What should action authors know...?

[Feliks, Moderator]

We have a number of active, or self-published authors who follow this group.

Presumably, they're all looking for ways to be better, ways to reach their target- audiences more effectively.

So: readers, this thread is a place for you to tell them what you'd like to see in spy or spec/ops fiction.

Feel free to provide examples. What floats your zodiac boat? What should action-authors be doing more of, in order to get your attention?

Authors, don't take offense nor 'engage' with readers being honest here. Certainly, ask questions if you wish. But this is more about 'listening' to the voice of the people..listening and taking notes!

[Gideon]

Excellent idea.

[C.E.]

Free market research. Thank you!

[Samuel]

Hmmm....great question.

A good plot with a decent "threat". I'm a sucker for the classic WMD's but more creative ideas (cyberwarfare, infrastructure sabotage) have come up and then there's the timeless political assassination, which leaves a lot of room when deciding a creative method to use.

Characters who can take care of themselves, or at the very least learn to be competent in a life or death situation.

Less angst about the hardship and suffering they have to go through is also appreciated.

1) (Clarification: Which is not to say turn them into a unemotional hard-ass. I prefer the consummate professional, who, while human and not invincible, can prevent their emotions from influencing their decision making process while on the job. Off the job on the other hand is a different matter entirely. For example in this book, the main character is tasked with ensuring political stability in Uzbekistan in order to prevent it from falling to Islamic militants. Unfortunately, this involves shooting a would-be presidential assassin in front of his infant son, two characters whom she's formed a bond with over the course of the story. Despite shoving personal considerations to the side and carrying out her orders, the character is not unaffected by what she had to do. She doesn't dissolve into a sobbing wreck, but falls into a quasi-depression, only taking solace in the fact that she's alive and has a family of her own to come home to)

Settings in locations other than Europe ( a continent that has been criminally overused in the spy fiction genre) Try Asia. Beijing for instance with its rich history and 7 million security cameras makes it an exotic, yet challenging environment for any fictional intelligence officer.

That's all for now. More might follow.

[Feliks, Moderator]

Well done, Samuel.

[James]

That's interesting Samuel. I got feedback from my writer's group that they wanted my character to emote more. That sent my antenna up. Keep in mind, these weren't 'thriller' fans. Nice to get an input from a fan of the genre.

[Feliks, Moderator]

IMHO the worst is going the route of Alistair MaClean where its non-stop action. You can see it on some of his book pages lately..user gripes..totally valid.

Action needs build-up and apprehension. A bomb needs a slow-burning fuse.

[Patrick]

My books are centered around the events of World War II. My last book and the one I am working on now have taken me back to Europe, but I enjoy exploring little known aspects of the war and prior books have included action in Morocco, Palestine, Istanbul, and Iran. There are many exotic locales in the backwaters of the world war and many are great setting for espionage or special operations actions.

I'm always looking for a worthy crisis for my protagonists to mitigate and would be interested in knowing what excites the readers.

[Samuel]

Samuel wrote: "Hmmm....great question.

A good plot with a decent "threat". I'm a sucker for the classic WMD's but more creative ideas (cyberwarfare, infrastructure sabotage) have come up and then there's the t..."

UPDATE:

> Contemporary Setting: Why set a book in the Cold War which is done and dusted? The present day geopolitical situation provides a huge amount of source material for spy thriller writers. Islamic Terrorism, rising nation states and the rampant dissatisfaction with the present crop of politicians for starters. You don't have to set your books in 1970's Europe to make a complex morally ambiguous tale with psychological depth. A contemporary setting is even more flexible and less limiting than a plot set in the past.

> The "Girl of the week" is out: I've become increasingly cynical regarding "romance" in the spy thriller genre. It's something that's most of the time, shoehorned in like some kind of requirement. Why bother developing and giving the main character a love interest when you're planning on shooting her dead at the end of the novel? "Temporary" love interests is a convention that is overused, provide cheap melodrama which has been done to death thousands of times. Give a main protagonist a stable relationship or at the very least, let the love interest develop over a longer period (more than two novels at least) as a character, in order to make their demise a little bit more meaningful.

That's it for now. More might follow.

[Patrick]

Some authors have had security clearances and have been exposed to real secrets in the contemporary setting. Writing contemporary spy fiction becomes a challenge for them. They have to keep it real without giving up sources and methods that are not open secrets. There are things currently being written that could land an author who has signed the security forms in hot water, even though the "secrets" have already been leaked to the public. For some, writing about times past is safer, and there are lessons to be learned from those times.
It seems like politicians and generals get a pass on this, but woe to those who haven't reached those levels.

[[deleted user]]

Patrick, I second you on that a hundred percent. One way to go around that I believe is to put the action a few years in the future and describe equipment or systems that are not yet operational or even on the drawing board. However, when writing contemporary thrillers, putting the emphasis on the good old human spycraft techniques and on character-building is a way to play it (relatively) safe secrecy-wise.

[Samuel]

"Most of what I do involves connecting the dots and filling in the blanks. At no point in the last 17 years has an active employee of the CIA ever given me classified information, although there has been a handful of times where something slipped that led me to look in an area that I had not considered. Retired officers, operatives and analysts are another matter. I have heard some amazing stories over the years, but please keep in mind, these people trust me. They know I am a passionate defender of their mission."- Vince Flynn.

Disagree. One does not need a security clearance to write a realistic contemporary spy thriller. There's plenty of open source information which won't have a government coming after you. Hell, Tom Clancy built his empire upon the library of Annapolis naval academy and assistance from his next door neighbors who were US Navy veterans. In his case, he only got a single visit from an FBI agent who was understanding after he managed to prove that he didn't have any security clearances.

[Patrick]

My comment concerned those who have had clearances and been exposed to sensitive ops and info. For example, when I left the government, I was told that accessing Wikileaks would impair my ability to get a clearance in the future, even though the material was showing up daily in the media. I heard a great quote on the problem the other day by someone holding one of these open secrets: "I couldn't tell him I knew even though he knew I knew and knew I knew he knew."

I agree that if you are not impacted by these restrictions, go for it. There is a lot of open source stuff out there. Getting the feel is important also, but that can be done. When I first started reading Le Carre, I had done a lot of law enforcement surveillance and thought he had such a good "feel" for watchers he must have done it himself. When I read his true background it sounds like he spent most of his time in an office at MI5, but he was able to pick up on things that augmented his authenticity.
As I recall Tom Clancy got called to the White House to explain his knowledge base on submarines, but it was a friendly visit, not one to chastise him.

[James]

I had a TS-SCI clearance when I was in the service. I found that a lot of things in fiction, especially movies, were at best close and at worse ridiculously off the mark. I still laugh at the opening scene of War Games when one missile launch officer turned his sidearm on the other when he refused to launch. So, if you shoot him, who's gonna turn the key?
There are other things that can be minor details that are so obvious to someone who's been there. My point is, things don't have to be 100% accurate to be entertaining. A lot of stuff is classified for a reason.

[C.E.]

I had a secret clearance but never learned anything classified that was interesting enough to put in a book. Guess that's a good thing.

[David]

Read Frederick Forsyth and do what he does!

[Henry]

Cphe wrote: "I like a solid characterisation. I want to be able to form some "essence" of the character. i.e what traits make them the way they are.

Also like the "loner" against insurmountable odds ie against..."

Me too. Of course now and then I like to read about a simple brute of an alpha dog (some of the '80s fare); but I get annoyed when their IQ suddenly jumps 40 points just to negotiate a plot obstacle.

[Henry]

Samuel wrote: "The "Girl of the week" is out: I've become increasingly cynical regarding "romance" in the spy thriller genre. It's something that's most of the time, shoehorned in like some kind of requirement. ..."

That's a good point, too. 95% or more are so contrived and there's no good reason for it other than a (futile, I suspect) attempt to attract female readers or horny teenagers.

[[deleted user]]

Since spies are still human beings, with feelings, hopes and dreams, I am not ready to dismiss as implausible a romance in a spy thriller setting. The trick is to make any such romance realistic and within common sense (unless you are talking about a female spy trying to seduce a rival agent in order to compromise him or obtain secrets from him). I do realise that this would not be easy to write and make it believable, and that few novels manage it well.

[Feliks, Moderator]

One such novel --authored by an American--came my way a year or so ago. He expressed himself in a smooth, velvety, dense prose, 'similar to LeCarre'. I rolled my eyes, but still, cautiously harbored hopes for it to live up to its jacket blurbs. I wondered why I had never heard of him before. He did indeed write eruditely about English gentlemen's clubs and obscure locations in Germany. He provided lengthy character backstory. But then about 1/3 of the way through, 'here comes the romance'--as if with a neon blinking sign overhead--and it went on for chapter after chapter. Endless micro-detail about the spy's 'off-and-on girlfriend whom he can't commit to'. All her 'little endearing traits'. It became an impossible-to-swallow obstacle stuck in my craw. I felt i was being manipulated. Here was where groundwork was obviously being laid in the beginning of Act II for some tragic doomed-lovers sequence at the end of Act III.

But that romance/espionage can be mixed very well --excellently, in fact--is evidenced by Charles MCarry's 'Secret Lovers'. He succeeded because the romance was laced throughout the story, rather than plonked down in a blob.

[Henry]

Yeah, I certainly didn't mean to imply it can't be done well--only that it's usually not and often it wasn't even necessary to try.

[Martyn]

Feliks wrote: "But that romance/espionage can be mixed very well --excellently, in fact--is evidenced by Charles MCarry's 'Secret Lovers'. He succeeded because the romance was laced throughout the story, rather than plonked down in a blob."

Romantic ties can be used to rack up the suspense - a character might take a risk for another person that he might not take for himself, but a romance shouldn't be added 'just because'.

I use the connection between characters to elevate the suspense because you start caring about the characters. If you don't care about the character, the whole point of the story is lost to me anyway.

[Samuel]

Feliks wrote: "One such novel --authored by an American--came my way a year or so ago. He expressed himself in a smooth, velvety, dense prose, 'similar to LeCarre'. I rolled my eyes, but still, cautiously harbore..."

You raise good point about regarding lacing the romance throughout the story. One of the few spy thrillers which I consider had a decent romance succeeded because it pulled that off so well. The novel in question? Ian Fleming's On Her Majesty's Secret Service.

[Roger]

There is another alternative! Read lots of news articles about the areas you are interested in covering, and then completing a what if scenario. I did this with more than one of my novels. For example, someone seeking revenge against terrorists, but targets an ethnic group, rather than the perpetrator.

I think DeMille does something along those lines in his novel Wildfire (OK not a Spec Ops book, but you get the idea.)

[Feliks, Moderator]

shades of Jean Renoir..