thriller writing | Lori Ericson

Full of suspense and some scares that more than push the envelope, Kathy Reichs doesn’t disappoint when it comes to the promised ride for readers in her latest Tempe Brennan thriller Evil Bones. Reichs masterfully builds tension throughout the novel, forcing me to set all else aside to finish those last pages. I had to see how Tempe survives this one and solves the who-done-it.

In this blog I offer a different type of book review—one that’s combined with vocabulary building. In Evil Bones, just released in November, I found plenty of unfamiliar words due to the nature of the detail regarding forensic anthropology. I stayed away from purely medical terms for this this list of unfamiliar words.

From Evil Bones:

Having eaten maybe two bites, she’d planted an elbow on the table, cradled her head in her palm, and commenced macerating the remains of the egg concoction.

macerate: verb, 1. (especially with reference to food) soften or become softened by soaking in a liquid. 2. archaic – cause to grow thinner or waste away, especially by fasting

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From Evil Bones:

His dingy white tee was stretched to its full tensile capacity across a frame not yet obese but poised on the edge.

tensile, adjective: 1. relating to tension, 2. capable of being drawn or stretched

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From Evil Bones:

Despite my postprandial drowsiness, sleep eluded me.

postprandial, adjective: formal-during or relating to the period after dinner or lunch; medicine-occurring after a meal (an annual postprandial blood glucose test)

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From Evil Bones:—

Nun pose. The phrase floated back, forgotten for years.

As a kid I’d often pondered the secrets of those billowy recesses. I knew the sleeves served as temporary repositories for tissues, used and unused. But what else? An extra missal? A spare battery? A loaded Glock 19?

missal: noun, a book containing the texts used in the Catholic Mass throughout the year

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From Evil Bones:

Was this guy Mom-schmoozing me? Or was he this obsequious with everyone?

obsequious, adjective: obedient or attentive to an excessive or servile degree

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Definitions are typically from the dictionary that comes with my Mac or The New Oxford American Dictionary.

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“The word is only a representation of the meaning; even at its best, writing almost always falls short of full meaning. Given that, why in God’s name would you want to make things worse by choosing a word which is only cousin to the one you really wanted to use?” ― Stephen King, On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft

It’s not easy. I never thought it would be, but then the tiniest glimmer of hope landed in my lap. I finished my first novel and felt confident in it. I had a couple of small publishers interested and accepted the terms from one. Since A Lovely County published a year ago, I’ve come to realize how hard it is to make that a dream worth pursuing in today’s publishing world.

The waterfall that feeds the stream behind our home in Northwest Arkansas.

I feel like a drop of water in a rushing waterfall.

I blog. I’m not especially good at it, but I put my thoughts out there. I have a Pinterest presence. I Pin things writerly, beautiful landscapes, yummy looking recipes, and more. I even Tweet. In addition, I have an author’s page on Facebook and on Goodreads. I talk about things other than writing. I don’t overly push my book on social media, just try to keep my presence there and hope to be noticed. Does any of it mean anything?

I shout, I scream, I type, but it does little to bring attention to my book, my struggle to get readers, reviews, NOTICED!

I’ve even entered contests and have had some success. (Thank you, Ozark Writer’s League for the recognition with your prized President’s Award last year.)

Is Amazon, today’s Mega-God of Publishing, to blame? Surely, the legions of wannabe authors who’ve flooded the market with unedited or poorly written work can take some credit for the hard struggle of authors today. My book isn’t published by one of the big New York houses. It’s not sold in bookstores. (Maybe someday.) But, frankly, the bookstores want publishers to send them X number of copies and vow to reimburse them when they only sell Y number of copies. A small publisher, even many mid-range publishers, can’t afford that risk.

So, all the experts say an author has to push themselves on social media, get recognition and you’ll get reviews on Amazon and sales. I do that, but so do thousands of others. We shout at each other on social media, but who else cares?

I’ll never stop writing. I have dozens of Danni Edens mysteries in my head, one ready to go the publisher, a half-written thriller, and a young adult paranormal series I’d love to start writing.

I push on and hope for the best, but I have to wonder if it wouldn’t be easier on me to give copies to a few friends and family, and call it good. I love to write, love to tell the stories that bang around in my head, and that trumps all the struggle, so I press on.

If you have the same dream, tell me how you deal with the challenge.