SO WHY DID I WRITE A THRILLER?

Some of you may be curious about why I chose to write a thriller and where I’m going with it, if anywhere.  This is a cut at answering that question, with the answer framed with some of the stuff that interests me from Core, the basic course set at the honors college at IUP, where I am involved. www.iup.edu/honors

I decided to write a thriller, both because I read and like them and for the broad readership of the genre.  For me, the trick is to provide the thriller’s requisite sex and violence with an interesting and different perspective, while setting up the story line that I want to pursue over time.  I found that I knew little about how to write fiction, no surprise, but much was written on that topic.  I consequently read a lot. The title, Cooch, was to represent a nickname used for the protagonist, Alejandro Mohammed Cuchulain. I found out late in the publishing process that there was popular slang with a different meaning. I chose not to change it at that point. The Cuchulain name is taken from Irish folklore, where Cuchulain is a legendary warrior.  Several of you picked up on that.

I find that I prefer to write dialogue first, then fill in exposition along the way.  Some readers thus far object to the violence and others to the sex scenes.  Others say the speeches from the father and the Brit are too long. Someone once said that writing about sex is dressing up with action adverbs, adjectives, et al, a situation where Tab A goes into Slots B, C or D.  I did that, and had fun with it, trying to keep the characters where they belonged and to leave room for them to develop in the future.

I know a little about violence and quite a bit about guns and tactics.  And Shazzam, along came a book or two.  Cooch is decidedly not literature, but it moves right along.