Tag: thriller

Thinking About The Influence of ‘Mare of Eattown’ on The First Novel In The 4 Novel Series I’m Writing


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

While it’s definitely not a one-to-one, the heroine of the first novel in my series leading up to my “Female James Bond” getting her “00,” if you will, is greatly influenced by Kate Winslet’s character in “Mare of Easttown.”

The two characters are dramatically different in some respects, but Mare is the vibe I’m looking for. Or, maybe if Mare was younger, a lot less bitter, brunette and a lot more fit. But the vibes of the two women are very similar.

Mare of Easttown greatly influences my goals and vision for the heroine of the first novel in the female James Bond “exgenesis ” series I’m working on.

I like how writing four novels at once allows me to see the macro arch of the series in my mind. It’s a lot easier to plant things here and there in the novel as needed to give it a cohesive unity.

At the moment, Alexa Chung (sorta) is what imagine the character looking like, for no other reason than she’s Amerasian in ethnic background. But I think Phoebe Waller-Bridge could probably play the character if somehow, I manage to not only get the novels published, don’t die of a heart attack like Stieg Larsson and they’re miraculously enough popular enough that Hollywood grows interested.

But I’m still in the very delusional stage of all of this. I have to allow myself to be delusional because that’s the only way any of this will get done. I will note, again, that it’s interesting that other people read the Millennium series and saw a totally different set of books than I did.

It’s pretty wild how different my take on Stieg Larsson’s stuff is relative to at least one book I’ve read. The first book, especially, is far more character driven than this one book I’ve been reading that wants to be a successor to Larsson.

I’ve given myself a few days for something of a reset on all of this. I really need to do some reading, especially about character building. Seeing Mare of Easttown was a swift kick in the creative ass — I saw it and realized I needed to up my game.

I’ve Grown Obsessed With The Construction of ‘Scenes’ in These 4 Novels


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I’m giving myself a few days of a creative reboot with these four novels I’m working on. And things are going really, really well with them. I’ve decided to flesh out the second novel in the series and, so far, it’s going really well.

My life has become consumed by these four novels.

The more I read, the more I come to understand that to construct a good to great novel, you need to change things up. You can’t just have the same old, same old scene structure throughout your story.

You have to think things through with such things, especially, if you’re like me and the scene is the basic building block of your stories. So, I have a number of how-to books I’m reading about scenes. I have to balance my need to have an ebb and flow with how I structure scenes with the need not to grow too elaborate and, by definition, slow.

I’ve given myself a very — very — tight deadline to finish the first drafts of these four novels. I can’t dilly-dally. And, so, I’m trying to do as much reading and thinking as possible before I get back to writing so when I do write, I write as quickly as possible without any need to go back to the beginning and start all over again.

Anyway, I’m very pleased with how things are going. I’m just a little concerned that if I don’t buckle down and actually finish the first draft of these four novels sooner rather than later, it will be a year from now and I will be exactly where I am at the moment.

That a key element of giving myself a few days to creatively reset. I really, really want to wrap the first draft of these four novels up ASAP, like in a few months.

‘If You Have Time To Write, You Have Time To Read’


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I’ve picked up a thriller that’s very much in the milieu of the four novels I’m developing and writing. It’s obviously, just like my project, very influenced by Stieg Larsson’s original Millennium series. What’s interesting is how different people take different things away from the series.

This book’s author obviously is leaning into the vigilante aspect of Lisbeth Salander’s personality. The novel is very well written, and, yet, it’s sufficiently different from what I’m working on that I don’t feel that threatened. The novel is, so far, pretty much a generic thriller that wants to create an American Lisbeth Salander.

The Icon.

I want to do that, too, but my interpretation of the Salander trope is dramatically — and I mean dramatically — different. In fact, now that I’m writing four novels, for the time being Mare Of Easttown is a bigger influence than Larsson.

And, I will note, that if you study The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, Salander isn’t really the hero of the story — that’s Mikael Blomkvist. The author of this book I’m reading wants to get straight into the story of his Salander-type character. And, what’s more he definitely seems to want to appeal to Jack Reacher fans, to the point that he has a quote from Lee Child in support of the book.

But a key element of Salander is she had a very weird upbringing that we gradually get to learn more about over the course of two books. With the book I’m reading now, we’re just plunged straight into the character’s vigilantism. One of the rules of thumb about writing a successful novel is, “Tell a old story in a new way or an new story in an old way.”

And, of course, there is the very real notion of “There’s nothing new under the sun.”

As such, I have to get over myself. If I was to come up with something that was completely and totally unique, a publisher wouldn’t know what to do with it marketing wise and it would turn readers off because they wouldn’t have anything to compare it to.

So, I need to chill.

It’s ok if someone has written something vaguely in the same vein as what I’m working on. It’s inevitable that someone would want to create an American Salander. For the time being, at least, it definitely seems I’m safe in continuing to develop and write these four novels. Each of the four novels is a very compelling story, enough so that I’m willing to throw my entire life into finishing them.

What’s more, the novels I’m working on are far more character driven than what I’ve read so far of this novel. From the first two chapters, it definitely seems as though the author is more concerned with the action adventure thriller elements of the Millennium series as opposed to the character elements that I find interesting.

Another thing — the thing that got me writing a novel — now novels — in the first place was my white hot rage against Trumplandia. That rage was always the thing that generated the energy necessary for me to write a novel. That need to address the bullshit of the Trump Era is another thing that definitely makes what I’m working on different than this book.

I’m obviously working against the headwinds of being older, not being formally educated in creative writing and not having gone to an Ivy League school, but lulz, fuck the haters.

The Status Of The Novel — Late April, 2021


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Things are going quite well with the novel right now. Things are moving along pretty well. I’m just about to enter into the second act, AGAIN in yet another first draft.

I can feel myself improving as a storyteller each time I attempt a first draft. Things are moving faster now because a lot of things I’ve been brooding over have clicked. My vision makes a lot more sense for no other reason than I’ve just written so much that I’ve finally been able to get a hang of writing a novel.

I continue to worry about someone out-of-the-blue stealing a creative march on me, but there’s little I can do about it. In hindsight, I would have been far more secretive about what I’ve been working on. But this was my first serious attempt at writing a novel so I made a lot of mistakes in more ways than one. If the worst does happen, I have half a dozen other concepts I can pivot to after the grieving process is over.

One thing I need to do is read a lot more. A whole lot more. I have all these books I bought with the best of intentions. But I struggle to tear my attention away from producing content enough so I can consume it. Yet some of the books are ones I really, really need to read to improve the overall experience of the novel.

So, I guess I’ll soon enough force myself to do all this reading I’ve been putting off.

An aspect of this novel (actually two novels, one story) is how it toys with the tropes of the Trump Era. Even though the Trump Era is over (for the time being?) I think by the time I’m trying to sell these two novels that people are going to be thinking about the Trump Era again because politics will be on people’s minds again.

At least, that’s my thinking.

A lot is going on with these two novels. A whole lot. I’m really throwing everything I got at them in various ways. I’ve split the story into two because I checked the number of scenes for the entire story and it was way too close to 200 for my liking. If you figure each scene is about 1,000 words, then that would be a 200,000 word novel, which is just too long.

And, the way I have it mapped out in my mind, I have a solid cliffhanger at the end of the first book. I’m still in the delusional phase of development and writing, however.

It won’t be until I attempt to query a literary agent that the delusional phase of all of this will come to an end.

The Influence Of Stieg Larsson On My Novel


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

If you were to have asked me a decade ago what novel I saw myself writing, I would have said some sort of scifi novel. But here I am, working on a thriller in the style of Stieg Larsson’s The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo. I, of course, am actually using his The Girl Who Played With Fire as my “textbook.”

The only reason why this happened is I love The Girl Who Played With Fire so much that I can read it over and over and over and over and over and over and not get bored. The ironic thing is I haven’t even read it all the way through that much. I just read the first 50-100 pages a lot as part of my “study.” Larsson, in some ways, was far more ambitious in his structure than I am.

My novel is going to be a lot more straightforward in its structure. I just don’t know squat about police procedurals and was never that good a journalist, either. So I just have to try to fake it. This is going to be a far more journalistic oriented novel than The Girl Who Played With Fire.

Anyway, I keep being paranoid that the Larsson estate is looking at this blog in alarm for this or that reason. If you are — cool it guys, you have nothing to worry about. While my heroine is meant to be an American Lisbeth Salander, that’s where the similarities stop. I will, however, give myself credit – I’ve come up with a pretty good heroine, if I do say so myself.

I’m sure something will happen to make my dreams of writing a break out thriller moot, but I’m digging the endorphin rush of allowing myself to be delusional for an extended amount of time.

Had A Successful Personal Writer’s Retreat In #Atlanta This Weekend


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Since I couldn’t go where I wanted to go — New York City — I went somewhere totally different — Atlanta. It was a lot of fun, though I found the city so huge that I just stayed in my hotel room and worked on novel development.

Anyway, I just got back and now I’m going to relax and read just a tick before I throw myself back into development. I’m tired from all the driving. But I think I understand the story even better than I did before.

Hopefully, things will move significantly faster now. My only concern right now is that the election — one way or another — is going to change the national zeitgeist to such an extent as to make my allegorical thriller about the Trump Era seem quaint.

And, yet, you can’t edit a blank page. And, really, writing your first novel is aspirational by definition. Writing a novel gives me hope. If something really dramatic happens and changes things so much as to make the story moot, I can probably turn around and write a new novel using what I’ve learned over the last two years very easily.

After I stop sulking, I can probably turn around and write that scifi novel I have in my mind these days.

But that’s a worst case scenario.

I think I can get back to writing past the midpoint of the first draft pretty quick now. I hope.

V-Log: Of Fleabag, Lisbeth Salander & The #Thriller I’m #Writing

Some thoughts.

‘Just Write’ #AmWriting

Shelton Bumgarner

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

So, after about a year or more of development, I finally feel comfortable enough with the story I’ve been developing to “just write.” Do I win a prize? Am I cool now?

Anyway, things are not 100% set in stone, but I’m feeling pretty good. It’s taking me making every mistake possible to get here, but I’m finally now about to make a serious attempt at “just writing” a professional-grade first draft of a novel. It’s meant to be the first book in a two book story that might lead to an actual series if people like the characters.

The story is very much meant to be an American answer to Stieg Larsson’s original trilogy of work. But not in a derivative or hackneyed fashion. It’s pretty much meant to be an allegory of the entire Trump Era explored in the guise of a techno-spy thriller with elements of a police procedural. The first draft is going to suck so very, very bad. But all this hard work I’ve put into development at least allows me to feel confident enough to finish two drafts before showing it to anyone.

Whatever problems the novel has now comes from simply my innate inability to replicate the *structure* of The Girl Who Played With Fire because, well, lulz, I didn’t feel like doing all the hard work to follow it beat-for-beat. I really love that book, but not THAT much. I may eventually do such a next-level mapping out of that book’s structure out of sheer desperation, but for the time being, I’m content enough with what I’ve developed not to feel compelled to do that.

I have several other tracks I’m working on, too. I’ve got the second book in the story to work on (the first book ends in a cliffhanger) and I’ve got a first-person scifi-pandemic novel to map out as well as a scifi screenplay. I only am interested in the last two because I want the option of working on something creative should I need to catch my breath on the main “track.”

So, wish me luck. Sometime in the next few days, I’m going to “just write” as several people conspicuously told me to do 18 months ago. And those people can still suck it.

V-Log: Trust Your Creativity

by Shelton Bumgarner
@bumgarls

Some thoughts.

V-Log: ‘Apocalypse Trump’

by Shelton Bumgarner
@bumgarls

This novel as my own personal “Apocalypse Now” for the Trump era.