Friday Writing Essentials fwe 7/20/12 Thrillers…

More ways to respond:

• Respond to all (or some) of the questions below, giving short answers
• Respond to one of the questions below, giving a long answer

Questions you could answer as a possible prompt response:

• What is your absolute, all-time favorite thriller? If you don't remember, what are some of your favorites? Or books that stand out to you?
• Have you read any books in this genre lately?
• What are the main characteristics of thrillers?
• Who is your favorite author in this genre? Why?
• For those of you who write in this genre, when did you decide to write it?
• Do you think it was unwise of my parents to allow me to read so many adult books as a teenager? :-)
• What was the first thriller you remember reading?
• What is the most difficult part of writing thrillers?

What other questions do you want answered or do you think I should ask? Put them in the comments below, or ask and answer them in your post!

I know it may seem out of place to choose a Stephen King novel in the Thriller category, but I think his rewrite of The Stand was as engaging as a thriller as it was as horror.

In the much longer, rewrite, he took the time to flesh out the important characters and give much more of their backgrounds both good and evil. Even the characters that didn’t make it through the story became real as you read on. This is what made it much more of a thriller because you came to know the least of characters and were drawn into their stories regardless of which side they chose.

Right away you are horrified as they run into demonic rats and vicious people who try to demoralize and frighten them into dying.  And all of the people in the west aren’t bad people they are people who are used to answering to someone and don’t realize that the man who runs the place isn’t really a man! They get used to hangings and murders of people who don’t toe the line thereby lending themselves to the evil involved. The same goes for the people in the east, they aren’t all law abiding goody two shoes types but the local drunk or the window breaker doesn’t get hung for being that in the east and they get the power on and the work done just fine.

Of course you have to read the longer version to get the entire picture but if you do you see that this book really is a thriller enclosed in a horror story.