specialize in a particular study or practice will notice even the slightest mistake in a book or movie that the vast majority of people would never notice or care about. Whose problem is it? I'd say the problem of the specialist, who finds it difficult or impossible to enjoy the piece (or a portion of it). In another sense it's the author's problem, but most likely their research failed to disclose the problem (obviously) and how would they know that? Until of course the reviews start rolling in from some of the specialists.

I'm reminded of two things:

1) I tried to discuss the movie Black Swan once with a woman I know online who's an advanced ballet student. She immediately said she had tried to watch it but couldn't stand even a second of Natalie Portman's absolutely atrocious dancing. It ruined it for her to the point that she refused to even look at the movie. And I can't say I blame her, but not being a dancer myself or highly knowledgeable about it, I was able to overlook it easily and enjoy other aspects of it.

2) In a college speech course once I had to stand up and do my piece, in which I mispronounced several words. They were words I had seen in print many times but never heard pronounced. I remember one was deity, which I pronounced as die-dee, sort of like how a young child might say diapers. Little did I realize the correct pronunciation is day-a-tee. Another was seive. I pronounced it like seeve. It's supposed to be siv.

The instructor said if I'm not sure of the pronunciation I should look it up, which sounds like excellent advice. I didn't mention it at the time, but the problem was—I had no idea that my pronunciation was wrong. How would I even know or suspect? In each case that's the way I always imagined the words were pronounced, and I had no reason to believe I was wrong. I had been thinking of them that way for decades.

My point being that the aforementioned author probably had absolutely no reason to suspect that there was anything wrong with what he or she had written, and therefore no reason to suspect that more research was needed. What was needed I suspect wasn't more research but a beta reading by someone with military experience.

 

This. Absolutely. I once asked a friend to read a manuscript solely to determine if I'd said anything stupid about the military in Vietnam. Even offered to mark the military areas of the book since I suspected much of it wasn't his thing, but he insisted he wanted to critique the entire manuscript.

 

Ummm ... Coast Guard?

 

I'll bet they eat crayons.

 

I could not agree with you more about being turned off by false information in a book killing any desire to read any more of it. I picked up the The Crossing by Cormac McCartty, an award winning book and trilogy. The trapping descriptions were such pure bullshit I struggled with it. Then to top it off, the story line about a boy saving a wolf who made a living farming is a complete joke and would never happen. I have trapped for money, lived and made my living on a farm, the story, though being well told, well written was complete garbage to me. I picked it up and put it down many times before giving up on it. I really enjoyed his first book, All the Pretty horses. I know nothing about horses, nothing of the southern boarder. My enjoyment came only from being ignorant.

Write what you know, or do research, research and more research. This is why there is so much junk out there, it is either written by those who have never done more than dream about stuff, yet actually never done anything or is pure fiction. Even good fiction to be believable has to have some healthy dash of reality to really make it good. There are more writers today than there have every been, more garbage out there than ever. With today's ability to access information there is no excuse for lazy writing. When all else fails, it never hurts for someone to actually go on an adventure and keep to the first tenant of good writing. Write what you know.