Navy Commander Rick Campbell Makes Waves by Penning Military Thrillers: an Interview
By Jan O'Hara | February 16, 2015 |
Unboxeders, I hope you’ll join me today in welcoming retired Navy Commander Rick Campbell to Writer Unboxed for a brief interview about his writing.
For more than twenty-five years, as we slept on pillow-topped queen-sized mattresses, he claimed a rack aboard one of four nuclear submarines, working to keep us safe. On his last submarine, he was one of the two men whose permission was required to launch the submarine’s nuclear warhead-tipped missiles.
He finished his career with tours in the Pentagon and in the Washington Navy Yard. Upon retirement from the Navy, Rick tried his hand at writing and was offered an initial two-book deal from Macmillan / St. Martin’s Press. (Since expanded to another two-book deal.)
His first novel, The Trident Deception, was hailed by Booklist as “The best submarine novel since Tom Clancy’s classic – The Hunt for Red October”.
Rick’s second novel, Empire Rising, is due out Feb. 24th and critical praise has been equally profuse. Publishers Weekly said of it: “Another riveting military action thriller by Rick Campbell. A MUST READ for fans of this genre.” And Booklist? “The story rockets around the globe and the pages cannot turn fast enough. Readers who miss Clancy will devour Campbell.”
Here’s the blurb for Empire Rising as described by Barnes & Noble:
Very much in the spirit of Jack Ryan, Campbell has crafted a tightly plotted and horrifyingly believable story in which China, desperate for access to oil in a near-future where supplies are running low, declares war and reveals itself to be much better prepared than anyone expected. After a military disaster that sends the United States reeling and leaves the Chinese free to act, a trio of well-written characters work to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat. Combining thrilling espionage-style adventures, detailed naval battles, and incredible SEAL Team missions, Campbell has created what might be the perfect military thriller.
Rick lives with his wife and three children in the greater Washington, D.C. area. You can find him at his website and on his Facebook page.
Jan: Welcome, Rick! To begin with, shall we establish the interview ground rules? Given your background as a college wrestler and your impressive military career, if my questioning gets out of line, do I need to be concerned for my safety or ability to travel?
Rick: Only if you’re flying over the Atlantic or Pacific Oceans. :)
The Trident Deception and Empire Rising are the first military thrillers I’ve read, and I was immediately struck by the balancing acts you’re require to perform. To begin with, civilian-readers such as myself require ongoing education about technical details, military history, and jargon so that the narrative makes sense, and so that we might appreciate the challenges facing your characters. At the same time, you don’t want readers choking on information. How do you ensure you hit the sweet spot between information and overload?
Rick: You’ve identified a critical issue I struggle with. A crucial element in thrillers is pacing, and you can’t spend too much time explaining the ship, tactical system, and weapon capabilities, but the reader needs to know 
enough to visualize the scene and understand what’s going on. The challenge is to impart the necessary knowledge as unobtrusively as possible, without stopping for a dissertation that brings the story to a halt. This is really a no-win situation, as there will be too much detail for some and not enough for others, or as they say – you can’t make everyone happy all the time. But my writing is geared toward those who know very little about the Navy, while adding a few details so experts will appreciate the authenticity and realism of the scenario.
You’re dealing with three audiences with perhaps three different expectations around technical accuracy: civilians, uniformed personnel, and national security agencies. How do you keep the information basic enough to engage civilians and avoid giving away military secrets, all while entertaining and challenging your expert readers?
Rick: I think this is the same challenge as above, coupled with the requirement to keep everything unclassified. This creates problems when those on the expert side of the spectrum read the book and identify where I’ve simplified things so the average reader can understand. For example, I modify the dialog on occasion so it’s not chock-full of Navy acronyms, so the dialog is understandable by the average reader and I don’t have to stop and explain what the character just said. There are also cases where the tactical response isn’t correct – for example, torpedo evasion on submarines. I can’t have the crew maneuver and deploy countermeasures as they would in real life because those tactics are classified. But I keep things as accurate as possible without crossing over into classified capabilities or operations.
Were you required to have your fiction vetted by any service personnel? Is that a contractual requirement, or would any thriller writer have the same constraints?
Rick: I didn’t need to get my first two books reviewed, since I write fiction. The only requirement is to ensure no classified information is included. My third book will need to be reviewed by the Navy because I had to get their approval to access expertise I couldn’t obtain through my contacts. Their review will ensure no classified information is included by mistake.
I’m boggled by the level of research you must have done to write these novels, particularly Empire Rising, which required knowledge not only of submarine warfare but expertise about the functioning of aircraft carriers, SEAL teams, and fighter jets, to name just a few. Then there are the geographic and political details about the Israelis and Chinese, the alphabet soup of acronyms military personnel toss around in conversation… Can you describe your research process?
Rick: About one-third of my time writing is spent on research. Thank God for Google. There’s still plenty of information I need that not’s available on the Internet, so I interview one or two subject matter experts in each field to ensure I’ve got the details correct. I also provide the written scenes applicable to them for their review, to make sure I haven’t misunderstood anything.
I do most of my research ahead of time as I outline each novel. Writers tend to be broken down into Plotters and Pansters, and I’m the ultimate plotter. Before I begin writing, I have each chapter outlined, and my books average 80 chapters. I actually outline in Excel, with each chapter having 17 columns of information, ranging from basic events to a more detailed outline, the location of each scene, which major characters are present, and whose POV the scene will be written in.
How do you organize all your research material so it’s accessible? Do you use specific tools or have a savant-like memory?
Rick: I start by collecting information in a Word document, collated by topic, since early on I’m not sure what information will be required to write each scene. Once I have a better understanding of what will happen in each scene, I populate each chapter in the Excel file with the required information.
I count 108 named characters in Empire Rising and a similar number in The Trident Deception. A significant portion of them look to be recurrent, series characters. Given the operatic scale, how do you keep track of a character’s physical description, educational history, relationships, etc?
Rick: This is a great question, because the challenge in writing a thriller that requires so many characters is to avoid all of them coming across as cardboard cutouts.
Unfortunately, I can’t stop to describe every person’s physical features, their background, or their motivations. That would be a thriller-killer from a pacing perspective. So I describe only those physical features the reader needs to know to understand subsequent events. For example, in The Trident Deception there’s a physical encounter between two main characters, so I let the reader know early on that Christine is relatively small – a former gymnast – and the man confronting her is over six feet tall and two hundred pounds. That lets the reader know up front that the encounter is not likely to turn out well for Christine.
My editor is even stricter on this issue than I am. During the revisions to my first novel, he struck EVERY physical description. I added back in those details the reader needed to know, but took his cue to keep physical descriptions to a minimum. As far as background and motivations go, I rarely provide the back-story on a character. Instead, I let the reader gain a sense of each character’s personality and motivations by what they do and say. As the saying goes, Show, don’t tell.
Christine O’Connor, the President’s National Security Adviser, is a consistent protagonist in both your novels. Quite often her actions set up a storyline, the consequences of which fall on a geographically remote secondary character, thus necessitating frequent point-of-view shifts. Between that and the technical content of your novels, it strikes me that a military thriller could easily devolve into an intellectual exercise and feel more like a chess match than a story. Yet in a short space you somehow manage to evoke empathy for your cast and keep the reader’s emotions engaged in the larger conflict. What are your secrets?
Rick: You’re correct in that it’s an intellectual exercise at the plot level, starting with how to organize the plot so the reader wants to keep turning the pages to find out what happens next. One of the columns in my Excel file is simply a color code, with each “thread” given a particular color, so I can visualize at a high level how the scenes 
flow and how long it’s been since I brought the reader back into each story line. You’ve hit the nail on the head with respect to the challenge of creating reader empathy when you have so many characters. I try to accomplish this by having as many scenes as possible told from the POV of the main characters. This isn’t always possible, since I have to be realistic and the main characters can’t be everywhere that the necessary events unfold.
Marketing can be a bit of a dirty word among authors, but your genre and connections have meant unique opportunities and I’ve watched you zealously pursue them. Can you describe your outreach efforts to both civilians and service personnel? Which methods proved most effective?
Rick: St. Martin’s Press takes care of reaching the average reader, getting my books placed in Barnes & Noble and other retail outlets, and they manage social media and Internet publicity and marketing. My efforts are focused on reaching the military demographic, because I think they would enjoy my novels and also because the military networks are more response to a veteran like me than to a big publishing company like St. Martin’s.
The key issue (and challenge) in self-promotion efforts is how to affordably reach your demographic in large numbers. My approach is not to connect with readers, but with networks, and each network point-of-contact then forwards my information to his membership. For example, when I reach out to my network, one of the nodes forwards my email to 12,000 military veterans. Another reaches 28,000 veterans. Not all are this big (they probably average 500 people) and not all are as responsive, but with my current network size of 300 nodes, the word gets spread much more effectively than with my eNewsletter, for example, which reaches only 1000 people. Those interested in this type of approach need to identify networks whose membership are predisposed to reading what they write, and who are also willing to help.
Finally, your characters battle large ethical issues. Does one have a responsibility to avoid violence which would solve a huge problem, especially when there’s no chance of discovery or blame? In the final moments, will duty to family or duty to country prevail? And so on. What questions do you want to prosecute in future fiction, Rick? Will you explore them with Christine O’Connor and crew?
Rick: My goal in writing a thriller is simply to entertain, and I’m very careful to avoid trying to influence a reader’s political or moral convictions. However, in The Trident Deception the characters had to deal with several moral issues for which there was no right or wrong answer. Each character had to weigh the pros and cons of each option, and some of them were gut-wrenching decisions.
All my novels going forward feature Christine, Captain Wilson, and a new character introduced in Empire Rising – a SEAL named Jake Harrison, who was engaged to Christine when they were seniors in high school, adding a little bit of sexual tension between the two. Harrison is married to another woman now, which poses a problem. However, if my editor lets me, I plan to take care of that problem.
Have any questions for Rick, fellow land lubbers? Take ‘em to the space below. Also, Rick will generously be providing a hardcover copy of Empire Rising to one commenter. (To qualify, leave a comment by midnight February 23rd and possess a mailing address within continental North America.)
A USA Today bestselling author, former family physician and academic, Jan O’Hara (she/her) left the world of medicine behind to follow her dreams of becoming a writer. She writes love stories that zoom from wackadoodle to heartfelt in six seconds flat: (Opposite of Frozen; Cold and Hottie; Desperate Times, Desperate Pleasures). Her latest Christmas novella, The Cowboy’s Comeback Christmas, is part of a 9-author-strong anthology (A Cowboy This Christmas: A Sweet Romance Anthology). She also contributed to Author in Progress, a Writer’s Digest Book edited by Therese Walsh.
Commander Campbell–
Thank you for your service. Jan O’Hara is so right when she speaks of civilians sleeping peacefully while thousands stay vigilant to keep us safe. Or, in the age of terrorism, at least safer.
It’s often said that thrillers and mysteries differ in this way: thrillers emphasize character, mysteries emphasize plot. My favorite thriller writer is Elmore Leonard. He clearly emphasizes character, and this is made possible because he always works with a small cast, operating in a limited set of locales.
Jan says Empire Rising has 108 named characters. My question is this: how do you keep such a big cast, operating on a global scale, from overwhelming your novels with detail, at the expense of developing characters that engage readers? For all his success, Tom Clancy’s characters have always seemed to me to be at the mercy of plot and military detail. Jack Ryan never touched me until I saw him brought to life by Harrison Ford.
Hi Barry,
Great question. Because of the type of thriller I write, I require a large cast of characters, which creates an issue when you also want the reader to identify and have empathy for your characters – they can’t have empathy for over 100 of them. I try to keep as many scenes as possible in the POV of the main characters, and I cut out unnecessary characters where possible. It may not seem that way with over 100 characters, but when you’re dealing with combat between ships, for example, it’s not like a special forces guy or sniper on a mission, where he or his small team accomplish everything. Naval combat requires several characters per ship to accomplish just about anything, so the cast grows quickly, mostly with minor characters that are required for realism purposes, but who you don’t need to spend any time developing, so you don’t overwhelm the reader, as you point out, with details about everyone. You just need to know that so-and-so pushed the button when the Captain gave him the order. You’ll get to know the Captain in more detail, because you’ll experience everything through his POV, but only one or two of his subordinates will matter from a “characterization” standpoint.
Thanks to you both for this fascinating glimpse behind the scenes. My neighbor is retired Navy, and spent his career as a tactician. A proud footnote on his remarkable career is having one of his actual books on tactics visible on the shelf in one of the scenes in Hunt for Red October (not sure which office, maybe Admiral Painter’s?). Surely the book’s worth is much greater as a non-prop, but this is something of his we can all relate to.
I have to admire the balance Jan speaks of in keeping an intricate action scene moving (clearly) without losing the characters in the process. I don’t write thrillers, but I just spent a couple of weeks writing an epic battle scene. While I’ve done dozens of scenes involving some sort of military or martial action, this was the first time I really attempted to keep the pulse of each character beating for the reader throughout. It was one of the most difficult things I’ve ever done, and I’m still far from sure that I achieved my goals for the scene. Fingers crossed.
Thanks, Boss, for your usual incisiveness as an interviewer. And I’ll echo Barry in thanking you, Commander, for your service and for the insight and inspiration you provide here and in your novels.
Hi Vaughn,
It’s difficult to balance character development to start with when you’re dealing with a thriller, where pacing and tension are paramount. Character development slows things down and is counterproductive to the main goal of creating a page-turning novel. However, you can’t generate tension if the reader doesn’t care about what happens to the characters, and therefore you have to create characters interesting enough for the reader to become invested in and care about. It’s a bit of a paradox as I see it, and one of those Goldilocks situations where you’ll never make everyone happy. My approach is to start with plot, pacing and tension, then make sure the characters create enough empathy for the reader to care about them.
Commander Campbell and Jan, thank you for this inside glimpse into the development of these novels. It’s always a challenge to determine what the reader needs to know when describing a highly technical (and classified) environment. It’s a further challenge to describe this world in terms the reader will understand. I admire your exhaustive research and the organizational skills you bring to the outlining process. Your thoroughness and due diligence are examples we all should follow. As someone who is a pantser trying to be more of a plotter, I am a little jealous. I wish you the best and thank you again for sharing your wisdom with our community.
Hi CG,
I think plotters and pansters look at each other and wonder – How can they write like that?
Good luck with your writing!
Good morning, everyone, and thank you for your comments. To clarify, any sense of formality in the interview is entirely my fault! Rick prefers to be addressed by his first name.
Oh man, I love good Navy stories. I was a brat to a lifer and served four years myself. I read Clancy every chance I got (then Loius L’Amour when I got sick of the sea). I’ve never attempted to write about my Navy experience, though I did just finish my first middle grade, which is the story of a navy brat who lost his father aboard the USS Scorpion. But I stayed away from the technical aspects, not to mention the conspiracy theories.
Here’s my question. I completed my service in ’88. I still enjoy keeping up with the latest toys and technology, but find it’s nearly impossible. How do you keep up with the latest technology, planes, ships, and other tools of war? It seems so easy to miss some gadget that would totally change the course of a modern warfare novel.
Thanks for dropping by Commander (I’ll call you Rick after the first beer). Looks like I have a new author to follow.
Hi Ron,
That’s an excellent question, particularly since the pace of technology advancement aboard our ships, and submarines in particular, has accelerated over the last 15 years (for reasons I can discuss later). My technical knowledge, even of submarines, is outdated even though it’s been only a bit more than 10 years since I’ve been to sea. So I rely on those currently in the military, serving aboard submarines, cruisers, aircraft carriers, etc. to update me on the current technology and operational protocols, then I provide their scenes to them so they can review it and make sure the details are correct. Luckily, I have good contacts and am able to make new ones in the areas I require, although for Book 3, I was stuck and had to get Navy Public Affairs to help out in a few key areas. (They actually have a book division that will assist, if you’re approved, in helping a writer get the technical details correct.)
This sounds fantastic. I love novels where I learn something entirely new and outside the norm. Rick, I appreciated your take on plotting and keeping track of details. Very much looking forward to reading this. Thanks for the interview, Jan and Rick!
Thanks Amymak!
Dear Commander Rick –
Congrats on a wonderful career and thank you for your service. I love thrillers although I generally do not read military thrillers having no military background. As a writer of mysteries, however, I am intrigued by your use of excel as a plotting tool so I have 3 questions for you:
1. Would you be willing to share the names of the headings of your 17 columns. I think it might help me to see what other writers keep track of in their plot tools. Your example of the color column, for example, is most illuminating.
2. How did you come to use excel as a plotting device?
3. Any good books on the excel plotting method?
I currently have 3 non-fiction books published by a traditional publisher, but I enjoy working on fiction for the challenge.
Best wishes,
Ann Benoit
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Hi Ann,
The columns in my Excel outline are:
2 Color Code columns (because sometimes a chapter supports 2 threads)
Ch #
Event – a few words that describes what happens in the chapter, almost like a chapter title
Location – where in the world or in what ship/building the scene occurs
POV Character – whose POV the scene is written in. Each main character has his own text color, and this also provides a visual cue to how often and when each main character appears in the book.
3 “Day” Columns
– A number which keeps track of elapsed time
– Day of the week, so I know whether it’s a workday, weekend, etc.
– Time of day, i.e. morning, afternoon, or evening
4 to 5 “Time” Columns
– Keeps track of time in each time zone the story occurs, so when I finish one scene in one part of the world and jump to another I know what time it is and I don’t have a White House meeting, for example, at 3 a.m., or a night time scene with the sun shining.
Outline Summary – the basic events that occur in the chapter. The following columns add detail.
PTP – “Paint The Picture” opening of each chapter. When dealing with so many scenes and characters, it’s crucial to reorient the reader as quickly as possible at the beginning of each chapter, as to who, what, where, when, etc. they are, and I fry plenty of brain cells and butcher all rules of grammar trying to accomplish this. I try to lay this out ahead of time to make the writing part go faster.
BI – Background Info – brings the reader up to speed on events that have occurred while they were gone from this thread/scene, if required.
PE – Preliminary Event – not always part of the chapter, but sometimes used to build tension for the ME
ME – Main Event – This is where the action and dialog take place.
Okay, so that’s 18-19 columns, depending on how many time zones the story takes place in, but who’s counting. :)
I came to use Excel because I needed an easy way to structure my outline (and a linear outline in Word just wouldn’t work), plus Excel makes keeping track of the time in the different scenes easy, since all but one column are calculations. (There’s one main column where I set the time, and the other time zones are calculated automatically.)
I’m not aware of any books on how to outline in Excel. I think it’s a great tool, but the structure of your outlines would need to be customized for the type of book you write and the challenges you need to address.
I loved Trident Deception and really looking forward to the release of Empire Rising.
I have one question, Rick: At which U.S. cities are the nuclear weapons aimed? Just kidding! I saw another interview with you where this seemed to be a topic of fascination for some people. Something you firmly debunked.
My particular fascination is a little more prosaic, but seems to be in line with others – your process of outlining and details like color-coded Excel columns for threads. I can see why this sort of precision is essential for a novel with 108 characters, but plotting has to make the process easier for all of us who write and, despite being a natural pantser, I’m being won over.
Thanks, Jan, for another penetrating interview! And Rick for the candid answers.
Hi Deborah!
Actually, the missiles were aimed at Perth. (Just kidding!)
I appreciate the creativity that comes with being a Panster,, but it’d be impossible to write the type of books I write as a Panster. Everything needs to be laid out ahead of time, and the timeline itself often gives me the biggest problem. For example, in Book 3, I have a scene in the White House, and the president needs to call the Russian president. But with Moscow 8 time zones to the east, I’ve got the have the White House scene first thing in the morning. But an earlier scene that prompts the White House scene occurs 4 time zones to the east as night falls, so my original timeline was unworkable. I had to move the earlier scene up, which creates a domino effect on multiple scenes, since they’re all sequential and there isn’t much time between them. Once everything’s laid out in a workable fashion, then I can modify the scenes I had in mind WRT what day and time of day, etc.
Rick – I was fascinated by your mention of your network “nodes.”
My first Penny Summers mystery, “Katelyn’s Killer”, will be published in April. The story has several thematic threads, among them, and central to the plot, is PTSD. My character, a former Navy medic, served two tours in Iraq, and was discharged with the diagnosis. He now sees a VA counselor weekly.
My point in mentioning this to you is that I’d appreciate any suggestions you may have for tapping into military or retired military “nodes” where information about “Katelyn’s Killer” might find a receptive reader or two.
I will follow subsequent posts here, or I may be reached at johngordon seventy-six seventy-six (at) gmail (dot) com.
And, of course, I’ll look for “The Trident Deception” at our local B&N! Best wishes for great success in your second career!
Thanks!
John Gordon, CDR, USNR (Ret.)
Hi John,
I’ve got a list of medical related military networks, although I haven’t reached out to them yet because they’re lower priority due to me writing thrillers, but it sounds like they might be responsive to what you write. I”m a bit swamped right now with a couple of my Rube Goldberg promotion plans, but I’ll try to email you when I get a chance. If I forget, you can email me a rick at rickcampbellauthor.com.
I’ve never read this genre and I must say that it was pretty interesting to read this interview, as it did a great job of giving us a glimpse of what goes into writing a military thriller.
Thanks for the great post!
Thanks Jason!
Including background/explanation is tricky with stories that might be outside the readers’ experience. I found this post on “Four Secrets for Better Exposition” useful. It’s about screenwriting and uses examples from movies, but the principles apply to novels to some extent.
https://letsschmooze.blogspot.com/2015/02/four-secrets-for-better-exposition.html
Thanks Kris. Excellent article.
Congratulations, Barry! You’re the proud new owner of a hardcover copy of Empire Rising. Rick will be in touch.
Hi Commander Rick,
I think that I would be very interested in reading your novels- I’ve only “found” you a few days ago. So sorry I’ve missed such a fascinating author for so long.
I write thrillers too… although I’m still on the first draft of my first book. :) Harder than I expected, but still pushing strong.
I have quite a lot of questions about the USN and the submarines in it (since the novel I’m on now deals with things like that), so if you could please shoot me an email, that would be great.
I could be contacted from my website, https://odelia.littleapplesofgold.com/ on the contact page.
I understand if you don’t have time for me.
Can’t wait to get going on one of your books!!!
God bless!!
Hi Odelia. I’ll send you my contact info via your website.
Thanks a bunch, Commander.