What do best-selling authors like to read? Two different views

This week, Written Words once again pairs two very different authors to discuss what they think makes a good book.

Raine Thomas is the bestselling author of an award-winning series of YA fantasy/romance novels about the Estilorian plane, including her latest, Return of the Ascendant.

Doug Dorow is best known for his innovative thriller The Ninth District.

Name three characteristics of books that you like. 

Raine Thomas: Strong characters, witty dialogue and compelling story lines.

Doug Dorow: I've found I prefer to read third person versus first person, though I'll read both. Character and action keep me engaged along with a unique setting. 

What makes you keep reading a book? 

Doug Dorow: Cliff hangers make me turn the page. I keep reading because I care about what is going to happen next to the main character. 

Raine Thomas: The desire to find out what happens to the characters. If I connect with the main characters, I want to know what happens to them. That’s the sign of a great book.

What are some books that you weren't able to put down until you finished them?

Raine Thomas: My favourite genre is romance, so just about anything by Nora Roberts/J.D. Robb and similar authors will keep me up reading past my bedtime. I’m also fond of stories driven by mystery and intrigue, like those by Kathy Reichs and Tess Gerritsen.

Doug Dorow: I got totally engaged in Stephen King's Dark Tower series back when it first came out. Today, I'm a big fan of Lee Child's and Michael Connelley's books. One that met my 3 characteristics above (character, action, unique setting) was Trevanian's Shibumi. One of the few books I've read twice. 

Do you consciously try to emulate these books? If so, what form does that take: plot, structure, characters, settings, author's voice and word choice?

Doug Dorow: I don't think I consciously try to emulate a book, but by reading so many of them, I believe that their pace, structure and beats become internalized. If something really jumps out at me after I've read a section I will stop and think about what it was that captured my attention and keep it in mind for my future writing. 

In my thriller, The Ninth District, I did try to create a character that the reader would care about and put him in a unique setting and location (underground in the tunnels and sewers that run under Minneapolis) where the setting almost became a character itself. 

Raine Thomas: I don’t consciously try and emulate another author’s style; rather, I write stories that I want to read. That said, I’ve found that my dialogue sometimes mimics the style of Ms. Roberts’, as does my depiction of male characters. I suppose it follows that my writing would incorporate elements that I most like to read in other books.

Do you try to avoid any of the techniques or conventions followed by your favourite writers? 

Raine Thomas: I’ve never consciously avoided any writing techniques by other authors. It’s important to me that I maintain my own voice, so the styles of other authors don’t enter my mind when I’m writing. 

Doug Dorow: I don't think I consciously try to avoid any techniques or conventions, but I do tend to write in third person, though I've dabbled some in first person. 

What rules of writing do you intentionally break?

Doug Dorow: I'm kind of a rule follower. I look at them more as conventions and norms and try to give the reader what he or she will expect in the thriller genre, but in a new story with new characters. 

I am attempting some novella writing, trying to provide a thrill in shorter snippets that may not allow the same in depth character insight a reader will get with a regular novel. 

Raine Thomas: One rule I break relates to paragraph length. If I want to emphasize a single word or sentence, I’ll make it stand alone as its own paragraph. I’m also not afraid to switch points of view within a story (though I’m careful to keep to one POV per scene). I prefer to write in the third person and allow the reader to experience the story from several different perspectives. But, hey…aren’t they more guidelines than rules, anyway? ;)

Thank you very much for the different perspectives, Raine and Doug!

Minnesota thriller author Douglas Dorow’s FBI thriller, The Ninth District is available in ebook, paper and audio formats through Amazon and Barnes and Noble. Visit his website and blog, and Amazon Author page. Follow him on Twitter @DougDorow.

Raine Thomas is the award-winning author of bestselling young adult and new adult romantic fiction. Known for character-driven stories that inspire the imagination, Raine recently signed with multiple award-winning producer Chase Chenowith of Back Fence Productions to bring her popular Daughters of Saraqael trilogy to the big screen. A member of Best-Selling Reads, Raine is a proud indie author who is living the dream. When she isn't writing or glued to e-mail or social networking sites, Raine can usually be found vacationing with her husband and daughter on one of Florida's beautiful beaches or crossing the border to visit with her Canadian friends and relatives.

Visit her webite, blog, and Amazon Author page, and follow her on Twitter @Raine_Thomas.

The Ninth District: the way thrillers should be written

An independent novel review

I like it when an author sets his book in his home town, especially when it’s a place that doesn’t normally get mentioned in much mass media. The depth of knowledge comes through in the detail and that makes the story that much more realistic. For me, even nicer that it’s a place I visited a number of times, and where the geography is similar to the place where I grew up.

But that’s not the important reason that I liked Doug Dorow’s The Ninth District. It’s a terrific book, a thriller with a unique story and believable characters.

The story:

Minneapollis is the Ninth District of the Federal Reserve, where the US prints its currency; the Federal Reserve has a big, very secure building in that city. No Federal Reserve has ever been robbed, so it must present a huge temptation to robbers — and to writers of heist thrillers.

Dorow succumbed to the temptation and crafted this excellent yarn. It has all the elements required for a heist story: a good plan, cliff-hanging suspense and lots of detail about methods, setting, skills and contingencies. Dorow has clearly done his homework.

He also presents a number of excellent plot twists, particularly in the way the villain anticipates the hero’s action. The book opens with the hero, Jack Miller, watching a security video that shows a bank robber murdering a pregnant woman unnecessarily. The murder and several minor bank robberies are all part of the villain’s (whom the cops have dubbed “the Governor” for his habit of wearing a face mask of a former governor of Minnesota) plan.

Strong characters

The hero is FBI agent Jack Miller. He’s a sympathetic character. Separated from his wife and child and trying to work on reuniting, he’s also working through the transition from the young hotshot FBI agent to the veteran teaching the new guy the ropes.

Far too often, new thriller authors make their heroes way too heroic: the genius sharpshooter who’s also a martial arts master, speaks ten languages and is irresistibly handsome.

Jack Miller is flawed, fallible and far easier to identify with — and that makes him much more interesting as a character, too. Sure, he’s smart, he knows how to investigate cases, but he also reacts to threats against himself and his family in believable ways.

The protégé, Agent Ross, is also believable. He’s young, smart and eager for action — a little too eager, sometimes, and his mistakes get him badly hurt.

Jack’s wife, Julie, is well presented, as well. I wish, though, that she was a somewhat larger part of the story.

The villain, the Governor, is smart and ruthless, killing innocent women as part of his plan to throw the cops off his planned heist. However, Dorow has possibly tried too hard to make the villain appear mysterious and threatening. I would have liked to see a little more detail about him, his background and his underlying personality.

Smooth, competent style

Dorow is a professional writer of fiction and has earned all those good reviews. He knows how to bring out the characters through words and actions – showing, not telling. He know how to provide lots of detail about the city, the environment and police procedures without bogging the story down – I couldn’t stop turning pages (or swiping my finger across the screen of my iPad).

There’s lots of action and suspense in The Ninth District, and you want the good guys to succeed in not just the case, but their personal quests, as well.

If you like thrillers, download The Ninth District right now.

4*

The Ninth District on Amazon

Doug Dorow's Thriller Author website