How 12 Million Soldiers Accidentally Reinvented Storytelling

This changes how you read, write and feel every story

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There are conversations that change the way you see the world. I had one of those yesterday evening with Uwe Walter, one of the greatest storytellers I’ve ever met.

I first crossed paths with him in my twenties, when I attended the RTL Journalistenschule in Cologne, Germany's most prestigious TV journalism school. Uwe was one of the teachers there and he was unlike anyone else in the building.

He introduced us to the Hero's Journey, the universal story structure that has driven every myth, every epic, every film that has ever moved a human being to tears. He hadn't learned it from a textbook. He'd learned it from Volker Schlöndorff, the legendary German director behind Die Blechtrommel (The Tin Drum), Oscar winner and winner of the Palme d'Or at Cannes.

Uwe Walter and Volker Schlöndorff

We sat together, and he told me something that hasn’t left me since.

And since I assume you might not have a clue — I didn't either until yesterday — I want to share that story with you.

It started with twelve million men who had seen things no human being should ever have to see.

Where is Creative Writing coming from?

Picture this: 1945. World War II is over. More than twelve million American soldiers come home. They step off ships, off trains. Some are limping. Some are shaking. All of them are carrying something invisible, something heavy, inside their chests.

They couldn’t just walk back through the front door and sit down for dinner. They had seen the worst of humanity. They had lived through things that had no name. And before they could return to their families, before they could be normal again, someone had a radical idea:

Write it down.

The US government passed the GI Bill in 1944. One of the most consequential pieces of legislation in American history. It gave returning veterans access to universities, housing loans, a real shot at a new life. And by 1947, nearly half of all college students in America were veterans. They flooded campuses, and something unexpected happened: they didn’t just want to study law or engineering. They wanted to tell their stories.

They enrolled in writing classes by the thousands. And the Universities of Iowa and Stanford, seeing this flood of broken and brilliant men with something urgent to say, created something the world had never seen before: the first graduate programs in Creative Writing. The first Master of Fine Arts degrees. The very first time in history that writing was treated not as a hobby or a gift from God but as a craft you could learn.

Uwe Walter told me this, and I sat there with my jaw slightly open. Because that’s what Creative Writing is, at its core.

It started with trauma, with truth, with twelve million people who desperately needed to make sense of what had happened to them.

And I find it fascinating and a little bit moving that America led the way. While Europe was rebuilding its cities brick by brick, America was rebuilding its soul through stories.

What actually is Creative Writing?

Before we go further, let’s clear something up because a lot of people have a slightly wrong picture of what Creative Writing is.

Creative Writing is not just novels. It’s not just poetry. It’s not just the kind of thing you do when you’re wearing a turtleneck and gazing meaningfully out of a rain-streaked window.

Creative Writing is any writing done for artistic expression. As opposed to technical writing (conveying data), academic writing (arguing a position), or journalistic writing (reporting the news). Creative Writing is the writing that moves people. That makes them feel something. That makes them see the world differently after they’ve read it.

It includes fiction (short stories, flash fiction, novels), poetry, screenplays, stage plays, personal essays, memoirs, creative nonfiction, graphic novel writing, and yes even the best newsletters and blog posts you’ve ever read.

The big difference between Creative Writing and everything else?

In most writing, rules are rules.

In Creative Writing, rules are suggestions. The word “creative” is right there in the name. Your job is not to be correct. Your job is to be alive on the page.

Now here’s what I love about this: Europe still largely treats writing as something you either have or you don’t. A talent. A gift from above. In Germany, in France, in most of the continent you study about literature. You analyze it. You write essays dissecting what Goethe meant in 1790.

In America, you learn to make it. You sit in a workshop with eleven other writers, you hand your story to everyone in the room, and they tear it apart, lovingly, specifically, usefully, so you can rebuild it better. That difference in philosophy is enormous. And I genuinely love that America had the courage to say: writing is a craft. Anyone can learn it. Let’s build a school.

How to start the creative writing process?

Okay, you’re inspired. You want to write. Where do you even start?

First, you need to figure out what kind of writer you are. And there are exactly two kinds: Plotters and Pantsers.

Plotters

A Plotter maps everything out before they write a single word. Character arcs, chapter outlines, plot twists planned months in advance. They know the ending before they write the beginning. They have color-coded index cards and possibly a dedicated corkboard on their office wall.

Pantsers

A Pantser writes by the seat of their pants. No plan. No map. They start with a character or a first line or a feeling, and they follow it wherever it goes. Every day is a surprise, even to them. Stephen King is famously in this camp. He puts interesting characters in difficult situations and writes to find out what happens.

Wikipedia, King in 2024

Here’s a quick test:

When you face a big life decision — do you write a pros and cons list, or do you trust your gut?

• If you make the list, you’re probably a Plotter.

• If you go with your gut, you’re probably a Pantser.

Neither is better. Both produce masterpieces. But here’s the honest advice: if you’re a Pantser, learn the basics of structure anyway. Not to cage yourself but so you know what rules you’re breaking and why. Because when you hit page 200 of a novel and realize your entire middle section makes no sense, a little structural knowledge will save your life.

The basic Story Mountain Structure every story has lived inside for three thousand years looks like this:

created in Canva by Kristina God

Exposition → you introduce your world and your character. Hook us. Make us care. This is not the boring part, this is the part where you make a promise to the reader.

Rising Action → things get worse. Then worse. Then somehow even worse than that. Every time your character tries to fix the problem, it gets more complicated. This is where great stories live.

Climax → the peak. Everything comes together. The biggest confrontation. The moment of truth.

Falling Action → the dust settles. We start to breathe again.

Resolution → the new normal. Who is your character now? What has changed? What does their life look like on the other side of this story?

This story mountain is timeless! Works for a two-page short story and a thousand-page epic.

What are the 9 components of a good story?

Here’s something that will change how you read and write forever: every story that has ever gripped you, every book you couldn’t put down, every film that made you cry on a plane. was built from the same basic components.

Not all nine will be in every story. Some stories use three or four and that’s enough. But once you see them, you can’t unsee them.

1. Once Upon a Time — the dramatic opening. The stage-setter. The first sentence that makes you lean forward. Your opening doesn’t have to be explosive, but it has to be a promise. It has to make the reader feel: something is about to happen.

2. A World View — your angle, your lens, why this story matters. Every great story is told from a specific perspective — not just who the narrator is, but what they believe about life. This worldview flavors every sentence.

3. Great Characters — the hero. The villain. The person who seems minor in chapter two but turns out to be everything in chapter twelve. Characters are the reason we read. Plot is the vehicle. Character is the destination. Give your hero a flaw — not a small one, a real one. Perfect characters are boring. Indiana Jones was terrified of snakes. Superman had Kryptonite. Your hero needs their version of that.

4. Challenging Situations — what is the problem? What is the thing that is hard? This is not optional. Without challenge, there is no story. There is only a pleasant afternoon.

5. Conflict — the engine of everything. If two characters are agreeing pleasantly and everything is fine, you have a tea party, not a story. Conflict is not just people yelling at each other. It can be quiet. Internal. A person fighting their own beliefs. But it must be there.

6. Drama — the heightened version of conflict. The stakes made visible. Drama is what makes you stay up until 2am telling yourself you’ll read just one more chapter.

7. Lessons Learned — what does your character understand at the end that they didn’t understand at the beginning? This doesn’t have to be a moral lesson pasted on like a sticker. It should emerge organically from what they’ve been through.

8. New Possibility — the moment where the story opens up something you hadn’t thought about before. The unexpected angle. The door you didn’t know was there.

9. Happily Ever After — not necessarily happy. But resolved. The ending that makes the reader feel the journey was worth it. Not rushed. Not easy. Earned.

Part Five: The Secret That Changes Everything — Know Your WHY

Here’s where most writers get stuck, and it’s not where you’d expect.

The thing that separates forgettable writing from writing that sticks with people for years is this:

Do you know why you’re writing this?

Not “I want to change the world” — though beautiful, that’s too big to be useful.

Not “I want everyone to read it” — we all want that.

What is the specific, precise, human-scale reason this story exists?

Ask yourself after writing your first lines…

What is the why of your work here? What are you really trying to do?

Because writing without purpose is just beautiful noise. The words can be gorgeous. The sentences can be polished. But if there’s no sense of direction underneath it all, the reader finishes and thinks:

What did I just read? What am I supposed to take from this?

The why doesn’t have to be grand. It can be small and specific and intensely personal. In fact, the more specific it is, the better. Don’t try to write universally. Write for ONE person, one feeling, one truth. Universality is a side effect of being deeply, specifically honest.

Write about your strange specific experience. The thing only you have lived through. The thing you’re almost embarrassed to admit bothers you. That’s where the best writing hides.

And once you know your why, let it guide every scene, every sentence, every word choice. Not loudly. Not by announcing it. Just by being there, underneath everything, quietly making sure nothing is wasted.

Why I’m grateful for the 12 Million American Soldiers

I keep coming back to that image Uwe Walter gave me. Twelve million men, stepping off ships and trains. Carrying something invisible and heavy. And someone saying to them:

write it down.

They did. And from that act of collective necessity, from that urgent human need to make sense of the unspeakable,came an entire discipline. An entire culture of craft. A world in which writing is something you learn, not just something you’re born with or not.

America led the way. I find that beautiful. While the rest of the world was still deciding whether writing could be taught, the Iowa Writers’ Workshop was already running workshops in army barracks, producing Pulitzer Prize winners, changing literature.

Europe is catching up…slowly. But the gap is still real. And maybe that’s the opportunity. For those of us who didn’t grow up in a culture that takes Creative Writing seriously as a craft, we get to choose it deliberately.

We get to decide:

I’m going to learn this. I’m going to take my stories seriously. I’m going to write badly for a while, and then less badly, and then one day I’m going to write something that makes someone feel less alone.

That’s what writing does, at its best. It takes something that lived only in one person’s chest, one specific, strange, irreplaceable human experience, and makes it available to everyone.

The twelve million soldiers knew that. Uwe Walter knows that.

Now you do too.

Go write something!

Hey, I’m Kristina, the heart behind The Online Writing Club.

I started writing on the internet in December 2020, newborn in arms, during one of the most disorienting and beautiful seasons of my life. What began as a creative outlet quietly became something I never expected: a 6-figure business, a global community of 18,000 writers, dreamers, builders, and work I genuinely fall in love with every single day.

In my corporate life, I’m an award-winning marketing professional and brand strategist. Here, I pour everything I know about writing, growing an audience, and building something real into every post, every lesson, and every conversation.

If you’ve ever believed your story deserves to be heard and want to get paid to be you, you’re exactly who I built this for.

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