by MichaelDickson | Sep 10, 2020 | Thriller Structure
Writing thrillers can be difficult. Well, writing in general can be difficult. Any author today can tell you they’ve suffered the dreaded blinking cursor syndrome where that little black bar is more intimidating than a job interview. Then, there’s the dreaded writer’s...
by MichaelDickson | Apr 28, 2020 | Tools for Writers
Not long ago, I went to Google and typed this into the search field: “How to Write a Novel.” In a split second, I received over 1,540,000,000 results. That’s 1.5 billion results on how to write a novel. I wet through the first couple of...
by MichaelDickson | Jan 18, 2019 | Tools for Writers
10X Your Thriller Vocabulary Imagine if you had the writing vocabulary of a New York Times bestselling author and their editor. What if you could sit down and write the perfect chase scene or describe the movement of characters in your novel with relative ease. No...
by MichaelDickson | Dec 12, 2018 | Tools for Writers
Novel Writing Tools Beyond Your Basic Word Processor Writing a novel requires a great deal of organization if you want to do it right. You have endless details to work out, thoughts and ideas to put together, and research to keep track of. Depending on the type of...
by MichaelDickson | Dec 5, 2018 | Thriller Structure
Examples of Story Arc in Movies Developing the plot of a single, standalone novel or movie is certainly a task. You must map out all the key events, develop your characters, and bring your plot to a proper close. Now imagine you had multiple movies to do that with, or...
by MichaelDickson | Nov 20, 2018 | Thriller Structure
A plot twist is one of those things that is either mind-blowingly brilliant, or it falls completely flat and ruins the entire story with its boring predictability. Rarely does a plot twist fall anywhere in between. For this reason, it is one of the riskiest things to...
by MichaelDickson | Nov 14, 2018 | Thriller Structure
Thriller Genre Definitions Thrillers are a wildly popular type of story, due to their enthralling and exciting nature. They can make you think and keep you on the edge of your seat without utterly horrifying you. Many people cannot handle horror, and a thriller is a...
by MichaelDickson | Nov 6, 2018 | Thriller Structure
Short stories are an extraordinary part of the fiction world. Unfortunately some authors don’t give them enough thought. Writers sometimes balk at the limited word count that is allowed in a short story, and readers bypass them due to the length as well. Short stories...
by MichaelDickson | Oct 30, 2018 | Thriller Structure
Using Conflict to Create Plot Points in Your Thriller There are many different types of writers, with varying preferences of writing. Some will outline every detail of the story before even writing the first word. Others will sit down with their idea and just get...
by MichaelDickson | Oct 23, 2018 | Thriller Structure
Introduction The primary purpose of a thriller novel is to keep the reader on the edge of the seat. They should intrigue, shock and keep the reader alert from the beginning to the end. As well as captivate the audience and keep them in suspense. Thriller readers want...