Tag Archives | thrillers

The story behind Run Like Hell – a teen’s worst nightmare come true.

Welcome to Day 5 celebrating A Spy Like Me!

Today we have with us Elena Andrews author of Run Like Hell – a young adult thriller!

RUN LIKE HELL is a young adult thriller involving seventeen-year-old Morgan Butler.  Her parents are out of town, she’s headed to the party of the year to meet up with her boyfriend and things couldn’t be better…until she gets stranded on a dark, desolate road.   With no money, no gas and a dead cell phone, Morgan makes a decision with dangerous consequences.

Several things inspired me to write this book.  First, I loved the movie TAKEN starring Liam Neeson.  If you haven’t seen this film, I’d highly recommend it.  In the movie his naïve, teenage daughter and her friend travel to Europe with horrible results.  I was drawn to the guileless spirit of the girls wanting to travel and enjoy Europe, un-chaperoned.

Secondly, I shared an interesting conversation with someone one day regarding her concerns for her teenage daughter while she was travelling overseas.  She trusted her daughter to make wise decisions, but worried nonetheless. Despite how parents prepare their child to make the right decisions, other influences come into play that are more powerful than a parent’s voice.

Lastly, I thought of my own experiences during my teenage years and early twenties.  I primarily grew up in Miami and during my senior year of high school I went to Miami Beach every weekend with my friends.  We loved dancing till dawn at the coolest alternative clubs.  Sometimes when I think back to those days and the crazy, sometimes dangerous, decisions I made I say to myself, “what was I thinking?” but back then I didn’t have any worries or concerns.

My character Morgan simply wants to go to an amazing party on a Saturday night and hang out with her friends and boyfriend.  My teenage goals were the same – to have a good time.  RUN LIKE HELL allowed me to fictionalize a “what if” scenario that could be terrifyingly realistic — the best type of thriller.

The real terror in life hides behind the face of the person next to you.

Purchase at Amazon or if you belong to Prime – read for free!

Elana’s blog ~ Website ~ Twitter

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Okay, friends. I read the first couple chapters and was on the edge of seat! Clean writing and will get your heart pounding within paragraphs! And Elena is offering the ebook of Run Like Hell to one lucky winner!

To enter please leave a comment and tweet with @laurapauling

Comment to win Gemma Halliday’s Hollywood Scandals.
Comment to win Anne R. Allen’s The Gatsby Game.
Comment to win Elisa Ludwig’s Pretty Crooked.

Thanks everyone! And thanks Elena for sharing your story with us.

 

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What’s in a thriller? S.R. Johannes gives us her best tips.

I’m so excited to welcome S.R. Johannes to the blog to talk about writing thrillers. I put her in the hot seat with the following questions.

1. Do you write mainly thrillers? Will you continue to?

Yes and yes. J

When I was growing up, I used to sneak my mom’s books and read them – anything from Steven King, to James Patterson, to Iris Johannsen to James Hall (just to name a few) and I loved how they would keep me up at night reading.

I’ve always wanted to create that for teens. And I’ve been shocked at how few thrillers there are that DO NOT have some type of paranormal or fantasy twist.

So I do contemporary thrillers. Tough girls in the real world.

I’d like to say I’d write other stuff. But I will never be able to write something that does not have some level of suspense. I don’t know why but I’ve tried and it doesn’t work – for me.

2. What are you top tips or must-follow instructions for writing thrillers?

Thrillers are all about creating some kind of tension. If it isn’t in action, it needs to be in a relationship or in emotions. Something that makes you hold your breath and then release when it’s settled.

I have studied James Patterson’s writing and his writing process for years. He once talked about how he writes to an inverted conflict curve. This means he starts a chapter with tension, resolves it in the middle, and then begins more rising action and ends a chapter on a tense moment. This is what makes his books page turners in my opinion.  Because we – as readers – look for those natural places to stop – usually when a chapter/scene resolves in some way or in a quiet moment before the storm.

After I write my books, I recut my book to that inverted model so the tension is at the end of a chapter.

3. What are the biggest pitfalls to avoid when writing a thriller?

I think the big pitfalls are losing tension and being predictable. If you are predictable – it is not thriller b/c you lose the tension in your story. You never want your reader to sit back and go “ah this is resolved.” You want them going. ”What!? How!” The best compliment I get on Untraceable is when someone says, “I did not see that coming.” Good because that is what I felt when I wrote it.

In a thriller – you have to be willing to go places you don’t really want to go. Don’t write the neatly tied up ending. Don’t go the way most people will go or want to go. Don’t go the way you want to go. Go the way that gets to you the most. The way that is the hardest to write. This book doesn’t end the way I wanted. It is not the original ending. And that was hard for me to swallow but necessary for the story to touch people. You would not believe how many emails I have already gotten about the ending. And I agree with them. But it was unexpected.

4. How do you feel is the best way to add heart to a thriller without taking away from the “thrill”?

Well I try to keep some humor in my books so my characters are all not gloom and doom and woe is me. That gets old. Even when I’ve been down and out – there are those times and places – those awkward moments where you crack a joke or laugh – when you probably shouldn’t. And for just a minute, things feel okay again. Grace is like that and I find that endearing that in the midst of everything – she can kid Wyn or jab at Mo.

Part of the tension with Grace is her emotions. She is completely unpredictable and sometimes even annoyingly reckless. This keeps tension b/c you never know what she is going to do. She also doesn’t cry at the things most of us would. I think she holds back her emotions for 2/3s of the book until everything comes crashing down around her.

That process of holding back causes some tension because once she breaks, the reader is left thinking, “Oh crap – now she is in trouble.” At least – I hope.

5. What are some of your favorite YA thrillers?

Gosh I hate to say this but I cannot think of one contemporary thriller in YA – one that does not have a paranormal or fantasy element. I have racked my brain on this for years. Maybe I have missed it somewhere. Ally Carter is the only person that pops into my mind.

But books that have great tension – to me – are Carrie Ryan’s Forest of Hands and Teeth series. Seriously, I think I held my breath for ½ that book.

Also Kimberly Derting’s Body Finder series – there is one scene in the first book where Violet is running through the woods and I was on the edge of my seat. I still get chills when I am in the woods, thinking about that.

My favorite thriller writer of all time is James Patterson’s Alex Cross series. I still love those.

Hope that’s not too much! Good luck with this journey!

Check out Shelli’s book UNTRACEABLE. And her website Market My Words where she has blogged about her self publishing experiences.


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