The Problem With Writing Thrillers

I already admitted in a previous blog that I have a hard time writing scenes I’ve never seen before. So it shouldn’t be all that surprising to find out that I used my apartment as a model for Kayla Jeateski’s in the Dirty Politics series, right from page one of “The Politician’s Pawn” when she’s looking through her peephole to see nothing but black.

From the hallway she peers out into, to the wall she gets slammed up against when Evans barges onto the scene, to the alley where Rod and the SUV are waiting to spirit her down to D.C.: It’s stuff I see every day.

Which works well when I’m busy establishing setting in my stories, but maybe not so much when someone knocks on my door… or when something goes crash over at my neighbor’s place… or when the building creaks.

You can call me stupid. I’ve been called worse. But in my defense, I’d probably be a little paranoid even if I hadn’t done that.

Why? Because I’m a creative writer. And that’s how we are. Our brains are constantly asking particularly pointless questions:

·        If that guy with the mullet goes over to say hi to that girl with the black pumps, will she brush him off or chat him up right back?

·        If faeries really did exist, would humans get along with them?

·        How would a modern-day teenager react to being thrown into a previous century?

And creative writers who work on thrillers take those pointless questions and add nasty little twists:

·        I can’t seem to make my fingers work to find the right key for my front door. Is this one of those movie moments, and I’m the stupid co-ed who’s about to get attacked by a vampire?

·        Say I follow this salesperson to “the backroom” like he/she’s suggesting… Is this really a kidnapping ploy to sell me on the black market? (I hear there’s a huge demand for short, snarky 32 year olds.)

·        If I stop to tie my shoe out here in the middle of the woods, are my fellow hikers going to somehow speed up enough that I can’t manage to find them again?

Of course, the sane side of me recognizes that vampires don’t exist, that there really isn’t any great demand for short, snarky 32 year olds, and that the forest path doesn’t curve nearly enough for me to lose sight of my group so fast.

And the sane side always wins out in the end, usually sooner than later.

It’s just for those first few seconds after someone knocks on my door that I have to wonder… what’s on the other side?