Knowing What to Write (Or How I Chose my Novels)

It all started for me with a series of books which I discovered throughout primary and secondary school. I'm sure most young boys read The Hardy Boys. I didn't. I devoured them. My mother used to take me, my brother, and sister (God rest her soul) to the library every Friday. I would come away with at least a dozen new Hardy Boys books, and without exaggeration the majority of them would be read by the time school started again on Monday. I couldn't get enough of them. What hooked me was the fast-paced plots, cliffhanger chapter-ends, and danger and intrigue on virtually every page. The prose was simple but effective; the chapters long enough to hook but short enough to keep you reading. In retrospect, reading The Hardy Boys put me on the path to writing thriller novels.

When I started writing my first novel, just before the start of the new millennium, I had a vision. Fresh off reading the likes of Clancy, Ludlum, and Forsyth, I wanted to create a homage to their style. Everything I had read of theirs, while full of action and suspense, had parts where the story began to bore me somewhat. What I wanted to write was a thriller where on every page something happened to ensure the reader could not take their eyes or mind away from the story. What I got was a thrill-a-minute novel of bombs, bullets, and two ordinary men who became heroes because life threw them a curve-ball. I could have opted for the unflappable macho male who stops everything thrown his way, while mouthing off a few cliched lines, then saves the day and goes home with the pretty woman. That's not my style. In true homage to the late Robert Ludlum, my characters are oftentimes ordinary people who when faced with extraordinary situations become heroes. I find those types of characters far more intriguing than a stiff-upper-lipped British spy or a hard-ass ex-Special Forces soldier.

I got the idea for Dereliction of Duty early in 1999. I had always been fascinated with cover-ups by governments and the conspiracies surrounding them. I wanted to play on that a little. Area 51 was an idea which had been through the wringer, so to speak, and I didn't want to venture down the road of a top secret desert base again. Twenty-Four was still two years away, but my idea shared some similarities. Instead of a counter-terrorist unit in Los Angeles, tasked with curbing the threat of terrorism in the aftermath of 9/11, I asked myself what if it was instead a computer soft- and hardware manufacturing firm underneath which was a top secret weapons development base? Only the top brass in the ostensible 'computer firm' would know the truth, and the workers would play their roles like a game of chess. That made for an almost-endless supply of ideas. What would happen if a worker found out? What would happen if the U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence found out? Most intriguing and chilling of all, what would happen if terrorists found out?

Bingo! There was my idea. Terrorists plot to break into the top secret base, in New York City, in an attempt to steal the advanced weaponry for themselves. They don't mind going through fifty innocent workers to do it, either. I had my idea; I had my plot; but how could I ratchet up the excitement and tension throughout when my terrorists weren't supposed to make it to the complex until near the end of the novel? Who was to say all three of my ideas couldn't be worked into the storyline? What if both workers for the 'computer firm' and a member of the U.S. government became privy to the real identity around the same time the terrorists were readying their assault? Further, what if that government official was a high-ranking member of the Cabinet; maybe even the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs?

I wanted something else, though. I had an imminent Russian terrorist cell on its way to the United States. I had two computer programmers starting to put the pieces together but unaware of the danger facing them. And I had a top-level government official becoming aware of the entire thing. I wanted more. What, you scream. Why on earth would you want more? I had always envisioned creating a team of soldiers from the best anti-terrorist squadrons in existence. This novel provided me with that opportunity. Now I had two soldiers pulled from duty in Afghanistan and shipped home to a jungle facility in the U.S.. Here, they begin what they think is SERE training (Survival, Evasion, Resistance, Escape). It's this base and the clandestine actions taking place at it which draw the attention of the Chairman. From there, the story begins to unfold.

If all else fails (and this is the advice I give to most people who are afflicted with 'writer's block') start a new storyline. It can become boring and stale to stick to the one point-of-view and character throughout a novel. I freshen it up with at least a dozen (sometimes more) different perspectives throughout.

Knowing what to write, however, is something which comes when you sit down and write. A close friend of mine and a terrific writer in his own right, Dean Sault, sometimes has dreams which point him in the right direction. He keeps a notepad by his bed (actually, this is a discipline all writers should follow) so that he can write down the ideas the moment he wakes up, before they leave his head for good.

Stick to what you love, also. I'm a self-proclaimed action junkie. If I'm not reading thrillers, I'm watching them. This is what I love writing. Your genre may be science fiction. Horror. Romance. It doesn't really matter, so long as you write what you know best.

Dan.