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?

If This Character Had Listened to Its Author, It Would Be Dead

Major spoiler alert here.

If you’re planning on reading “The Politician’s Pawn,” then go away. Unless, of course, you’re the kind of person who can’t stand edge-of-your-seat possibilities and always skip to the end of your novels to make sure everything ends happily ever after. In that case, keep reading.

Everyone else, you’ve been warned. Here’s the major spoiler…

Main character Kayla was supposed to die at the end of the book. That’s how I intended it to be right from the beginning. I didn’t know how I was going to kill her, but it was going to happen. Why? Because I was sick of politics and politicians, and she and my readers were going to suffer for it.

So there!

I’d like to say that I matured or grew a conscience, or something noble like that. Except that’d be a big fat lie. I had no such change of heart.

Kayla just wouldn’t die.

It wasn’t until the second to last chapter that I realized the stubborn little thing was dead-set on surviving the worst D.C. – and I – had to throw at her. Like a swung election, I had no say in the matter, author or not.

Moreover, I had no say about writing a sequel. As I finished those last twenty or so pages, it dawned on me that the way “The Politician’s Pawn” was going to inevitably end wasn’t going to resolve much of anything. And if there’s anything I can’t stand in the world of writing, it’s a lack of resolution.

So “Moves and Countermoves” was officially begun.

The funny thing is that there’s so much about “The Politician’s Pawn” that was begging for a sequel. I don’t know how I could have been dense enough not to see it until the second to last chapter.

I suppose I was too busy running the show to see where the show was running.

I’m sure my creative muse got a good kick out of that. I can just see her lounging on my shoulder, rolling her eyes and shaking her head.

“Silly author,” she might have said. “Who said you were in charge?”

Did I Bash Real Politicians in “The Politician’s Pawn?” You Bet I Did!

I stated before that no nurses were harmed in the making of this book.

I can’t say the same thing about politicians. I never wanted to.

I now remember that I started writing “The Politican’s Pawn” after the 2012 presidential elections, when I was disgusted with everyone in D.C.: Democrats, Republicans, wishy-washy in-betweeners… Everyone. So as soon as I figured out my manuscript-in-the-making was going to be a political thriller, I started choosing real-life politicians to throw under the creative bus, as it were.

And gosh, but is there a wide pool of un-American egomaniacs in Congress to choose from.

Throughout the series, I pick on very real public figures, starting with the barely fictional Senator Aaron Greyble, Kayla’s kidnapper. While his name is changed to protect the innocent (me) from getting sued or something – and while the actual politician in question never ordered anyone abducted and killed (to my knowledge at least) – I stared at pictures of the real sleazebag when I was describing the fake one in my book.

Even so, I doubt anyone would know him. He’s on the obscure side Congressionally speaking.

Not so much with some of the other jerks I mention, both Republican and Democrat. One in particular is so blatantly obvious that I doubt anyone wouldn’t know her.

And if any of my readers have a good opinion of said person…? Well, I’m not going to apologize. She’s horrid. Besides, I trash her direct counterpart/opposition in Book 3.

He irritates me too.

Here’s the thing… These stories are anti-socialist, anti-crony capitalist and anti-establishment. But that’s truly about the end of their political preaching, as far as I intended at least. Despite my deep-seated disdain for almost all of D.C., I didn’t want to offend any reasonable constituents outside of it… including a dear friend of mine who has stated before that she’s a socialist.

She loved the books, by the way, even asking me to write a fourth one.

(Which isn’t happening. Just for the record.)

So with that all said, I sincerely hope I didn’t offend my readers with “The Politician’s Pawn” or its two sequels. Except, of course, if one of my readers served as inspiration for this series.

In which case, consider this payback. We’re not even close to being even.