
Hanging out with best-selling author Douglas Preston.
Today was the start of ThrillerFest, and I had the opportunity to meet and learn from some of the greatest writers in the business. Below are photos and highlights from some of the sessions.

Steve Berry
Steve Berry – Six “C’s” of Story Structure
- Character
- Conflict
- Crucible
- Complications
- Crisis
- Conclusion
Act 1
- “In Act 1 you establish the character and create conflict.”
- “Then you introduce the crucible – the reason why the character is willing to do something he wouldn’t normally do.”
Act 2
- “Act 2 is when you introduce complications and focus on no more than two subplots.”
Act 3
- “At the start of Act 3 is the crisis point. By the time this takes place, there should only be 50 pages left in the book.”
- “After you’ve hit the crisis point, bring it home with a satisfying conclusion.”
Steve Berry – Point of View
- “When you start your book, you need to decide who’s going to tell the story.”
- “Point-of-view characters are precious because they’re the only people’s heads we go into. You have a lot of characters in a novel, but you only go into the heads of a handful of them.”
- “Some writers don’t feel this is important, but I respectfully disagree.”
- “First person is the hardest point of view. Don’t even try it until you’ve written a million words; it will put pressure on you and tax your creativity.”

John Sanford
John Sanford – How to Tighten Your Manuscript
- “The first and last chapters are the most important ones in your book.”
- “The first chapter needs to be emotionally engaging. The action needs to start in the first paragraph.”
- “The last chapter is critical. You want it to go out with a bang and for people to leave with a smile on their face.”
- “If you make too many unnecessary changes after you’ve finished a book, they’ll come back to bite you in the ass.”

Michael Connelly
Michael Connelly – How to Write a Good Series
- “Forget about writing a series. Just write the best book you can write.”
- “I’m a visual writer. I see scenes in my head and I write them down.”
- “You want to move forward and backward at the same time. You have to work in the backstory so people know where the character came from.”
- “I’m writing for the people that have been riding with me.”
- “I don’t outline, I just write.”

Lincoln Child & Douglas Preston
Lincoln Child & Douglas Preston – How to Have a Great Collaboration
- “A writing partnership is like a marriage. Unfortunately, in our case, the sex is no good.” – Douglas Preston
- “You need to determine the potential partner’s strengths and weaknesses to see if he or she would be a good fit for you.” – Lincoln Child
- “Lincoln writes vicious murder scenes. Underneath that white jacket beats a black heart.” – Douglas Preston
- “The editing process is like putting a literary zamboni over the manuscript.” – Lincoln Child
- “I’ll write a series of chapters from one character’s point of view, and Lincoln will write a series of chapters from another character’s point of view, and then we’ll merge them.” Douglas Preston
- “Writing, by its very definition, is an egotistical act.” – Lincoln Child
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