Writing a Modern Thriller {Guest #Author: Dave Zeltserman}

I wrote ten novels before writing my first modern thriller, Dying Memories. For marketing purposes my publishers have labeled some of my other books crime thrillers or horror thrillers, and while these books may be fast-paced and riveting, and might create an ever increasing sense of suspense, they don’t follow a well-defined set of conventions that modern thriller readers expect.

Simplifying things greatly, these conventions are:

1. They must be thrilling. There must be a sense of ever increasing danger.
2. There must be an unambiguously likable hero for the reader to latch onto and care about and, most importantly, invest themselves in.
3. The thriller must have short chapters, and each chapter should end with a cliffhanger of some sort.

It would be hard to call any of the protagonists of my ‘man out of prison’ novels unambiguously likable. Joe Denton, the bent ex-cop noir hero of Small Crimes, is a deeply flawed character. He may be fascinating to the reader as they try to figure out what he’s all about, but while some readers are going to care about him and want to see him survive his ordeal, others are going to want to see him get what’s coming to him. How about my South Boston mobster, Kyle Nevin, from Pariah? Forget it. He may have his charms, but he’s a monster. Someone who leaves death and destruction wherever he goes. It always surprises me when a reader tells me they found Kyle likable.

Then there’s my cold-blooded mob hit man, Leonard March, from Killer.

Readers may grow to empathize with his plight, but he’s not a hero any thriller reader will recognize, and structurally, with the book alternating chapters between past and present chapters, Killer doesn’t fit with the modern thriller conventions. My tortured vampire with a conscience, Jim, from Blood Crimes, would be a classic thriller hero, and while the danger escalates with each chapters, other standard thriller conventions aren’t followed.

My reporter hero from Dying Memories, Bill Conway, is a character thriller readers will like. Tough, smart, resourceful, he’s someone who survived a horrific childhood and came out of it a solid and good person. When he links two murders to a biotechnology firm, he finds himself not only framed for murder but hunted by shadowy forces. The danger for him increases with each chapter as he searches for a way to reclaim his life, understand what’s happening, and ultimately stop a sinister plot to enslave the country. Yes, the stakes are very high in Dying Memories. While I added my twist to the genre by creating a heavy sense of paranoia and giving the novel a harder noir edge than most thrillers, I worked hard to keep Dying Memories firmly entrenched in the thriller conventions, and I’m looking forward to see how thriller readers react to this book.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR…Dave Zeltserman won the 2010 Shamus Award for ‘Julius Katz’ and is the acclaimed author of the ‘man out of prison’ crime trilogy: Small Crimes, Pariah and Killer, where Small Crimes was picked by NPR as one of the five best crime and mystery novels of 2008, and Small Crimes and Pariah (2009) were both picked by the Washington Post as best books of the year. His recent The Caretaker of Lorne Field received a starred review from Publisher’s Weekly, calling it a ‘superb mix of humor and horror’, and has been shortlisted by ALA for best horror novel of 2010. Outsourced (2011) has already been called ‘a small gem of crime fiction’ by Booklist and has been optioned by Impact Pictures and Constantin Film.

His latest book is Dying Memories (StoneGate Ink).

You can visit Dave’s website at www.davezeltserman.com.

Connect with him on Facebook at www.facebook.com/people/Dave-Zeltserman/1434849193.

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When you can’t trust your memories.

A woman shoots a man to death on a crowded street in Boston, claiming that he raped and murdered her eleven-year old daughter. Except he didn’t, because this woman never had a daughter. Another man stabs an MIT professor to death in front of a crowd in Harvard Square, saying that he witnessed the professor running down his wife in the street. Except the MIT professor was three thousand miles away when the man’s wife was killed.

Reporter Bill Conway discovers that these victims are connected to ViGen Corporation, a shadowy pharmaceutical company. When he tries to investigate ViGen Corporation and their role in these deaths, he soon finds himself framed for murder. And that turns out to be the least of his problems… – FROM AMAZON.COM