There’s a piece on my website which I have written about the way in which I develop thriller novel plots and action lines when I write. ‘I like dropping the character into it’. Now, get out of that!
This approach is as much a challenge to me as to the character. I have to dig him (or her) out of the impossible situation I put her/him in. Sometimes it means I have to go back and write some collateral, and it does usually mean I have to go away and think. It once took me three weeks to come up with a solution to one fix I’d cleverly created…
With sci-fi, it’s easy. Just invent a technology. Can’t do that with techno-thrillers and stay credible. I like to be able to back up my technology predictions with current research and reasonable projection.
