A PRIVATE EYE LOOKING FOR A CLUE

One of the most difficult things for a thriller writer to do is to plan ahead to hide evidence in the early stages of the story development. Then, like leaving bread crumbs behind for the gumshoe to discover, you have to be careful where and how you spread them. I often find myself giving away the ending at the half way point in my novel. Then thirty thousand words later I realize what I have done and spend hours and days trying to back track re-hiding the clues. The investigation had been over and all the characters knew it, except for me. There are two main types of clues that trip me up. The first is the verbal clue where a sub or secondary character says something significant to the plot. The second is the placement of physical clues...and then forget where you put them, or that you even added them.
I tend to do a lot of sub plotting , braiding story lines through out the novel, and then bring it all together at the end. So far , I haven't left my private investigator scratching his head, wondering how he solved the mystery. Do others have this same problem with clues?

THRILLERS-R-ME: BRAIDING WITHIN THE THRILLER

THRILLERS-R-ME: BRAIDING WITHIN THE THRILLER: " Doctor Evil  I am 50K words in to my new novel, The 9 Monkeys, and need to expose the villain. My quandary is that I have braided three..."

AUTHOR MIKE PETTIT'S ACTION THRILLER BLOG

                                 WANTED
IMMEDIATE ACCEPTANCE OF BLOG FOLLOWERS

EXCELLENT DISCUSSIONS, OPEN MINDED, CRIMINALLY INSANE, GOOD BAD-GUYS, BAD GOOD-GUYS.

BLOG OWNER LOVES MURDER, MAYHEM, MUTTS.

AUTHOR OF THE POPULAR JOHN LOCKE SUSPENSE SERIES.

NEEDS FRIENDS WITH LIKE PERSONALITY ISSUES  THAT LOVE TO WRITE THRILLERS, MYSTERY, MACABRE.

ALL ARE WELCOME....COME TO THE DARK SIDE OF LIFE, THE LATE SHIFT, WHERE BAD PEOPLE LIVE AND WORK.

JUNGLE RULES

MAY 15th. Finally, JUNGLE RULES, is going KINDLE. One-hundred twenty-two thousand words, three-hundred- thirty pages....and a lot of action. It's loaded with SUSPENSE, MURDER, KIDNAPPING, VOODOO, JAMAICAN POSSE'S, CHINESE TRIADS, WASHINGTON WEASELS, and JOHN LOCKE caught in the middle. He's on the run, one jump ahead of an assassin. The race takes him through Miami, Key West, and down into the Islands where he goes head-to-head with one of the most psychotic killers imaginable...It will leave you breathless.



THE THRILL OF WRITING THRILLERS

The insanity  required to write about murder and crime on a daily basis takes it's toll on normal people. I, a thriller writer of five novels filled with murder, killing, action sequences that would make Bruce Willis cringe, find it most comforting. At the end of the day, I sleep like a ....dead man? My fifth book, JUNGLE RULES, will hit the Ethernet book stands in about ten days. It's very exciting to see one of my novels on amazon, B&N, and about two hundred other sites....  and people actually buy them....It's a miracle. BUT, I calculated up the hours spent, the frustration level, the act of killing so many people, the editing......gets me way less than minimum wage. I wonder if I could apply somewhere for a Fed hand out?

AND Face Book is driving me nuts. I get caught up in some conversation that's going no where and the next thing I know, Ive missed my word count for the day.

I try and do at least two thousand words per day. What do normal writers do? More? Less? I'm curious.

#lThe Crime Of It AllThe Crime Of It Allinks

#links

The Crime Of It AllThe Crime Of It All

#links

TheWriteGame: Literary Dialect

TheWriteGame: Literary Dialect

SUSPENSE WRITING IN ACTION CAN BE A REAL THRILLER

I started a new book today and probably shouldn't have. I finished Jungle Rules last week and the characters and storyline are slopping over to the new story. I need to give myself more time between books. The story line and action from Jungle Rules, are still very vivid in my mind, especially the last two chapters that are loaded with a lot of action and dialogue. The voices are still bouncing around inside my cabasa. The problem is that I need to write, I can't seem to stop. I spent time on face book and worked on my blog trying to make since of the marketing and selling side of our chosen field. I swear, I would rather knock out a couple of suspense-filled chapters than play nice on face book and come up with ways to entice readers to visit my website to make that all important sale. Years ago I took a sales course at UCLA. The entire semester could have been summed up with these four steps.
1. Make the appointment.
2.Sell the product.
3. Sell the price.
4 Ask for the order.
BINGO! Deal closed. Now that I think about my writing career, the same marketing principles apply. Just substitute the first step from "Making the appointment " to "Write the Novel", then follow through with the other three steps. Sounds easy, right? NOT! All kinds of factors jump in to keep one from success. In our industry it is supply verses demand. Too many of us after that Holy Grail, a number one best seller. Thank God for all the new electronic publishing and gizmo's coming out. It gives us a fighting chance against the system. Am I thinking about this right? Let me know what you think. Are we just little critters without a chance or are we lumps of coal turning into diamonds.

JUNGLE RULES

I finally finished Jungle Rules. By far, it has been the toughest book to write in the John Locke Series. Plots, sub-plots, sub-sub-plots, main characters, featured characters, minor walk-ons, and a whole lot of action. Bringing it all together kept me up several nights, tying all the lose ends together. The most interesting part, was the research into voodoo and African Spiritualism, and how it evolved from dozens of tribes, coalesced in Haiti, then spread out to the other Islands, and the American South. The geological research was almost as tough. To find several trillion cubic feet of a gas-oil arousal mix in the Caribbean was quite a feat. In the end , it turned out to be a lot of fun to write. Now, the hard part starts, selling the thing.