I am searching for a few good men, or women, or teenagers who have knowledge of the military and how it works, and/ or live on or grew up on a military base in the USA.
I am going to openly admit that I’m writing fiction that has a lot of military activity in it, and I am taking a lot of wild guesses since my father never talked about the service AT ALL.
I’m looking for a few people who know more than I do who can take a look at my novel and say “Yeah, that’s possible” or “No, you are completely off your rocker… that would never happen in a zillion years.”
In a nutshell, I don’t want to ruin what I think is a pretty good story because of my lack of military knowledge.
The novel is Fire in the Woods — a sci-fi based in New Jersey on the East Coast of the USA. It starts off at McGuire Air Force Base, and then runs through several South Jersey locations. The target audience is YA (teen) girls, although there is a strong male character at her side that I think will appeal to everyone.
I have visited each location and mapped out the story. Now I just need to know if I have to change any character’s military ranks/titles/positions, or embellish/change things to make it at least somewhat plausible.
If you’ve never done a beta read before, and know about the military, that’s fine. I have people who can smack me around for writerly-mistakes. I just need a few “military content editors”.
When completed, I expect it to be 50,000 words (200 pages). I would need it read and critiqued within 30 days of starting it. (That’s about seven pages a day. Easy breezy)
I will most likely send it in 50 page sections (One week per section) so I can work on your comments for one section while you are reading the second.
Please let me know if you are interested.
Jennifer M Eaton 
I just saw this and would love to help. Not only was in the Air Force, but I served at McGuire AFB!!! Not only that, but I’m a writer too. Let me know if I can help.
Yes! That would be great. I went to McGuire, but some of the readers are telling me “on my base…” and I want to get it right. Please send me an email through my contact page (there is no contact page on your blog–did you know that?)
I’m a female Army veteran that served in Iraq (left the service in 2009). I’ve lived in barracks and on base housing before. One thing I will say is it depends on what perspective you’re writing from. I can certainly cover a lot from the active duty military point of view, but have no experience with being a military dependent. They really are two different perspectives. I also agree with Anastasia that it’s good to go with someone from the branch of service you will be focusing on.
As a fellow writer, I am good with giving critiques and would be happy to help out if I fit your needs. Just shoot me an email if you are interested 🙂
I was a military brat (Air Force), so I wouldn’t be perfect on the terminology, but I could lend some perspective. When I was younger, I believed my dad that TDY stood for ‘temporary duty yonder.’
Can’t help, but I’m passing it along to Twitter and FB.
Thanks! I appreciate it!
Former Navy here, and I’d love to help.
You know I’m in.
It will also depend on the branch of service you’re using. The language changes a bit. I’ve read novels where they use ALL the wrong words for certain branches, and clearly didn’t research.
One ex-Marine here, at your service! I’m a gulf war vet, but not overseas so that’s a bit of a misnomer. Sounds good on resumes thought 🙂