Licensed to Thrill: Part one
The wannabe author sat alone in the dark of his office, tapping away at his keyboard. Next to a thermos of black coffee on his desk was a messy, handwritten plot outline. The writer stopped, he realised he was getting nowhere. He looked at the plot outline, a piece of paper with too little detail too little suspense and not enough depth. In a fit of rage he picked up the outline and the coffee and hurled it out into the night. Leaning out the window he though he heard a rustle in the dark. Was someone out there, could some other person be lurking on this remote farm, 100 kilometres from anywhere. The writer shook his head, he must be imagining things. “Why isn’t their some help out there, someone who can teach me the skills to write like a proper author. I have the ideas but I just cant put them on paper.
His computer made a beeping sound, a new RSS feed had popped up in his inbox. Licensed to Thrill, he read, a three part series on how to write a thriller short story and get it published. “Just what I need” he said as he sat down and began to read. It was then that his computer screen went black. He looked around in the darkness. Suddenly the door burst open and in stepped...
Sorry to leave you hanging there, but that’s what thriller writing is about. In a nutshell
Thriller writing is using suspense and surprise to captivate the reader in a way that does not allow the reader to put the book down
All writing should be thrilling, unless you are writing tax legislation or insurance contracts. That is why the thriller genre is such a good teste of a writer’s skill. Thriller writing takes the best bits of writing and condenses it into a consumer friendly package. Thrillers can be seen as “commercial” books, but I don’t see how the amount of money a book makes effects its artistic integrity.
So if you want to learn the skills to writing a thriller short story and getting it published, read on
Why this series is different
- It contains mostly dot points, examples, and exercises not long boring blocks of text
- It provides a example story for you to study, This example follow the exact same steps as you to construct a thrilling short story
- Its low cost. 90% of the ideas I talk about cost no money, those that do are essential for the development of your book
- It has a great end result, you end up with a short story that you can read for ever
- This series can be distributed anywhere for no cost, in fact I would encourage you to distribute this series, as long as you name the source down the bottom
The Idea: Three steps to a great story idea
What you’ll need…
- The internet
- Some scrap paper
- A library
- Some imagination
· Go down to your library and look for news and science magazines
· Example titles( national geographic, American scientist, focus)
· Get on the internet and google “weird news” , “interesting news”
· Some good sites include;
http://news.aol.com/weird-news, http://www.sfgate.com/news/bondage/
· Now read through the magazines and the websites
· Also check out www.digg.com, for plenty of interesting ideas
· Have a piece of scrap paper next to you and jot down any thing interesting you see
Example
Story about emigrating from south America to America, National Geographic, (lots of scary people(American Border Patrol, dodgy “border guards” in
There is loads of oil under the artic circle, Focus, (countries already fighting over it claiming land, Russia has legal rights to it, US ignores Canadian borders, particular ridge has most oil in it (legally claimed by Russia), a repeat of Cold War?, Russia and America both bordering resource rich land, fight over it)
Man, 84, finally gets to attend high school prom, San Fransisco chronicle, (not that interesting but the title is, why didn’t he attend first one, what happened, all questions that could start a novel)
Aboriginal man offered 5 BILLION for his land, Digg, (seems too high a figure, checks out though, all sorts of possibilities, with that much money people will do anything)
So that’s four ideas from about five minutes browsing. The two I like are the Aboriginal man’s story and the artic circle oil. Now that we have some ideas we need two more things; information and a central character.
Google the topics that particularly interest you
Sometimes the written word is a lot more informative, search amazon for non fiction books on the topics
Print off relevant information and put them in separate idea files, draw a star on the corner of any page with an interesting person in it
Example
Artic Oil idea
http://money.cnn.com/2007/08/07/news/international/arctic_oil.fortune/index.htm
http://money.cnn.com/2006/09/27/news/economy/arctic_drilling/index.htm , (star, geologist Dan Gautier)
Books
After researching the Aboriginal idea I decided the artic oil idea was better.
After deciding on an idea and reading a few books it’s time for the most important aspect of planning a novel, creating a character
The basics of Creating a Character
A character should have flaws, not terrible ones
Should be very capable at some things, not at others
Should have some depth, not just be a generic hero
Reader should empathise with character sometimes
There are many different ways to build up a character, this is how I do it
Vitals
Name: Roy Gauthier ( shows the reader he is Canadian, and from a fairly rich family
Age: 35 (not too young , not too old)
Occupation: Lawyer/ Geologist, specializes in high profile deals with oil companies, securing profits for the country or the individual ( this will suggest to the reader that he has a conscious, and that he is rich
Status: Very rich from family and from career, kind of a socialite
Reputation: A shark, takes very big commissions for his work, very smart
Mock interview
Your main motivations are... Money and lots of it
Favourite way to spend your time… Playing the trumpet, working( playing the trumpet, could intrigue the reader)
Proudest moment in life… Negotiating a deal which gave 70% of profits to an African tribe. I took a 50 million dollar commission ( sums up the character)
Song I wouldn’t want played at my funeral.. All you need is love ( suggest some past hurt)
Greatest regret… Not marrying earlier, I need someone to spend my money on
Favourite possession… My Atom Aerial and Farbio GTS (shows the reader and interest in cars, expensive ones
Describe in one sentence your philosophy on life… Do a lot of good, make a lot of money, have a lot of fun
Sample bit of writing about character
“And now I present for you, all the way from
“Good evening, ladies and gentleman,” the audience had no idea what the young, cocky looking man in the suit was saying but they still cheered loudly. “Tonight is the start of a big change for your people. For years your land has been raped by the oil company OilAfrica. But as of tomorrow I am launching legal action against these criminals. I expect a agreement to be met within the month securing 50% of the profits not for the government but for your people.”
By using the above methods it is easy to create an interesting character, get an idea of the way they talk and the things they do. If you are feeling creative you will probably even invent some new characters, like Leanne the assistant.
· Plot development cant be rushed, it takes time to think up a realistic, engaging story
· That said for a short story the plot shouldn’t be too intricate, think of an exciting introduction, a way the main character should change, a twist and an exciting ending
· Keep playing with structure using this system, 1) Write a few big plot concepts, event based or character based, on a sheet of paper each. 2) Write plot events down on the backs of business cards. 3) Play around with the order of these cards until you get an interesting plot, it will happen all of a sudden you will write a few more cards down and it will all come together
· Once you have a good plot structure write a synopsis of the story down
Plot
· Roy hired by Greenland land owner, his land has been threatened to be taken by
· Roy calls a friend in Canadian government, they fly out too the land and inspect it
·
· Roy’s friend relays back to Canadian government, reader thinks it
· Russian and American forces mobilized, both say they have daughter and threaten them
·
· Friend and land owner captured but
· Friend with daughter, land owner with Russians
· Both countries have fight over land where oil is
·
· Cant find it, find mobile phone
· Roy kills man, leader of group called Special Oil Taskforce
· African mercenaries wipe out both sides
· Roy reveals aim was to lure out SOT, and kill leader
· All four retreat to
· Tribal leader from Africa becomes president of Africa, and it looks like
· Use the methods I have described above to get an idea
· Create main character, and build up any other characters you need using my method or your own
· Play around with cards and ideas until you get a nice plot outline
· Write the outline down clearly in typed dot points, start adding detail
· Check out the following websites, organizations and books- they will give you plenty of information to help you with next month- the actual writing
If you are viewing this in an email or another website the original source of this article is www.thrillernovel.blogspot.com.
Good Luck with your writing
License to Thrill Part 2: Writing
And plenty of book reviews
