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.
