One of the most frustrating questions I am asked from time
to time is ‘what kind of novels do you write?’
I normally stick to a nebulous ‘thrillers’ and hope the
interrogator will settle for that. Alas often ‘what kind of thrillers?’ is the
next thing I hear.
You would think it was an easy question to answer. I am, after
all, the bloke who has spent months and months writing the beasts; surely I
must know where they slot in in the general gamut of the thriller genre? Yet I
do find that a complex issue to resolve.
Thrillers, as a genre, is really a collective description
for a style of novel rather than a specific type. I like James N. Frey’s
description, in his excellent book ‘How to write a Damn Good Thriller’. There
he states that “writing a thriller is like riding a bobsled down Mount Everest.
You can let your imagination run. You can make up wild and crazy characters and
stuff them into woodchoppers. You can blow up cities. Lop heads off. Sink
ships. Go to Mars. In the world of thriller writing, anything goes—as long as
you thrill your audience.”
That description says it all. There are references to sci-fi,
horror, dystopian, disaster and terrorist themes in that description. So why
bother about sub-divisions. Isn’t it just about thrilling your audience as he
states?
He goes on to quote the “American Heritage Dictionary of the
English Language” which defines a thriller as fiction "that thrills,
especially a sensational or suspenseful book, story, play, or movie." He
makes references to pacing, to emotional rushes, to suspenseful sensations and
to exhilaration-driven narrative. What he doesn’t say is that they are sci-fi,
romance, horror, chick-lit, psychological, paranormal, YA, or any of the other
popular categories.
Why’s that?
That’s an easy one to answer: because a thriller can be ANY
of those. Thrillers are more about the way you write your tales than the kind
of tales themselves. So we could have a Horror thriller and a Technological
thriller side by side and although their story lines would be radically distinct,
their essence, thrilling their audience, is the same. Yes, I have just compared
Robert Bloch’s ‘Psycho’ with Tom Clancy’s ‘The Hunt for Red October’. Why not?
They are both outstanding thrillers.
So back to the question ‘what kind of thrillers do I write?’
If pushed I will say something like ‘contemporary thrillers
with a paranormal twist’. Sounds good, doesn’t it.
Contemporary (present-day,
dealing with 21st Century issues) and paranormal (weird things that
happen in our world). For me, that just about covers it. After all ‘2012’ deals
with the End of the World brought on by a fanatical Spanish businessman with an
imminent war between China and the United States over oil resources as a backdrop; ‘Full
Disclosure’ is a covert Special Operations caper with drug trafficking
overtones, set at a moment when the US President announces contact with extraterrestrials;
‘the CULL’ is about the tracking down of a serial killer, set in a world where
real vampires exist, products of genetic mutations; and ‘Leaving Shadows’ involves
the kidnapping of a high-level spy and weather warfare.
So yes, contemporary
and paranormal.
Although I usually end up giving that answer, I’m not happy
about it. Why? Simple really. As we all know, the whole writing business is
going through a complete shake-up and reorientation at the moment. E-books don’t
just mean a new support for the reader but greater opportunities for the
writer. My argument is that now is the time to break moulds, to try out stuff,
to do something new. In short, to push the limits of preestablished labels.
So, you out there! Yes you! The writer! The one cowering
behind the manuscript! Don’t follow the herd. Find your own path. Do something
different. Werewolves and space monsters? Why not? Romantic spies? Go for it!
Be original.
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| "Stick labels in your pipe, and smoke 'em!" |
When I power up my PC, for a brief instant a few words flash
onto the screen before Win-doze chimes in. These words are my favourite
Einstein quotation: “Logic will get you from A to B. Imagination will take you
everywhere.” He also said “Imagination is more important than knowledge. For
knowledge is limited to all we now know and understand, while imagination
embraces the entire world, and all there ever will be to know and understand.”
So to all of the aspiring thriller writers out there: ignore
labels, go embrace the entire world! Let your readers put labels on what you
write if they want to. If you’re lucky, they’ll call your novels “the books I
love to read” rather than…
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