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

1. Character 
2. Conflict
3. Crucible
4. Complications
5. Crisis
6. 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