Special Guest Q&As: R.L. Stine, Robert Crais, Diana Gabaldon & John Lescroart
By Jeff Ayers, Seattle P.L. Jun 9, 2011Every year, the International Thriller Writers selects an author to give the equivalent of a lifetime achievement award by naming that person Thrillermaster. Previous award recipients include James Patterson, Sandra Brown, and David Morrell (see our Q&A). Last year's Thrillermaster, Ken Follett, will be giving the award at this year's banquet to R.L. Stine. In addition, both of them will be interviewed during the conference.
Like the Thrillermasters, Thrillerfest also acknowledges some of the biggest names in the thriller business by giving them an opportunity for a one-on-one session for attendees followed by a Q&A. Usually another heavyweight author conducts the interview. These spotlight guests are arguably one of the most attended sessions at the conference. Previous guests include Robin Cook, Lisa Scottoline, Gayle Lynds, and Harlan Coben. The three authors getting their time to shine in the spotlight this year are Robert Crais, Diana Gabaldon, and John Lescroart, whom I interviewed below, along with Stine, for their insights into the thriller genre and their writing approach. For full biographies of these masters, go to the ITW website.
R.L. STINE | ROBERT CRAIS | DIANA GABALDON | JOHN LESCROART
R.L. STINE
JA: How do you define a thriller?
RLS: I'm not great at definitions, but I think a thriller is basically about characters who find themselves in terrible, surprising danger and must use their wits and imaginations and all of their mental and physical abilities to save themselves. Unlike a mystery, which asks the question, what happened?, a thriller asks, what happens next?
JA: Could you discuss the growing popularity of thrillers in the YA market?
RLS: I think thrillers have always been popular with YA readers because they offer a chance for adventure and suspense that teenagers don't normally get to experience. Also, a feeling of mastery over feelings of fright and danger. My "Fear Street" YA thriller series featured teenagers facing dangers both criminal and supernatural. Today, the most popular thrillers are dystopian or paranormal. Young people like to explore all kinds of forbidden, dangerous territory—when they know they are actually safe at home reading a book.
JA: What elements of a thriller make it appealing to the reader?
RLS: In my opinion, the biggest appeal is the element of surprise. Plot twists. People who turn out to be not who they say they are. For example, Harlan Coben will have eight or nine major plot twists and surprises in every book; most popular thriller writers do the same. I believe another important element is violence. Thrillers are a safe outlet for violent feelings. The violence is a big part of the fun, as writers such as Lee Child have proven.
JA: What inspired you to write thrillers, and is there a difference in writing thrillers for children and adults?
RLS: I read thrillers and mysteries. So, of course, I always wanted to try my hand at writing them. When I discovered that young readers "love to be scared," it gave me a chance to combine a gentle form of horror with the kind of thrills and suspense suitable for kids. As for a difference, I think it's simple: thrillers for adults need to be rich in detail and very real. Thrillers for kids need to let kids know that the story is a fantasy.
ROBERT CRAIS
JA: How do you define a thriller?
RC: A story that grabs me by the throat and pulls me to the end without stopping.
JA: Could you discuss the lasting friendship between PIs Joe Pike and Elvis Cole and how has it changed over the years writing their characters?
RC: Their friendship hasn't changed, in that it has always been deep, and loyal, and true in the finest sense of the word. This is why millions of readers have been drawn to Elvis and Joe. I've explored their friendship at greater depth in recent books and have tested that friendship. This has drawn even more readers to their stories.
JA: What elements of a thriller make it appealing to the reader?
RC: Character, character, character! Sure, you want great ideas and a high-velocity plot, but those things mean nothing without a character we want to spend time with.
JA: What inspired you to write thrillers?
RC: Love to read them. There is no better bang for the buck in show business
DIANA GABALDON
JA: How do you define the genre of your novels and why?
DG: I can't, and apparently, neither can anyone else. I've seen my books—the same books—sold (with evident success) as the following [takes deep breath]: Literature, Fiction, Historical Fiction, Historical Nonfiction (really), Science Fiction, Fantasy, Mystery, Romance, Military History (really; the Military Book Club carries the ones that deal with major battles), Gay and Lesbian Fiction, and...Horror (no, really: one of my books beat both George R.R. Martin and Stephen King for a Quill Award. Deeply gratifying).
Salon.com once described my books as "'the smartest historical sci-fi adventure-romance story ever written by a science Ph.D. with a background in scripting 'Scrooge McDuck' comics.'" This is as close as anyone's ever come to describing my books in 25 words or fewer, and I don't think I could improve on it.
JA: Would you discuss the mixing of romantic elements with suspense?
DG: Look, the essence of a good story is conflict. Conflict by its nature causes suspense. We have a man on the beach who finds a message in a bottle. What does it say? Something that makes him rush home, pack an overnight bag, and leave, telling his wife only that Something Has Come Up. Instant suspense. Anything that makes the reader say, "And THEN what happens?" is a) suspense and b) good storytelling.
If your suspense involves—whether directly or peripherally—the relationship between two characters who might conceivably form what scientists call a pair-bond, then you have romantic elements in your story. In terms of suspense, you handle these just like any other elements: you keep creating questions that make the reader ask, "And THEN what happens?"
Switch to the man's wife. Is she worried that her husband has dashed off in this impetuous way? Is she pleased that he's gone, because her lover is hiding under the bed with the cat, and he's allergic? Is the man who's left agonizing over leaving his wife, because the note he got threatens her? Or did the note tell him that his wife was about to kill him and blame it on her boyfriend?
The extent to which the relationship is the central focus of the story affects how extensively you create questions that deal with that relationship, but the creation of suspense is the same, no matter what the focus of your story.
JA: What inspired you to write your novels?
DG: Mozart. I hit 35 and thought, "Hey, Mozart was dead at 36. If you really want to write a book, maybe you should start." So I did.
JOHN LESCROART
JA: How do you define a thriller?
JL: This would seem obvious enough, but somehow it's not. To me, a thriller engages the reader in an all-encompassing way. The involvement in the story is visceral. This is different from a mystery, whose main purpose is to engage the mind in a puzzle; or a romance, which tugs at the heart, or even many "mainstream" novels, that tell an engrossing story. The difference in the thriller is that the reader's reaction is such a total involvement in the people and events of the story being told that it is physical. You don't just read a thriller—you are transported to a level of excitement/terror/dread that mimics and in some case actually produces the experience of real life in great duress. It truly thrills. It is reading as experience rather than simply the experience of reading.
JA: Please discuss the continued interest in the legal thriller genre. Has the proliferation of crime shows on TV changed the landscape?
JL: The legal thriller is not going away anytime soon. Its longevity is pretty well guaranteed because the structure of the legal thriller provides all the elements that make a story compelling: you've always got a definite person you're rooting for and an equally compelling someone to hate, usually along with an interesting puzzle. Beyond that, you've almost always got moral issues of pure right and wrong, good versus evil. And, finally, all good legal thrillers provide that most evasive of story elements: resolution. Justice is done at the end or at least a semblance of it that we can recognize and appreciate. I have often described the legal thriller as the war story of our age, where battle is waged, somebody wins, and somebody loses. And readers have responded to that formula since Homer.
I don't really see the proliferation of TV crime shows having had too much of an influence on the legal thriller. By its nature, the legal thriller is complex, whereas network television tends to the simple. Additionally, there is an orchestrated ballet to courtroom procedure which simply doesn't seem to translate to the small screen, and this is probably why so many legal thrillers become feature films and not television shows. Television tends to ride roughshod over the niceties that make the legal thriller so compelling and interesting. So people who want their legal fix to be realistic and complicated—the way real trials are—tend to go with the book, or the movie made from the book, and leave the TV to the nonpurists.
JA: What elements of a thriller make it appealing to the reader?
JL: As I indicated above, the thriller tends to engage the entire person, not simply the mind or the heart. The thriller transports, and the ride can be as physical as the experience of riding a roller coaster. You're flying, you're scared, you're exhilarated, you're relieved, and all of it is incredibly immediate. And for this to work, a thriller has to have dramatic action, sustained suspense, cliff-hanger moments, unexpected twists, evil villains, and sympathetic heroes. Put all those together, and people are going to buy your books; I guarantee it.
JA: What inspired you to write thrillers?
JL: My main inspiration was fear and failure. My first five published books were either "literary" or "mysteries," and not too many people were rushing out to buy and/or read them. I was at the point where I was going to have to quit writing entirely if I didn't come up with a type of book that readers wanted to read. Fortunately, I had already created a very sympathetic character named Dismas Hardy and had made him a lawyer (albeit a non-practicing one). After the first two Dismas Hardy novels, both relatively straightforward mysteries, I knew I had to expand my palette if I wanted to reach a larger audience and also address larger themes and more thriller plot elements. And, suddenly, the longer form featuring Dismas Hardy the now-practicing, conflicted, loose-cannon lawyer opened up an entirely different fictional world that was more, well, thrilling. Since then, I've never looked back.
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