Writing popular fiction

crime and, more often than not, contains no other murders. The hero sets out to solve this dirty work and takes two hundred pages of sleuthing to do it. If other murders
do
occur, they come about by surprise, with little or no build-up to titillate the reader; these secondary murders, then, become additional twists in the plot, complicating the protagonist's job. By contrast, the suspense novel withholds its major violent incident until the end. More often than not, the villains' intended crime is never pulled off, for the lead character manages to foil his antagonists. In short, the mystery is characterized by the word "solve," while the suspense novel could be summed up in the word "anticipate." This means that the most dramatic narratives, full of the most hair-raising escapes and encounters, will be more likely found in suspense than in mystery where the worst has happened at the outset.
    Those are the differences between the mystery and suspense forms. While the mystery is, fundamentally, a rather exhausted vein and is closed in by a number of strictures which we will mention in the next chapter, creatively speaking the suspense novel offers a wider latitude for serious work than any other genre, primarily because it requires only the five basic elements of category fiction and no other special considerations or limits. Science fiction, while wildly imaginative and capable of encompassing the most important themes, generally demands that substantial wordage be given to the carefully considered development of an exotic background and to explanations of the science on which the story is based. Gothics require a certain kind of theme and a relatively rigid plot formula. The Western, by its nature a bastard offspring of the historical novel and thereby limited in scope, also requires a certain type of plot and action and characterization that restricts the author's freedom. Erotic novels demand a quantity and quality of sex scenes around which the main story is built. In suspense, however, no peculiar strictures exist, no plot or thematic or background or character considerations that apply only to it and no other genre. This makes for a vigorous category and explains why some of the cleanest, sparest prose has always been turned out by professional "thriller" writers. Now, for the remainder of this chapter, we will be concerned solely with suspense.
    You should look at the negative first and learn, at the outset, what to avoid as a suspense writer. Several things which will mark your work as less than professional in the eyes of the modern suspense editor are:

CLICHÉ PLOTS
    Avoid the cliché or corny plots that were hardly acceptable when they were first used, and which are now the stuff of bad television shows and comic books. Do not, for example, propose "secret organizations" who are out to overthrow some government and destroy the world. Only governments themselves have the power to destroy the world. And organizations out to overthrow governments are usually not secret, though their machinations may be. Consider the factions who have talked most loudly, in the last few decades, about overthrowing the United States' system: the Minutemen, a right-wing group of fanatical gun-toters; the SDS, paramilitary left-wing publicity mongers, and other similar and equally vocal organizations. None are in the least bit secret.
Never
propose a villain who,
single-handedly
, sets out to destroy the world, no matter how wealthy or resourceful he may be. The modern world is simply too complex for any such schemer to obtain even minimal success; he will appear to be a buffoon and not a real character.
    On the other hand, you may use the theme of pending holocaust if your antagonist is a high government or military official (President, influential General) who would have access to terrifying weaponry and the authority—or perverted authority—to use them. An excellent example of such a novel is James Hall Roberts'
The February Plan
, which deals with nuclear brinksmanship. Roberts' detailed military-governmental background is a good model for the writer who would like to know how to make this sort of plot perfectly plausible.

TOUGH GUY CHARACTERIZATION
    The Mickey Spillane hero, one who has few scruples and kills indiscriminately, is no longer terribly popular with the average reader. If a hero kills, he must have ample justification, must feel some remorse, or—as in the case of Parker, in Donald E. Westlake's