http://www.avi-writer.com/blog Tue, 15 Jan 2013 14:40:43 +0000 en-US hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.5 http://www.avi-writer.com/blog/2012/04/198/ http://www.avi-writer.com/blog/2012/04/198/#comments Tue, 10 Apr 2012 07:01:44 +0000 Avi http://www.avi-writer.com/blog/?p=198 Continue reading →]]> The word thriller seems to have come into the English language at the end of the 19^th Century. Ken Follett cites the 1903 novel The Riddle of the Sands (Childers) as the first modern thriller. I’d suggest The Turn of the Screw. James Patterson, by way of definition, speaks of the thriller’s “intensity of emotions,” the building of “apprehension.” I’m interested because I’m working on a thriller. Not easy. As I try to shape the emotions to build apprehension, I must focus, cut, sharpen, deepen. If I slip, if the pace slackens, if it gets confusing, the reader won’t turn the page. Sometime the term “page-turner” is used negatively. But what writer doesn’t want the reader to turn the page? If one is speaking of young readers, what could be better than turning them into turners of pages? Many of my readers tell me my best thriller is Wolf Rider. It’s based on something that really happened. But that’s a turn of another page.

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