Oct. 20, 2005
I'm closing in on the completion of Angels Falling, the novel I'm currently working on. I should note, completion of the rough draft. Since I have plenty of time before it needs to be marketed, I'm going to put it away for a few months before I dig in on the final draft. So I'm wondering what to write next.

I have two strong ideas, both of which I want to tackle. Both are thrillers of sorts. One with the potential to be a series, the other as a stand-alone. The series potential would probably be technically considered a technothriller and the stand-alone would be a mystery thriller. As I write this, the stand-alone intrigues me more. Possibly because it would require much less research and it would take place around where I live and probably because I recently read "The Only Suspect" by Jonnie Jacobs, which is a really terrific stand-alone thriller about a doctor whose wife disappears and the police think he killed her, which in the broadest sense describes my stand-alone, albeit without a doctor main character.

Of course, I could just take a break and concentrate on my nonfiction and my career, but that's unlikely to happen for any length of time. I've been writing fiction compulsively for so long I doubt I could just quit. There's some sort of feedback loop in my brain that gets satisfaction from it in a way that my nonfiction doesn't, or at least, not as much.

Pros and cons of each? The technothriller, as far as I can tell, hasn't been done, at least not regularly, and I view it as a very real marketing potential, and that's a good thing. The stand-alone has been done regularly. Hell, it's practically a subgenre currently being dominated by Harlan Coben--regular guy in a tight spot. And in many ways that may be the decider. I know that I had mentioned briefly the title and character of the technothriller to my agent and she came back quite enthusiastic. And I'm curious to get to know her. Same goes for the guy in the stand-alone, too, but the technothriller seems like a better bet in terms of its likelihood of getting published. At least if I can pull it off.

So we'll see. These are just some of the thoughts I have when approaching a book these days. It didn't used to be this way. I used to have an idea I liked and I wrote the book and unfortunately, I suspect that was at least one reason why they didn't get published. Now I spend some time deciding if there's a market for it or if it can stand out a little bit from the rest of the crowd. It's not the only factor involved in making a decision on which story idea to pursue, but it is a factor.

Best,
Mark Terry