Like every journalist or former journalist, I felt for decades that there was a novel in my back pocket if I could just find the thread to stitch together my experiences as a war correspondent, international development executive, entrepreneur, and behavior-change communications specialist focused on strategies to mitigate violent extremism.

I began to see a narrative arc over a decade of helping a good friend develop an off-the-grid ranch in the high desert of West Texas. And Dell City, about 80 miles east of El Paso, became the beating heart of my first novel, Seventh Flag. Amid the buzz of power tools during the day and the pop of Lone Star longneck bottle caps in the long evenings at the base of the Guadalupe Mountains, I came to know the families that settled Dell City and much of West Texas in the 1950s. This was a familiar process to me as a journalist. They generously shared the stories that comprised so much of the novel.

The Catalyst

But the single seminal moment for the novel came while watching a documentary on the football team at a predominantly Muslim high school in Michigan during Ramadan after 9/11. The entire novel unraveled before me as I watched Muslim teenagers endure the universal tradition of twice-daily football practices without food or water in the stifling late summer heat of Dearborn. As if that was not enough, they were forced to endure the stigmatization of their faith after the Twin Towers fell.

It was something of an epiphany, like finding the perfect lede for a complicated news story as I had tried so many times during my nearly two decades as a daily reporter. Seventh Flag would be a multi-generational parable about the radicalization of the United States from World War II to the present—on all sides of the political and theological spectrum. It would highlight the commonalities and strengths in our rich, diverse nation through the iconic symbols of our culture.

I would tell this story, which spans the globe and tackles such divisive issues as violent extremism, political polarization, natural resources, evolving gender roles and patriotism, through four generations of a prosperous, iconic West Texas farming family and a family of Syrian-Muslim migrants that helps them build an empire in the high desert. And at the heart of Seventh Flag is the premise that family and community are the true power of our vibrant, troubled democracy.

Mixing the Ingredients

With all of that as a foundation for the story, I spent several months of intensive research in Texas, along the Mexico border, and at West Point. Writing historical fiction is a journalist’s dream. The novelist is free to concoct the quotes and story as long as the facts are accurate. And it liberates sources to share freely with no fear that they will be identified or quoted by name. During several months of intensive research with farmers, laborers, Muslim leaders, historians, law enforcement, criminals, and environmentalists in Texas and Mexico, as well as staff and plebes at West Point, I uncovered much of the nuance and detail that make or break a work of fiction.

For example, it was during a casual conversation at a Mosque in El Paso when I first discovered the colorful lore of the U.S. Army Camel Corps, and how it contributed to Texas being home to more Muslims than any other state.

Types of Reporting

I was an old-school reporter, a true ink-stained wretch, who reveled in the traditions of gumshoe journalists. But “content” today, particularly social content, is produced and consumed in seconds. This phenomenon leaves little time for detailed scene-setting or thoughtful consideration of the nuance that distinguishes the profound from the merely prosaic. In the most extreme cases, the speed of information has literally altered the course of history. Take for example, the tsunami of tweets from the highest offices in our nation that ultimately prove to be false.

I have worked as a journalist where packs ruled. I accompanied two American presidents and five secretaries of state on overseas mission as part of a handful of reporters charged with providing “readouts” for most of the world’s media. Conversely, I have worked on stories where the nearest journalist was thousands of miles away, like the war in Somalia or local crime in suburban Dallas. While the glitz and glamour of tagging along with presidents can be fun, I vastly prefer the solo approach where you must transport the reader to your story. Recreating the scene and context, making the reader taste and feel the story, is what makes your copy sing.

Hopefully Art Happens

It was really no different in writing Seventh Flag. Like a lone prospector, I sifted through the dirt and looked under rocks from the Mexico border to the Hudson River Valley, and from northern India to central Europe in search of the unpolished nuggets that would glitter in my story. That’s how I found Bitsy Laws and assembled her from hours of interviews in Dallas, Austin, and Dell City. Bitsy is a privileged woman from Dallas, who marries into the prosperous West Texas farming family. She ends up on the top floors of the World Trade Center on 9/11 in the office of her lover after one of their trysts in New York.

I’m giving away a surprising plot twist here, but I think you’ll find Bitsy’s journey to this point at least as interesting as her demise.

Bitsy knew it was the end for her; better to jump and get it over with than to burn. She threw one leg over the window sill, then the other, and stood facing out on the narrow ledge, holding the sill behind her with both hands, like a swimmer poised for the starter’s pistol. Given the circumstances that had brought her to this moment, Bitsy was ashamed to pray, but she hoped this final desperate act might somehow cleanse her in the eyes of her God. Bitsy imagined how she would look on the pavement 105 stories below and held her skirt tightly at the knees all the way down.

Sid Balman Jr. is  a Pulitzer-nominated national security correspondent and a specialist in behavior-change communications.