I faced problems like you had and I decided to develop a web part that makes it easy to customize the look & feel of a portal. You can find detailed information about it here: Item Lister Web Part.
If you want to customize the output HTML of CQWP,you should.
I cant really gove you an answer,but what I can give you is a way to a solution, that is you have to find the anglde that you relate to or peaks your interest. A good paper is one that people get drawn into because it reaches them ln some way.As for me WW11 to me, I think of the holocaust and the effect it had on the survivors, their families and those who stood by and did nothing until it was too late.