Fear?

I first started writing back in 2000, without any clue why I had the sudden urge to put words onto a screen. For as long as I can remember, I've been a fan of action films. My first was Die Hard. I was 12 years old when my brother brought it home to watch over his weekend break from university. My parents were invited to a wedding on the Saturday, and so big brother had babysitting duty. Myself and my sister (mercy on her soul) were a little bit rowdy, so he decided he would try to scare the wits out of us with the block-busting Die Hard, starring Bruce Willis as the quick-witted John McClane. It had the opposite effect, unfortunately, though it did keep me quiet, owing to how riveted I was on the story. I guess I have my brother to thank for setting me on the path to writing, for I'm not sure whether, later in life, the film would have impressed upon me as much as it did on a 12-year-old boy.

I remember the suspense, the sense of fear, and being so engrossed in the story that I can today still recall almost every line of dialogue spoken. So it made sense that my first piece of writing began as a film script. Back then, it was my dream to make a blockbuster. I was, and still am, a film buff. At that time in my life, I wasn't a huge reader. Truth be told, I hadn't read much since finishing high school. So you can imagine my surprise when my film script metamorphosed into a novel manuscript. Granted, I had learned that making a film cost serious money, and I would need actors, producers, cameramen, etcetera. I just didn't have the passion to make any of that come to be, but I had a very active imagination and needed to find some way of expressing it. I finished the first draft of The Job in December 2002, a story about two ordinary men caught in the whirlwind of a terrorist attack and forced to become essentially heroes. I knew the writing wasn't great. The ideas were all there, but the nuts and bolts needed to be honed. So I tossed the manuscript in my drawer and started work on the sequel. The Hunter's Prey came to be 16 months later in mid-2004. Again, the ideas were all there but the execution lacked. Number two was also consigned to my drawer, and I started work on the third -- another direct sequel. Chasing Shadows remains my favourite piece of work to date. Technically there will be better pieces of writing (I hope!) in the future, but my third novel was an absolute blast to write. I finished it in January of 2005, and I could see clearly the difference between it and the first novel. The writing was beginning to take shape. I thought nothing of it and quickly got to work on #4 after a couple months' break. Acts of Treason, to date my biggest novel, stalled at 311,000 words. It remains in the Novels (In Progress) folder on my computer. Close friends and those in the know about my writing often speculate that maybe it was getting too big and I couldn't tie all the storylines together. Or maybe I grew bored with the telling of it. If only either of those were true.

In the early part of 2006 I had an extreme crisis of confidence regarding my writing. To that point I never had the Internet, with the exception of a pricey dial-up modem. I was living in the countryside, miles from the nearest town, and broadband had just arrived in the area. Within a few weeks of setting it up, I joined a now-defunct writers' site and begin perusing the posts. Things like 'show, don't tell', 'passive writing', and 'avoiding adverbs' reared their heads on more than a few occasions. I assumed these were actual rules (I've never read a how-to writing book in my life) and took them to heart. Something happened, though. Where once I had enjoyed every minute of writing, from thereon it turned into a chore. I was fretting about my writing to the point where every sentence, every word, was scrutinised beyond that which it should have been. As a result I wrote very little in three years. I wouldn't presume to blame it on writer's block, for my ailments were of my own making. It was only when I took a step back and realised that I was writing for someone else's vision of good writing, and not writing for myself, that I solved the problem. After that, I got back on the wagon and churned out my fifth, sixth, and seventh novels, after which I felt my writing had reached publishable standard, and I duly returned to the first story I ever wrote and, using it as a template, rewrote it from scratch.

When we're afraid, we don't make sound judgements. I let fear rule my writing, and as a result I spent three years trying and failing to write anything near the standard with which I had written beforehand. Now I love writing again, and that's because I learned that I would rather write for myself and never be published, than live in fear and create 'sellable' fiction that borders on cookie cutter.

Why Thrillers?

It's a question I'm asked almost every time I tell someone that I write thrillers. Despite being one of the biggest genres out there, it's not one that new authors gravitate towards, and it tends to be by default one that people don't start reading on a whim. It's a straightforward case of love or hate. You can pick up a horror, sci-fi, fantasy, romance, or literary fiction novel and enjoy it, but chances are that thrillers may be anathema to you for a variety of reasons. You may not like stories with bloodshed and guns. You may not like ones which feature people visiting death on others. And you may not like a genre which is usually restricted to things that can only happen in the real world.

So why, then, would I write a genre which certain people may not like? It's what I love reading, and therefore becomes what I love writing. My first action movie was Die Hard, and it had a great influence on me. To that point the lead role in those types of movies had been played by muscle-bound men who uttered ridiculous catchphrases and never really incurred any serious injuries. That all changed when Bruce Willis starred as John McClane, an NYPD officer caught in the wrong place at the wrong time. It was one of the first action movies in which an ordinary man was forced to do extra-ordinary things to save the day. When I started writing, I was fascinated by this approach. I learned that the late Robert Ludlum, one of the finest thriller novelists ever, wrote many of his novels in a similar manner. With the influence of Die Hard, and the excellent prose of Ludlum, I got the idea for the first draft of Dereliction of Duty. Sometime later, while watching The Rock, starring Nicholas Cage as another ordinary man forced into a life-or-death situation, this idea evolved into a series of military thrillers.

Military for a couple of reasons: (1) Some of the Special Forces soldiers (SEALs, SAS, Delta) are inhuman at times. It makes for great storylines. Contrast that with the ordinary man, and in my opinion his actions become even more heroic.

(2) I'm fascinated by that world. What motivates a person to join the military immediately after graduating from high school? How do they cope with coming home from a war-zone with flying bullets, to a residential neighbourhood with backfiring cars? It's got to be one of the most difficult re-integrations imaginable.

(3) Conflict. The single-most important facet of a novel is one that is rife in any war-zone. And I'm not talking about bullets. There may be a chain of command, but soldiers from the same team sometimes don't get on, and soldiers from different units often despise each other.

(4) Anybody can put on a suit and give orders from behind a desk. It takes a different kind of person to risk their life for their country or those whom they hold dear.

You just don't see those kinds of stories in horror or sci-fi or fantasy. Where's the fun in dealing with problems with magic or special abilities? Imagine a swarm of enemies bearing down on you with assault rifles, and you have only one clip left for your M-16. Isn't that just as scary as a horrible monster chasing after you?

I think so.  

Research

One very wise author once said that writing is 60% research and 40% writing. While this figure may be anecdotal, I'd venture a guess that it isn't too far short of the mark, for there are times in my novels when I've done ten hours of research to write a 1,000-word scene. And while I am a strong advocate of writers throwing off the shackles and writing from the heart, plausibility plays a huge role in readers' suspension of disbelief.

A few years ago, on the adamant advice of a friend, I decided to read the first Twilight novel. I came on a scene where the narrator was referencing a time in Edward's (male lead) past where he fought a "coven of vampires in the London sewers". This event happened in 1739, if my memory serves correctly. At that point, I put the novel down and went away for a short walk; and though I finished it, I could never suspend my disbelief from thereon. Why, you ask? Simple. There were no sewers in London until they were built in 1865 by Joseph Bazelgette. Excrement flowed down the streets until it reached the river Thames. The author had referenced an event which could never have taken place.

Many people would chastise me for that, explaining that it's a poor excuse for not enjoying an entertaining story. After all, these stories are fiction. They don't have to be true. No, but they do have to be plausible. There would have been no issue had the author of Twilight made it clear that she was taking liberties with the description of 1739 London. But there was only one reference made to 1739 London, and it involved sewers that didn't exist. If I wrote a book, for instance, set in 1770 and made reference to President George Washington, many people would know that I had made a huge error, for Washington didn't become the first President of the United States until 1789.

Research is vital to any story. You may be able to fool some of your readers, but those hard-core fans who know the genre inside out will not be as easily fooled. I suppose you could say that a book is only as good as the research behind it.

Dan.

A Sabbatical

It's almost been a year since I last posted to this blog. For those who don't know, I got lost on an island and had to press a button every 108 minutes or the world as I knew it would end. Finally, after watching an episode of The Simpsons in which Homer used a battery-powered woodpecker to constantly press the Y key on his computer, I figured out a way to solve my problem. Getting off the island . . . well, let's not get into that -- but I am feeling a strong urge to return to it.

Anyway, I guess the last year of my life has been a little hectic. In the midst of seeing my first novel published in e-book format, having meetings with my publisher to discuss the paperback version, and working hard on the sequel, I've been rather lax in terms of updating my blog. The good news is that the paperback of Dereliction of Duty is now available on Amazon. Reviews so far have been very positive, and I'm thrilled that my work is finally out there for people to read. It's been a heck of a journey to this point, considering I've been writing now for over a decade, but hopefully all of that hard work is coming to fruition right now.

I guess that's all there is to say for the moment. This time, I'll make a more concerted effort to keep this baby updated on a regular basis. In between that, I just hope the woodpecker doesn't malfunction or run out of battery.

Oh, and if you're interested, you can find my novel here:


http://www.amazon.co.uk/Dereliction-Duty-Daniel-McKeown/dp/1908600020/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1340874829&sr=1-1

Thank you.

Dan.