So This is Writer's Block?

Posted by Backyard Urban Gardening on Friday, October 12, 2007

I'm so frustrated today.

I've been working on a new effort for several months and everything was moving along nicely, but over the course of the past couple of weeks I've become "stuck".

It appears that in my attempt to avoid writing about murder and killing in my thriller/suspense story, I've ended up with a boring and anti-dramatic story that is not really believeable.

In my story, the main character kidnaps an old girlfriend and then releases her a couple of days later. He did the kidnapping to see what it was like and as practice for future kidnappings. Later in the story he kidnaps a young child with intentions of receiving a ransom from his old employer, who is also the child's grandfather.

I'm becoming more and more convinced that this particular plot line will not hold a reader's attention for very long. In my attempt to eliminate violence and murder from my story, I've ended up with a boring story.

Don't get me wrong, I read a lot of suspense/thriller novels that include killing and murder (all of them actually). But, I would like to write a novel that is a suspense/thriller genre that doesn't contain murder and killing. Is it even possible?

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1 comments:

Ann (bunnygirl) said...

Yes, it's possible. But something bad still has to happen.

Have you ever read "The Collector" by John Fowles? It's about a man who kidnaps a young woman and keeps her in a hidden room in his basement.

He doesn't do anything to her, and in fact he's generous in his own twisted way, buying her books, clothes and pictures. He gives her everything she asks for except her freedom. He doesn't even try to have sex with her. She's more like a museum piece to him, something to own, but not touch.

Creepiest. Book. Ever. For me, at least.

I think it was the pure banality of it that freaked me out. The man wanted nothing from her, not sex, money, an alibi, or even her life. She had nothing to bargain with, since the only thing he wanted was her, locked up in that tiny basement room. Her increasing desperation to find some way out of her situation was what created the suspense.

Read it, if you get the chance. Fowles is a master at telling highly disturbing stories that are remarkably free of bloodshed.

10/12/2007 3:13 PM  
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