Writing A Bestseller

Hi. David Bowker here. Sarah the whiplady asked me to blog, so here goes. I’m spending a lot of time at the moment trying to think of an idea for a bestseller. I’ve always rather liked the idea of being a best-selling novelist. My publisher, Saint Martins, obviously likes the idea too –my editor recently there asked me to come up with a high-concept thriller. At first, I found this suggestion a bit insulting. After all, no writer likes to think that their previous books were low-concept. Or un-thrilling. My editor at Saint Martins assures me that my last book, ‘How To Be Bad’, wasn’t a a thriller –it was more of a caper. I thought the ‘Rawhead’ books were thrillers, too, but apparently not. They’re dark mysteries. (What if a dark mystery becomes thrilling by accident? Is is still only a mystery?) I don’t think my publisher is trying to torment me -it’s just that they’ve noticed that my other books only appeal to drug takers, who don’t generally buy books, and hip bookshop assistants, who get to read them for free. I think they’d generally like me to come up with an idea for a break-out book that sells millions of copies and can be enjoyed by dudes and anti-dudes alike.

In return, they’ll publish me in hardback and lavish publicity on me and fire rockets into the Manhattan sky to celebrate my coming greatness.

My problem is that I know I can write exciting novels, but am really not sure where an exciting crime novel ends and a  thriller begins. Are thrillers those great fat books you see at Airports? The books your dad reads on holiday, with names like ‘The Stinkerman Consortium’ and ‘Imminent Collision’? The kind of books that take a whole chapter to describe the parking lot at the pentagon? Eg

“Visitors who arrive by car will be asked to show three kinds of ID, submit a DNA sample and undergo a full-body and vehicle search before the attendant will even acknowledge whether there is a parking space available –all imformation, even trivial information, could be used in an enemy attack. For the same reason, the parking attendant who waves you through at the Pentagon, unlike the paunchy retired cops one encounters at lesser parking establishments, is invariably young and strongly built, with first-rate eye sight and reflexes. This is Washington DC, where nothing is left to chance.”

I mean, I hate books written in that style. Although I must admit I’m desperate to know whether the guy in my story gets a parking space or not.

Anyway, can anyone explain to me the difference between a mystery and a thriller? I’m trying to sell out here, but I just don’t understand the ground rules. Also, if you’ve got any high concepts going spare–let me have them. Otherwise, I might have to go back to writing books that are merely mildly diverting.

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