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- 02/26/2014
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9.11 - 79. Author's Comments
When the final chapter of 9.11 is posted (excluding this note), it will encompass some five months in CAP time (June, 2001 to November, 2001). I started publishing 9.11 on April 14, 2013, and completed posting it in February, 2014, some ten months later. Pretty ironic that it took us twice as long to write, edit, beta, and publish the story than the time that elapsed in the novel.
The book will consist of slightly more than 500,000 words. To put that into perspective, War and Peace (Tolstoy) weighs in at around 570,000 words, and Les Miserables contains about 530,000. This has been a massive undertaking, and I owe an enormous debt to my team for their hard work, their candid feedback, and their unwavering support. And while it is not my longest novel (that honor goes to Paternity, with almost 645,000 words), it has certainly been the hardest.
Of all the CAP stories, this one has required the most research. The terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001 represent a pivotal moment in world history, one that has had long-reaching and disastrous consequences for the United States and the rest of the world. It is recent enough that it impacted most of us personally, and many have very vivid and painful memories of that fateful day. I felt that to screw up the attacks by blatantly flawed representations would be an insult to my readers and their memories. I’ve read at least three books on the attacks, along with countless articles and webpages. Wikipedia was the best resource, and I found it to be an accurate source, but of course, I can only say that after I read all the others.
Developing the plot to fit the attacks was a challenge, but one that ended up flowing with the research. Who should be in which tower? How were the buildings structured, and how were the elevators built? The World Trade Center Towers used segmented elevators, with sky lobbies; so you’d take an express elevator to a sky lobby, then board another for the trip to your floor between the sky lobbies. There were very few elevators that went the entire height of the building. What happened to the elevators when the towers were struck? The biggest plot aid was discovering the story of Stairwell A, and how it was possible to descend it. Then there were the other details to research and work in, like the unavailability of cell phone service after the towers were hit, and the sealing off of Manhattan after the attacks.
Spending all of that time with a topic that was so macabre was depressing, and not a little damaging to my psyche. The encouragement from my team, and the enthusiastic and overwhelming response from my readers after the chapters were posted, did much to ameliorate that.
Then there was the issue of characters who did not make it, and almost worse than that was dealing with the emotional pain of the survivors after that. I sometimes roll my eyes when readers try to tell me what these characters are thinking or feeling, or that I have them acting out of character. Not that it hasn’t happened, but those occasions are relatively rare. These people live in my mind. They are part of me. To give them up, or kill them off, is pretty painful. I have a really hard time going back and re-reading many of the earlier stories because when I encounter Robbie, I feel guilty, and sad. He was one of my favorite characters. He was so flawed and stubborn, but he had a heart of gold when it came to his family. He’s been a part of CAP for years now, since Be Rad, which I wrote in 2008. Saying goodbye to him was tough for all of us, but I still maintain that it was necessary.
The book is divided up into three sections. The first part, which took place before the attacks, was largely designed to show how people could get so riled up over stupid conflicts, so as to see how, in the greater scheme of things, some of those issues just weren't all that important. The second part constituted the attacks and their immediate aftermath. And the final part was designed to show how these characters dealt with the fallout from the attacks, and from their losses. I thought that the part about the attacks would be the toughest to write, but the last part has been worse. Seeing these characters in pain, feeling their anguish, watching them deal with the traumas in ways that ripped their lives and relationships apart, has been a huge challenge.
The casualty count in this story was high: we lost Robbie, Jeanine, Hank, Jeff Danfield, and even Aaron Hayes. The relationships that were sacrificed were almost as bad. There is the rift between Will and Matt, and Will and Tony, to contend with, but that pales in comparison to the disintegration of Wade and Matt’s relationship. They had been through so much, from Matt’s illness and Wade’s molestation (Bloodlines) to freeing Nana from captivity in her nursing home. But traumas like 9.11 take their toll on relationships, and it seems reasonable that those two would suffer from this, especially when you tack on the stress of finishing their undergraduate years, and the need to take those next life steps.
And of course, a big part of the challenge was in putting first my team through these emotional upheavals, and then inflicting them upon my readers. I am glad that it is done, and over. I hope that, after you read this, you feel that I did justice to the event, and to the characters.
Mark Arbour
February 25, 2014
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Note: While authors are asked to place warnings on their stories for some moderated content, everyone has different thresholds, and it is your responsibility as a reader to avoid stories or stop reading if something bothers you.
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