Episide 12 - The Joanna Penn interview

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Alan talks about his Write The Fight Right short ebook he’s working on.

Dave talks about his work on the next Dane Maddock book.

Then we have a guest: Joanna Penn.

Jo talks about her new book, Pentecost, which she describes as like a cross between Dan Brown and Lara Croft.

Jo talks about moving from her non-fiction success to writing fiction.

We go on to discuss Jo’s influences, her fascination with theology (she has a Masters degree in it!) and what drives her to write the things she does.

We discuss Jo’s female protagonist and what’s masculine or just cool.

Which leads to a discussion of female writers putting out thrillers, a traditionally male dominated genre.

Jo talks about future projects and the next Morgan Sierra books.

We discuss Jo’s previous name as a non-fiction writer and how her online presence has helped with the launch of her first novel.

You can find Jo’s novel here: http://www.pentecostnovel.com

Jo’s website is: http://www.thecreativepenn.com

Or follow her on Twitter: http://twitter.com/#!/thecreativepenn

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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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ThrillerCast Episode 10 - Copyrights and Piracy

This episode is actually a portion of a larger episode we recorded several weeks back. It's comparatively brief after the last two super-sized episodes. Enjoy!


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In this episode, we discuss the Cooks Source copyright violation incident.

The fallacy of the internet as 'public domain.'

Does the availability of so much free material impact piracy?

David Reviews Temple by Matthew Reilly.

ThrillerCast Episode 9 - The Trent Jamieson Episode

A supersized Christmas Eve special episode today, featuring a review of Trent Jamieson’s new urban fantasy thriller, followed by an interview with Trent himself. We get a good insight into bookselling as part of the interview, as Trent works in a bookshop.

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Alan’s review of Death Most Definite

Interview with Trent Jamieson

Brisbane as a place and a character

Do people plan to write thrillers?

Trent’s favourite reads

Trent on mythology

Where does the Death Works series go from here?

Trent on working in a book store and the nature of returns and the shelf life of books

Selling books that cross genre

Reading broadly

Trent explains what a Psychopomp is in the Death Works universe

We discuss in detail the nature of writing in first person present tense over third person narrative, and why writers might use it

Learn more at http://www.trentjamieson.com/

ThrillerCast Episode 8 - Escapism in Fiction- Realistic Writing vs Fantastic

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Show notes:

Halloween chat - Dave and Alan talk about what they’re doing and what Halloween writing projects they have on the go. (Hereby showing how our podcasts are about a month and half behind!)

Other good Halloween reading:

Felicity Dowker’s lesbian zombie story in Scary Kisses, from Ticonderoga Press.

Jim Bernheimer’s zombie power story in Horror, Humour and Heroes anthology.

Joe Konrath’s indie Kindle book Draculas (by Blake Crouch, Joe Konrath, Jeff Strand, F. Paul Wilson.)

We go on to talk about the nature of ebooks, and authors self-managing their own ebook publishing and sales.

Ebooks outselling print books at Amazon and the various ereaders starting to crop up in regular stores.

The spread of ereaders in the public domain.

William Gibson and how he doesn’t write sci-fi any more because we live in a sci-fi world.

Is old sci-fi disappointing now because we’ve surpassed the ideas of the old SF stories?

What about adventure stories? Do they hold up to the test of time?

Main topic: Escapism

Alan’s blog post about escapism in genre fiction.

Helen Lowe and The Heir Of Night blog book tour.

Why do SF writers enjoy writing in the genre.

Anne Hamilton’s post about SF being worthless due to being escapism.

Is contemporary non-genre fiction actually more escapist than fantasy or science fiction?

Does being a writer spoil the reading (escapist) experience?

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ThrillerCast episode 7 - The Kent Holloway interview

 Click here to download this week's episode. (Kent had some minor audio issues, but it's still a great episode!)

Our writing projects at the moment - David’s Dane Maddock short story and Alan’s psychic octopus short story.

Interview with Kent Holloway, author of the Enigma Directive series:

Primal Thirst

Cryptids and other mythological beasties.

The trouble with mermaids.

The nature of the US imbalance between the sex and violence it shows in modern media.

The Seven Realms thriller writers anthology, themed on the short story, “The Most Dangerous Game”, by Richard Connell. (The anthology is due around the middle of 2011 and will feature stories by Kent, Alan and David, as well as Rick Chesler, whom we interviewed in episode 4.)

Kent’s new project – a “rural fantasy” series called “The Dark Hollows”, based on the Appalachian myths and folklore of the eastern seaboard of North America.

Kent’s website - http://www.kenthollowayonline.blogspot.com/

7 Realms Publishing – http://www.sevenrealmspublishing.com/

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Don't forget to send us an email if you have any questions or if there's anything you'd like to hear us talk about on the podcast. Also, if you've read a good thriller lately and you want to ring in and review it on the podcast, drop us an email about that too.

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ThrillerCast episode 6 - Writing a thriller, part 2

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Continued from Episode 5, David and Alan continue to talk about the process of novel writing.

From concept, to notes, to plans, to writing.

The dreaded procrastination.

The second draft.

Fleshing out the initial story – edit or add?

The invaluable beta readers.

David and Alan extol the virtues of a good editor.

Writing workshops and crit groups. The essential need to have input and help with your work.

An invitation to ThrillerCast listeners to be a part of the podcast.   

(And stick around for the out-take after the end credits!)

Coming up next week- ThrillerCast interviews Kent Holloway, author of the Enigma Directive series.