Sunday, September 8, 2013

Is Your Premise Believable and Logical?

Another great craft-of-writing article by James Scott Bell is up today over at The Kill Zone blog. This one will be incredibly useful to anyone crafting a mystery or thriller who wants to make sure everything it's based on is credible.

Here's the start and a link to the rest:

Don't Kill Your Thrills With Premise Implausibility

Last week I wrote about the most important rule for thriller writers to follow, namely:
 
Never allow any of your main characters to act like idiots in order to move or wrap up your plot!
 
I think I spoke to soon. There is a second rule that is of equal import: the overall premise of the thriller must be justified in a way that is a) surprising, and yet b) makes perfect sense.
 
This is not easy. Otherwise, everybody would be writing The Sixth Sense every time out. Not even M. Night Shyamalan is writing The Sixth Sense every time out! 
 
So what can we do to up our chances of getting our thriller ending right?
1. Think About Your Contractual Obligation
... 

For the rest of this excellent article, with a very useful list, click here:

http://killzoneauthors.blogspot.ca/2013/09/dont-kill-your-thrills-with-premise.html#.UizYQiJza70

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