I'm not really a mass market writer.
Once you have your characters, they tell you what to write, you don't tell them.
I invented the historical spy novel.
And, with much of Europe occupied by Nazi Germany, and Mussolini's armies in Albania, on the Greek frontier, one wasn't sure what came next. So, don't trust the telephone. Or the newspapers. Or the radio. Or tomorrow.
You can't make accommodations in crucial situations and be heroic.
The printing presses of the state treasuries cranked out reams of paper currency- showing wise kinds and blissful martyrs- while bankers wept and peasants starved.