Comments on: Writing Thrillers: Lessons Learned From James Rollins

By: What I Want In A Thriller Novel And How It Informs My Writing | The Creative Penn

Fri, 16 Jul 2010 06:12:13 +0000

[...] some of my favorite thriller writers include James Rollins, Matthew Reilly, Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child, Steve Berry, and yes, I like the Dan Brown [...]

By: Prologues: How and When To Use Them | The Creative Penn

Prologues: How and When To Use Them | The Creative Penn — Fri, 16 Apr 2010 06:12:42 +0000

[...] set a mood or tone for the book, or to hook interest. This is used by many thriller writers, like James Rollins in order to pull you into the [...]

By: Character Based Writing: Lessons Learned From Sebastian Faulks | The Creative Penn

Tue, 02 Feb 2010 07:28:07 +0000

[...] than the experiences of the characters, known as the character arc. As someone who reads a lot of thrillers where action is paramount, I loved the slow pace of the book but I was still desperate to know what [...]

By: Joanna Penn

Joanna Penn — Thu, 21 Jan 2010 03:24:54 +0000

Hey ZZ – absolutely, gotta get those chapters moving!

By: zz

zz — Thu, 21 Jan 2010 02:44:32 +0000

Hi Joanna,

Thanks for posting this. While I don’t write thrillers, I love getting pointers from different genres. I guess I can add these ideas to my list of:
“What to do when a chapter is dying a slow and painful death.”

Cheers,
zz

By: Joanna Penn

Joanna Penn — Wed, 20 Jan 2010 20:27:03 +0000

Glad you all enjoyed the tweets – I shall do that again since it was popular – the various #chats are excellent for learning from others and finding writing buddies.

Thanks Sean – definitely a grain of truth, or something accepted in “myth” or as fact by some e.g. religious stories that are in the mainstream consciousness. I will be using some myths in my novel.

By: Mokibobolink

Mokibobolink — Wed, 20 Jan 2010 19:32:36 +0000

Great advice! I love writing thrillers and seeing one broken down like that was very helpful.

By: Pamela Wilson

Pamela Wilson — Wed, 20 Jan 2010 02:03:46 +0000

I’m with Sean, how cool was that to see the tweets at the end of the post.
Thanks for this. Just in this week alone I have read a number of blog posts that have been inspired by twitter conversations or included tweets on there.

Thanks for this.

By: Sean Platt

Sean Platt — Tue, 19 Jan 2010 14:30:58 +0000

I like taking a grain of truth and turning it into a bag of the stuff.

And Joanne, I love how you closed out with other people’s tweets. Smart!