92- Writing a Blockbuster

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David and Alan reflect on "Top 10 Tips for Writing a Hollywood Blockbuster" and discuss what an author can learn from them.

Promo: Scrolls by Paul Elard Cooley

081- Flawed Protagonists

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Dave and Al discuss flawed protagonists, followed by a panel discussion on the topic "Is Your Hero's Flaw Non-Fatal?"

Special giveaway for ThrillerCast listeners: Steven Savile is offering free ebook copies of his thriller, Lucifer's Machine, to any ThrillerCast listener who is willing to leave an honest review on Amazon. If you're interested, contact us at thrillerpodcast [at] gmail [dot] com, or on our Facebook Page.  


Promo: The Vatican Knights by Rick Jones 

077- Inspiration

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In this episode, we riff off a similar discussion on Dead Robots' Society as we discuss what inspires us as writers. When did we first know we wanted to write? What influenced us? What writers inspire us? Other forms of media? From where do we draw inspiration for individual stories?

If you're a writer, feel free to add your own replies in the comments section!

Promo: Tales from the Archives by Tee Morris and Philippa Ballantine

Alan wants everyone to check out "The Hero's Journey Explained by Puppets"

Episode 58- Neil Gaiman's Rules for Writing

Dave and Alan discuss Neil Gaiman's "8 Rules for Writing."

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 Dave's latest, Buccaneer, is out, and Alan is wrapping up his work in-progress.

The writer's high of the last few chapters of a manuscript.

The emotional ups-and-downs of writing.

 Alan was invited to contribute an article to the Hugo-winning site, SFSignal.

Why Alan has an issue with NaNoWriMo

Promo- SecondWorld by Jeremy Robinson


Neil Gaiman's "Rules for Writing"

Why the best rules for writing aren't hard-and-fast rules for writing.

Alan's post on the subject


New release- Ragnarok by Jeremy Robinson and Kane Gilmour.

Episode 40 – Points Of View with C J West

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Alan talks about his novelette, The Darkest Shade Of Grey, serialised at The Red Penny Papers: http://redpennypapers.com/fiction/serials/the-darkest-shade-of-grey-alan-baxter/

Also available as an ebook:

Dave mentions Gryphonwood’s latest signing, Justin Macumber and his new sci-fi thriller, Haywire: http://www.amazon.com/Haywire-Justin-R-Macumber/dp/1470099152/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1331787469&sr=8-3


We go on to talk about the nature of libraries lending books and where authors stand on that.

This leads to us talking about libraries introducing readers to new authors and how readers who use mainly library lending can help out to keep their favourite authors in a job.

We talk briefly about the news that the US Justice Dept. is taking several big publishers to task.

Then we have a chat with CJ West, author of several books.

CJ’s website: http://www.22wb.com/

CJ’s Amazon page, listing all his books: http://www.amazon.com/C.-J.-West/e/B002BMEHJA/ref=sr_ntt_srch_lnk_1?qid=1331787828&sr=8-1

CJ talks about his books.

He then goes on to talk about the massive success he’s had with KDP Select, clearing over 100,000 books, given away and the impact that’s had on sales.

This leads us to talk about the behemoth that Amazon is and the risks involved with its business plan.

CJ talks about his new series.

Then we go on to talk about Point Of View, and discuss the benefits and pitfalls of writing in first person as opposed to third person and so on.

We talk about the difference in narrative length, short story, novella or novel, and how different POVs work for different lengths.

We talk about how to write well in various POVs and what bad habits to avoid.

CJ’s website: http://www.22wb.com/

Thrillercast Episode 30 – Writing and Rewriting History

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Alan talks about the new multi-media webinar of his How To Write Realistic Fight Scenes Masterclass. All the details here: http://www.alanbaxteronline.com/write-fight-scenes-masterclass

Alan talks about his current job of writing a video game narrative.

Alan talks about the new anthology, Hope, featuring his fantasy short story, Duty & Sacrifice. All profits from Hope will go to charities which help to raise suicide awareness. Get it here: http://www.kayellepress.com/books/anthologies/hope-speculative-fiction-to-help-raise-suicide-awareness/purchase-options-for-hope-anthology/

We talk about the new methods publishers are trying to avoid complaints about poorly reported sales figures for their creators.

Dave talks about the audiobook version Quest – it’s recorded and ready for a pre-Christmas release.

Promo- Mail Order Zombie podcast

We go on to talk about the nature of using history in our novels and how we approach cultural and historical events and use them.

We discuss the challenge of internal consistency in our novels and the amount of research involved, to ensure we approach our rewritten histories and mythologies from an informed point of view.

We touch briefly on cultural appropriation – is everything fair game?

We discuss the human psychology of religion and mythology, and culture, and how that needs to apply even in a completely fantasy world.

David discusses the cultural failings of some fantasy epics where history/culture is over-simplified.

Alan takes the same point to the failings of many sci-fi stories to correctly address cultural variation.

There are several versions of the US map David mentions. Here are just a few:

This is the one Dave mentioned: http://dalewrites.files.wordpress.com/2011/08/how-america-sees-the-world.jpg

Here are a few others:

http://cdn-www.i-am-bored.com/media/80033_americasview.jpg

http://www.viceland.com/wp/wp-content/uploads/2010/12/1.jpg

And Alan's favourite: http://www.irintech.com/x1/images/jean/US_World.jpg

We go on to discuss the importance of taking time out from writing to have a think. Thinking is an integral part of writing and we discuss the various methods we use to step away from the writing and let our brains chew on the details.

We talk about how we organise our research in order to draw from it for the novel in progress.

The importance of doing lots of research even if you don’t actually use it all in the finished story, as it will inform what you do include.

We talk about how the research for one project can be an investment in your writing career, as it can only help broaden the writer’s knowledge in general.

We then discuss the nature of readers recognising lazy research in our work. The more successful we get, the more we’re likely to sell from our backlist and the more critically we’ll be reviewed. Our early work may not be as good as later work from a craft point of view, but our research and integrity needs to be clear from the beginning.

Here’s Sean Ellis’s new book, Magic Mirror, out now from Gryphonwood Press - http://www.amazon.com/Magic-Mirror-ebook/dp/B005UHIIH0/ref=tmm_kin_title_0?ie=UTF8&m=A24IB90LPZJ0BS

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Episode 015 - Writing Fighting and How Not to Fight with Reviewers

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An eclectic ThrillerCast today. We start with talk about fighting.

Alan talks about his new ebook, Write The Fight Right, about writing more realistic and convincing fight scenes.

Alan talks about his background as a martial instructor and fighter.

What’s the thing most often wrong with written fight scenes? Alan talks about the problem with writing a fight scene like a visually choreographed movie fight.

David talks about the problem of misunderstanding martial arts as some kind of magical skill. What’s really real in fighting?

How much is heart and hunger a factor in fighting?

How can we use these things in characterisation with our stories? Motivation and ability.

Streetfighting versus tournament fighting.

When Alan is talking about a great fight scene and he can’t remember which movie it’s from, it’s Bridget Jones’s Diary. The fight is between the Hugh Grant and Colin Firth characters.

You can get Alan’s ebook, Write The Fight Right, now for just $1.99 – all the details here: http://www.alanbaxteronline.com/write-fight

Alan talked about a competition to host a fight writing competition on his blog. That contest is now on and you can enter here to win free books: http://www.alanbaxteronline.com/2011/04/12/written-fight-tournament.html

From here we segue rather clumsily into a discussion about the Jacqueline Howett debacle that occurred recently, where a self-published author responded very poorly to a bad review.

The original meltdown is here: http://booksandpals.blogspot.com/2011/03/greek-seaman-jacqueline-howett.html

Dave and Alan discuss what the problem is with responding like this to a review and how an author should respond to any review, good or bad.

Gaiman’s smackdown – the Dunning Kruger effect: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning-Kruger_effect

The Adam Christopher/Angry Robot story - http://angryrobotbooks.com/2011/03/welcome-angry-robots-latest-signing-adam-christopher/

Episode 14 – Villains

Another long one this week – obviously a subject we enjoyed talking about.

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In further evidence of how far behind we are podcasting some of our previously recorded stuff, we start with Alan talking about Freecon in Sydney.

Then we talk about villains and what makes a good, believable villain.

Do bad guys perceive that they’re bad guys? The Star Wars example.

Be sure to explore your characters’ perceptions of their position and their motivations.

Can your villain justify and/or delude themselves into rationalising their actions?

The Sopranos as an example of villains excellently constructed as characters.

Your villains need to be flawed to be three dimensional, just like protagonists.

It’s easy for villains to operate if they perceive a third party endorsement from government, religion, etc.

The needs of the many and the needs of the few. The Kirk/Spock conundrum.

Can a villain have ethical dilemmas?

Harry Potter examples of villains – Voldemort vs Wormtail.

The problem with stupid bad guys. The convenient distraction or the final monologue.

The bad guys need to be as smart as the good guys to be a real threat.

Alan waxes on about Batman and The Joker.

Episode 11 - The Description episode

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We are aware there was a problem with the episode cutting off early. We've re-uploaded the file, and the direct link is now working. Not sure how ling it will take for iTunes to pick up the corrected episode. Sorry for the error. 

We talk briefly about the Gryphonwood Press ebook for Halloween, with short stories from both David and Alan (a bit late to promote this one, but the book is still available for a dollar from Smashwords and Kindle).

We talk about getting back to our favourite novel characters in short stories for The Game anthology from Seven Realms Publishing.

David asked Alan to post the location of his Isiah short story, Stand Off, in the show notes (published by Wily Writers). You can find that story here: http://www.wilywriters.com/blog/?p=928

Alan talks about hearing his first short story podcast by a voice actor.

We talk about novels to movies as a process and how a movie can spoil an author’s vision.

We cite examples like:

Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials Trilogy
Richard Matheson’s I am Legend
Clive Cussler’s Sahara.
Alan Moore’s Watchmen, V For Vendetta, From Hell
Constantine/Hellblazer

From there we talk about movie actors potentially spoiling a reader’s vision of a character from a book.

We talk about too much description in a book which can also spoil the reader’s immersive experience, and subsequently what kind of descriptive writing does work well.

We discuss the difference in character development between a book and a movie.

We discuss the need for worldbuilding in speculative fiction and how that can potentially slow down the pace of a spec fic thriller.

Alan cites Peter Watt’s Starfish as an example of excellent worldbuilding in a spec fic thriller.

David cites William Dietrich’s historical adventure thrillers.

We talk about the authenticity of worldbuilding in fiction and making sure the writer knows what he’s talking about.

We finish up talking about what we think is essential description and what’s unnecessary.

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