Thrillers? Not so fast

So many people have been grabbed by the shirt collar by movies like "Die Hard." It's non-stop action, and Bruce Willis' character is always ready for the next fight. Such is the thriller genre. I thought my novel fit into that category. The simple truth is, it doesn't.

I came to that realization recently thanks to agent Donald Maass. I sent Maass a query, and I billed my novel as a thriller. Well, it has several aspects of a thriller so why not? My problem is that the genre requires much tighter guidelines than I want to follow. It isn't that I am a rebel. I just want to create a character with far more depth than the "Die Hard" profile. Sure, there are plenty of yippee-ki-yay moments, but there's much more.

Maass replied that my first chapter didn't hook him and pull him from page to page as a good thriller should. Coming from any other agent, I would take it as good advice and nothing more. Maass is the master teacher among agents, so I look at his words differently.

Am I reworking my material to fit the genre? I could, but I won't. I want a protagonist with flaws, failures, hopes, dreams -- the stuff of a real life. I am taking a step back and recognizing that my novel needs to slip into that catch-all category of commercial fiction. I don't want to be as ponderous as literary fiction, but I don't want it to be as thin as the standard thriller. So, I will hang out here and sharpen my focus.

I will have more help from Maass in the near future. I am attending his writers workshop in a few weeks. I have attended sessions with Maass at writers conferences, and he is a wealth of great lessons. Now I get to receive that training face to face for an entire week. How nice is that?

WHAT AM I READING NOW: "The Drop" by Michael Connelly. I love Connelly's smooth delivery, and I love the Harry Bosch character. That's a great combination for any reader.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Western boy adjusts to the South

Wrestling with the idea of white privilege

On being out of journalism for one year