Rapidly Changing Technology

A couple of blog entries ago,  Thriller Guy purportedly answered a question from blog reader Marc who asked “How do writers stay ahead of technology in today's world, where today's new feature is old news next week.” TG uses the word “purportedly” because rather than answering Marc’s question, TG used it as a basis to wander off into a thicket of other ideas, never really addressing Marc’s excellent question. So Marc, the short answer to your question is: they don’t. Or perhaps a better answer would be: it’s impossible anyway, so you can’t really worry about it.

We could just leave it at that and wrap up the blog for this week, but as TG’s regular readers know he would never miss an opportunity to opine and digress and maybe rant a bit. TG would like to put some words in Marc’s mouth, because what TG thinks the question really is about is both the ongoing search for cool technology to hang a plot on and then the rapid descent of that same bleeding edge technology into the ho-hum commonplace. TG has written about this in an earlier blog about the proliferation of drone books in the last couple of years. The first of the drone books presented the new technology in all its gee-whiz glory, but as time went on, the following novels had to elevate the technology by adding new tech elements and/or more convoluted plots that expanded the possibilities of drones beyond their simplest uses.

TG would like to digress for a moment, as you know how he loves to do, with a short discussion of the rather old-fashioned words “gee whiz.” After using this term in the above paragraph, he decided to look it up and found that it is what is known as a “minced oath.” Which means using innocuous words for those that are considered taboo, in this case substituting them for the oath “Jesus Christ.” Here is a short but interesting article on minced oaths. 

Gee whiz, Thriller Guy, you do love to go on and on, don’t you?

Yes.

Will you please get back on topic and answer Marc’s question?

Sure, but first, digression number two, on the subject of drones: While recently reading an interesting thriller where the main character was a woman scientist who built tiny but deadly robots, (This was an excellent book, but TG can’t remember the title) a character was discussing why ordinary people have what seems like an instinctive fear of drones in all forms. “People see them as insects,” the character said. “And in this case they’re insects with guns.” Nice image, nice writing.

So to get back to Marc’s question, yes, thriller writers are always, well, thrilled to come across some new piece of technology upon which to build a plot and thereby a novel. But the professional thriller writer knows that what is new today is not going to be so by the time a book is written and published. You can hope that your tech discovery remains undiscovered by other thriller writers, but the truth is that there are a lot of guys and gals out there who write these kinds of thrillers and who are always combing the Internet for the next big tech marvel, so don’t depend on your chances of keeping your cool idea a secret. If you found it, so did someone else, and maybe he/she is a faster writer than you are.

There’s a corollary problem here that is also interesting. What do you do about Fidel Castro? His name comes up in thrillers quite often, but the guy is 88 years old and in bad health. It takes a regularly published book 12 to 18 months to go from completed manuscript to bookstore shelves, plenty of time for Fidel to drop dead. The best idea is to just not use him in any way in your thriller. Or, as in a thriller TG is currently reading for review, the author just went ahead and said he was dead. It probably looked like a pretty good bet many months ago when the manuscript was turned in to the publisher, about the time Fidel was in dire health straits. But he beat the odds, and now he’s in this guy’s book as being dead, when he isn’t. Does it make a difference? Not really, but little glitches like that always startle a reader out of the suspension of disbelief that writers want to keep them in. There are plenty of other major historical events that can derail a thriller that is in the production process: the Twin Towers can fall, as can the Berlin Wall. Young Kim can be dethroned in North Korea, and even presidents can be felled by assassins. The best you can do is not worry and soldier on.

Now we’ve come to the place where the Association of Those Who Think They Are Experts in Giving Writing Advice (of which TG is a proud member) insists that we say that you shouldn’t be hanging your novel on a cool piece of technology or fabulous historical find and expect that to carry your book onto the bestseller lists or even the Pretty Good Seller lists. We are obligated to remind you that good books are built on the backs of good characters with interesting multi-layered plots and attention to all the details of good writing. Yes, sure, but we’re talking about thrillers here, not the next great American novel. Here comes the rant…

Thriller readers don’t really give a shit about good writing. You can easily learn this by simply reading, say, ten thrillers that are on the bestseller lists. These should be the cream of the vast thriller crop, and yet it is TG’s experience (also vast) that of those ten, one might be considered to have what is considered excellent writing (that is writing that might be commonplace in a work of what we call literature) seven more will fall into the spectrum of damn good to OK to not very good at all, and two will be just plain bad.

Digression number three: In the ten years or so that TG has been in the professional criticism business, he has seen the quality of writing, in general, rise. Snooty critics will tell you that it has fallen, but they are wrong because snooty critics don’t know anything about genre writing. TG attributes this rise in quality to the old timers who really built the thriller genre and are now aging out and hiring other writers to help them or even take over their writing duties. You’ve got guys like Jim DeFelice and Mark Greaney and a bunch of others who are building on already established series characters and venues, guys who are actually better writers than the originals who invented their brands. There are reasons that they are better writers, but that’s a topic for another blog entry that TG may get around to writing some day.

The point is, Marc, and all you other readers and writers out there who have stuck with TG this far, while TG would love to see every book he reads and reviews be a work of excellent craftsmanship, if not literature, that’s not going to happen. So when TG picks up a new book, he is always on the lookout for a really great, new, inventive high tech, low tech, new or brilliantly refurbished plot concept or single device that will be the linchpin that holds the novel together and gives it power. (If a linchpin can actually power anything.) It doesn’t always happen, in fact it usually doesn’t, but smart writers who find such a device, and the lucky ones who hold it close and are first out of the gate with it, are a rare and blessedly fortunate bunch.

So there’s your answer, Marc: pursue this thriller grail, and if you find it, hold it close and write fast. If you can’t come in first with it, try to come in better than the other guys. But if you worry about it, you’re just going to drive yourself crazy. And writers already have enough to drive themselves crazy without adding anything to the pile.

So TG will remodel the mantra:

Sit down, shut up; get to work. And stop worrying.

Impeach Obama!

Before jumping into this week’s rant, TG would like to point discerning Thriller Readers to a nice interview with TG’s writer pal Matthew Quirk, whose latest book, The Directive -- the second in his Mike Ford series -- has recently hit the stands. “Hit the stands,” now there’s a phrase that marks TG as a publishing dinosaur. Hit the screens is probably more accurate these days. At any rate, if you haven’t read his first book, The 500, do so and then follow it up with The Directive. And read the interview in this month’s copy of The Big Chill here. On to the aforementioned rant.

Did Thriller Guy catch your attention with that headline? TG recently reviewed a legal thriller by a big name professional (not John Grisham) who must remain nameless for professional reasons, and TG was shocked, yes, shocked! by the level of vituperation the author held for the Democrats and President Obama in particular. The author is, in real life, (meaning when he’s not writing novels, even though he probably doesn’t really write them as he’s known to employ a ghost) a high state government official. He’s obviously a Republican and in his new novel, an entry in his long-running series, he pulled out every stop to sneer at the federal government, democrats and Obama. In fact, at times TG was embarrassed for the guy. He could almost see the flecks of foam flying off the author’s lips.

TG must insert here his usual disclaimer and apology for not using the author’s name so he could flay him personally. Because of TG’s exalted position in the pantheon of working book reviewers, he is not allowed to reveal names and titles when excoriating authors and/or books that he has reviewed. Especially those he has recently reviewed. Sorry, folks, that’s just the way it is.

So TG was pleased to read an amusing article by Ron Charles in the Book section of the Washington Post on June 29th about an article the conservative book critic and publisher, Adam Bellow, wrote in the National Review. The theme of Bellow’s rant (not Charles' article, Charles was making fun of Bellows) is that the world of arts and letters, particularly the fiction industry, has been co-opted for years by bleeding-spleen liberals who have used their media platforms to crush the artistic hopes, dreams and novels of conservatives and those of the further right-wing variety. TG had to laugh. Yeah, it’s a damn shame about the fortunes of such beaten-down conservative thriller writers like Tom Clancy and Brad Thor. Those poor guys have made nary a cent in the business.

What we have here is another dope who doesn’t know what he’s talking about, stepping into the fiction book-writing business, in particular, as far as TG is concerned, the thriller-writing business, and spouting off, revealing not only his lack of information but his own wild-eyed political biases that leave him virtually blind, deaf and decidedly dumb in a larger discussion of an interesting topic. So it was with a sinking heart TG realized that he was now going to have to read the original article in the National Review, and not just the clever piece Charles wrote about it in the Post. Oh the burdens TG must shoulder just so his readers can remain sitting comfortably in front of their computers. Instead of picking each paragraph apart, TG is simply going to excerpt some of his pronouncements.

“We (conservatives) need our own writing programs, fellowships, prizes, and so forth. We need to build a feeder system so that the cream can rise to the top, and also to make an end run around the gatekeepers of the liberal establishment.

“What good will it do to write a novel? May as well ask what good it did to show the revolutionary flag at Bunker Hill (a battle we lost, by the way). We need to hoist our flag and show the strength of our resolve in order to build morale and win recruits.

“Remember, this is still a fight that can be lost. Will we as a society reject the new regime of liberal thought control or will we let it impose a politically correct orthodoxy on us that we will all have to live with for the rest of our lives?

“Yes, conservative voices can now be heard throughout the land, and the GOP is poised for victory in the upcoming midterm elections. But even as we appear to be winning the political argument, for the moment anyway, we are losing on the cultural front. For proof, you need look no farther than the recent successful attacks on conservative spokesmen. Do you oppose any aspect whatsoever of Barack Obama’s transformative agenda for America? You’re a racist. Racist, racist, racist!

“This is a bare-knuckled attempt to enforce an ideological orthodoxy by policing the boundaries of acceptable speech. The methods used — anonymous accusers, public shaming, forced apologies, reeducation programs — come straight out of the Stalinist playbook, and they are not only shockingly illiberal. They are shockingly effective.

“The Left has adopted this strategy for obvious reasons: They cannot win the argument on its merits, and unlike their counterparts elsewhere they can’t consistently win (or steal) elections. Political power eludes them. But like Mark Antony at Caesar’s funeral, they have become expert at using the media pulpit to turn the passions of the mob against their enemies.

“Fear not, however — this is no doom-and-gloom scenario. I actually come bearing good news. A second front is opening in the oddly misnamed culture war (which has nothing to do with culture). The tools of our salvation are at hand. There’s a new posse in town. We just need to wake up and support them.

“Meanwhile, more and more, I started hearing from conservative authors asking if I would look at their novels. I read quite a few of these, and while some of them were awful, many others were entertaining and well done. But they didn’t rise to the level of proficiency required for mass-market publication, and no sectarian market existed for conservative-themed fiction. So I suggested they self-publish, making use of the new digital-distribution technology.

“How do we fight back against this liberal establishment with its politically correct regime of thought control? There is only one way that I know of and that is by turning their weapons against them and channeling the spirit of the Sixties counterculture.

“The new conservative counterculture is a rebellion from below and from without. Fueled by the rise of digital self-publishing technologies, it is a simultaneous revolt against the hierarchical control of mass media and the ideological narrowing of acceptable discourse.

“In short, conservatives should remember that mainstream popular culture is still largely driven by books. Fiction therefore is and will remain the beating heart of the new counterculture. This is not just my bias as a publisher. It is a practical reality — and a fortunate one for us, since there are hundreds if not thousands of conservative and libertarian writers out there today producing politically themed fiction. The conservative right brain has woken up from its enchanted sleep and it is thriving. Instead of banging on Hollywood’s front door, a better approach is to go in the back by publishing popular conservative fiction and then turning those books into films.”

If this is the sort of thing you feel is right and true, TG heartily encourages you to read the entire piece. As crazy as some of this seems -- at least to TG -- he is happy to read the endorsement of digital technology to come to the aid of writers who can’t get published. (Even though they admittedly haven’t reached the level of proficiency for mass-market publication.) And rather than TG having to refute all the dopey theories Mr. Bellow is espousing, TG would just like to suggest to him that liberal writers, even the proficient ones, have just as much trouble getting the legacy publishers to accept their work and publish it and it doesn’t have a damn thing to do with their political bent.

TG does agree with another of Bellow’s statements, that is that most conservative writers, at least working in the thriller genre, know to keep their political opinions down to at least a low simmer. When they let this worldview take over, (like the author TG began this discussion with,) the fiction is subsumed beneath politics, and thriller readers, no matter what their political bent, don’t like that. They’re reading for thrills, action, and story, not polemics. That’s the real message Bellows should be trumpeting, but instead he has produced the usual self-pitying screed that blames the forces of his political opponents rather than the limitations and short sightedness of his aggrieved compatriots.

Mr. Bellows should read the thriller genre. The political leanings there are far more heavily weighted on the conservative end of the spectrum, but the better writers wisely tamp down much of that bias and just try to write terrific stories, because they know if they push the buttons that Bellows is urging them to push, they’re going to lose readers. And not just liberal readers.

Several years ago TG wrote an article about political thrillers. As part of his research he interviewed a number of well-known thriller writers, intending to use this as a sidebar to the article, and asked them about their own political leanings. It will come as no surprise that many, if not most of them, were conservative. But their answers surprised TG with their thoughtfulness. For unrelated reasons, the sidebar was not used with the article. In his next blog, TG will run some of these thoughts. Stay tuned.

Did TG mention that Adam Bellow is the son of the great novelist Saul Bellow? Does anyone besides TG hear the whoosh of someone whirling in his grave?

A Correction and Big News

In Thriller Guy’s recent review of 50 Shades of Grey he stated that after the first big sex scene (which occurred on page 112, not on 120 as he mistakenly reported) there were only five or so more sex scenes in the book. After reading other reviews of Shades, TG has found there were 15 more sex scenes, which is a number significantly higher than five. TG regrets this error and admits he may have been reading rather hastily and hopes that those seeking a heap o’ sex scenes in the novel didn’t pass it up just because TG said there wasn’t all that much more meat in the freezer. (Meat in the freezer? Where the hell did that image come from?) But onto The Big News…

TG is announcing that he and his alter ego Allen Appel have put up a New Website, The Appel Store, where readers and writers can find a plethora of goods relating to Allen Appel, his writing and his rants. At the store, visitors will find a list of Appel books and novellas now available for purchase and access to writing services provided by Appel and Thriller Guy. If you’ve got a book that you want to write, a book that you’ve already written that you’re not happy with, or other writing projects that you need help with, this is the place for you.

Why The Appel Store? We’ve all seen the stories: Unknown author writes book, puts it up on the internet and makes a gazillian dollars. Hmmm, that pretty much describes 50 Shades of Grey right there. There are other stories, though, about authors who have published successfully in the industry in years past and now are rejected because they weren’t successful enough (meaning they didn't sell enough copies) to keep publishing with the big boys, writers who have a large backlist that they put up as Kindles and find new life as eBook authors, tales that fuel imaginations and give hope in an industry where there is precious little hope. But are these stories just anomalies, or is there really a future for writers outside mainstream publishing? Thriller Guy decided to work up an experiment and see what’s truth and what’s pie-in-the-sky. Enter, The Appel Store.

So check it out. Buy a book. Buy a novella. If you need first class help in your writing endeavors, contact us. Let us know what you think. Thriller Guy will keep a running diary of how the enterprise fares and try to discover just how the eBook, independent publishing business really works, if it works at all beyond putting up vanity works. Check it out, there's some excellent stuff here.

THE APPEL STORE.