One of the bigger inspirations to write the 2nd Light series came from watching a lot of WWII documentaries. One of which was "Band of Brothers". As an amateur historian, there were time periods that I liked to reach, research and explore. I do have a full list but here's a handful: China's Three Kingdoms Period, Japan's Sengoku Era, WWII - US/Europe, American Revolution, American Civil War - Monitor vs Merrimac, Space Race Era/Cold War, Third Crusade, etc. For WWII, I stuck mostly to the US-based European side - Pacific side was too personal to dig deep without getting into a quagmire of A LOT of things. Even then, it was a lot of personal stories to wade through, experiences to read about and so forth.
I was inspired by the story of regiments, of units of soldiers who fought for causes and so read the Easy Company memoirs, the original book by Stephen E. Ambrose and watched whatever media I could get my hands on. And then I applied it to the time period I wanted to write in: the American Revolution. Was there a unit, a regiment, a group of men (or women as women did serve, though mostly in disguise) that I could write about? That I could research, find that shared camaraderie and drive to fight for independence?
I naively thought that yes - I could find it. What I found was the 2nd Light right in my own backyard of Connecticut. It ticked off the metaphorical and surface boxes, but when I dug deeper, that was when the real story emerged. Of the struggle to field men with adequate accouterments, of struggles with leadership, of even rebellion among the officers in the ranks (hello Sheldon and that letter!). So, I sought to emulate the "Band of Brothers" method - of telling the story of the regiment, but having a few focus characters so it did not become a non-fictional dry, (maybe) academically boring info dump of sources, of citations and of letters.
I read letters written by Tallmadge, written by Washington, written by Sheldon, Blackden, Webb, etc. I read sources of roster rolls, information and even analysis by other researchers and historians who came before me. I read supplemental notes to craft how a Revolutionary War officer conduct himself? How would several soldiers with different backgrounds and histories conduct themselves (thank you Joseph Plumb Martin for at least 1 interesting non-com perspective).
I wanted to humanize a story that show not only the glories of war, but the horrors of war. I wanted the characters and their voices to shine through - to see what made a person fight for independence and the ideals of the United States. This past weekend, I watched the series again just to re-inspire myself, but also break out of me procrastinating writing Book 4. There are other inspirations that I used to craft my novel series, but "Band of Brothers" is a rather big one.
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