The Fire in Fiction (23 page)

Then again, don't we all believe things that are at face value a bit illogical? Do you have some faith in astrology? Do you
pay itforward
because you believe in
karma?
Do you imagine that America is a pure democracy with equality and justice for all? If so, you probably can argue your case and marshal some evidence to support it. Then again, I can support the opposite view. For purposes of storytelling it doesn't matter whether either you or I are right. What matters is that we both can make a case in detail.

That is important in thriller writing because, while the case for human cloning or alien messages from outer space may not be persuasive to many readers, the case nevertheless needs to be made exhaustively if only to make the motivations and convictions of your characters believable. We may not buy your premise, but we'll buy that there are people who buy it.

How much justification do you need? Ask yourself this: How much would it take to convince you, personally, that Jesus actually has been cloned? I'll wager it would take quite a bit.

There's your answer.

In
The Judas Strain
(2007), James Rollins posits a virus that creates a sudden, worldwide pandemic. From his author's notes and the research in evidence throughout the novel, it's clear that Rollins believes such an outbreak is truly possible. So why hasn't it happened? The truth is, viruses don't spread that easily. Even bird flu didn't fly very far.

No matter. Rollins has got it covered. In
The Judas Strain
he again features the covert team called Sigma Force, familiar from his earlier novels, which fortunately for us is packed with scientists who can explain any crazy thing that Rollins dreams up. As the novel opens, Dr. Lisa Cummings has been dispatched to a cruise liner-turned-makeshift hospital in the Indian Ocean, where a powerful plague has surfaced from the depths. It is as mysterious as it is deadly.

The following is an excerpt from one of several long sequences in which Lisa discusses the plague with Dr. Henrick Barnhardt, a Dutch toxicologist whom Lisa, for tension purposes, does not much like. Joining in is Dr. Devesh Patanjali, "acquisitions officer" of the mysterious Guild, Rollins's baddie organization which has taken over the ship. Together these three ponder how the virus is turning ordinary bacteria in human bodies into biological death camps:

Devesh continued. "These two plasmids—pX01 and pX02—are what turn ordinary
Bacillus
species into superkillers. Remove these two rings, and anthrax transforms back into an innocent organism, living happily in any garden. Put those same plasmids into any friendly
Bacillus
and the bug turns into a killer."

Devesh finally swung around to face them. "So I ask you, where did these extraneous and deadly bits come from?"

Lisa answered, intrigued despite herself. "Can't plasmids be shared directly from one bacterium to another?"

"Certainly. But what I meant was, how did these bacteria
first
acquire these foreign bits of genetic material? What's their
original
source?"

Henri stirred, moving closer to study the screens. "The evolutionary origin of plasmids remains a mystery, but the current theory is that they were acquired from viruses. Or more specifically
bacteriophages,
a category of viruses that only infect bacteria."

"Exactly!" Devesh turned back to the screen. "It's been theorized that, sometime in the ancient past, a

viral bacteriophage injected a peaceful
Bacillus
with this deadly pair of plasmids, creating a new monster in the biosphere and transforming a sweet little garden bug into a killer."

Devesh tapped more rapidly, clearing the screen.

"And anthrax isn't the only bacterium thus infected. The bacterium that causes the black plague,
Yersinia pestis
.
..
its virulence is also enhanced by a plasmid."

Lisa felt a prickling chill as realization dawned. ...

"Are you suggesting it's happening here again?" she mumbled. "This same corruption of bacteria."

Devesh nodded. "Indeed. Something has risen again out of the depths of the sea, something with the ability to turn all bacteria deadly."

Plasmids? Bacteriophages? If your eyes glazed over during all that bio-speak, that's okay. You've got the basic message, which is that this outbreak is bad news for us since, as we quickly learn, 90 percent of the cells in our bodies are composed of bacteria. We're food for the Judas Strain.

If you don't believe that, hey, you can believe Dr. Cummings, Dr. Barnhardt, and Dr. Patanjali. They know what they're talking about—or seem to, anyway. Rollins has boned up on bacteriophages for us and wields his research like a hammer.
The Judas Strain
is wildly speculative, but by the time Rollins is through pummeling us we are ready to cry, "Killer Virus!" Anyway, why argue with him?

I hope you like research. If you do, that's good. You'll need tons of it no matter what kind of thriller you're writing. But wait, can't you just postulate the crazy idea behind your story and ask readers to go with it? After all, science-fiction and fantasy writers have been doing that for eons.

Sorry. SF and fantasy readers know that what they're reading isn't real. Thriller writers haven't got that luxury.

Maybe, to make the job easier, you could set your story in the near future? Maybe, but that cheat just robs a thriller of its veracity. Might as well whisper in your readers' ear,
Don't worry, this isn't
going to happen.
They'll relax, which I think explains why near future thrillers rarely sell.

Still, maybe there's something to be said for launching in and simply smacking readers in the face with a scary mackerel. That was the choice of James Patterson in
When the Wind Blows
(1998), a novel in which he took a break from his Alex Cross series to build a thriller around ... well, you'll see. As the novel opens, a girl named Max is running in terror from a bad place called the School.
Men are chasing her!
As I read, I could hardly believe Patterson was indulging in such a generic opening.

Quickly Max reaches the perimeter of the School's grounds. Faced with a "huge, high fence" topped with "rows of razor-sharp concertina wire," and electrified to boot, Max is stuck:

The hunters were almost there. She could hear, smell, sense their awful presence.

With a sudden flourish, she unfurled her wings. They were white and silver-tipped and appeared to have been unhinged. The wings sailed to a point above her head, seemingly of their own accord. Their span was nine feet. The sun glinted off the full array of her plumage.

Max started to run again, flapping her wings hard and fast. Her slippered feet lifted off the hardscrabble.

She flew over the high barbed wire like a bird.

Wings? Patterson puts it on the page and we go along for the flight, at least for a little while. But Patterson knows the harvesting of babies, the activation of their atavistic and dormant genes, and the auctioning of the children later for billions apiece to international bio-tech companies—all done in perfect secrecy—will sooner or later feel pretty far-fetched.

And so we meet Dr. Frannie O'Neill, a veterinarian, who, along with rogue FBI agent Kit Harrison, finds Max and realizes her significance. When Frannie finally gets a chance to examine Max, she does so with a veterinarian's appreciation:

"Would you take another deep breath," I said. Max nodded. She did as she was asked. She was being very

cooperative, and she was almost always polite. Max was a very sweet young girl.

I couldn't believe what I heard inside her chest. She didn't have the billow-type action of mammal lungs. Hers were relatively small, and from what I could hear, attached to air sacs, both anterior and posterior. What lungs! I could write a book on her lungs alone. Man, oh man! I was having a little trouble breathing now myself.

I couldn't be sure, but it followed logically that her bones were hollow, that some air sacs intruded into her bones.

"Thanks, Max. That's great."

"It's okay. I understand. I'm a freak." She shrugged her shoulders.

"No, you're just special."

I turned her to face me and placed my stethoscope over her heart. Jesus. It was at a resting rate of sixty-four beats a minute, but it was
booming.

Max had the heart of an athlete, a great athlete. The organ was huge. I figured it weighted a couple of pounds. She had the heart of a good-sized horse.

Patterson keeps his science light but he doesn't neglect it, any more than he neglects keeping Max, Frannie, and Kit in constant danger, or than he neglects developing his villains. Whether you think Patterson's writing is simplistic or expertly tuned to contemporary tastes, he does the job.
When the Wind Blows
was a number one bestseller on many lists.

The same level of research turned into pseudo-expert authentication is a technique essential not only for science-based thrillers but also for suspense scenarios that spring from the realms of the historical, financial, legal, espionage, medical, military, paranormal, police, political, psychological, or any other sphere of the human adventure.

Put it this way: If we're supposed to be scared, someone has to explain why, and in detail.

SCARY MONSTERS

What more is there to say about vampires? I ask you, haven't we had enough? The number of vampire series out there is staggering. We have vampire hunters, vampire heroes, bad vampires, tormented vampires, and above all, sexy vampires. Why are they so popular? Is it the idea of living forever, post-9/11?

Whatever the reason, vampires are overdone. So let's focus on werewolves. Werewolves, too, are easy to find on the shelves and, like vampires, they present a conundrum for authors. As with all monsters that have become overly familiar, they raise a question: Are we supposed to fear them or love them? What's the winning approach? Scary or sympathetic?

I propose that it doesn't matter. Whatever your take on monsters, the first task is to make them believable and then to make your story tense. Howling at the moon alone won't do it, either. Too many writers have run with the pack ahead of you.

Carrie Vaughn, in her successful original paperback Kitty series, chose the sympathetic route. Her series heroine is Kitty Norville, a closet werewolf in a world where werewolves coexist uneasily with vampires and witches. When she's not running on four legs, Kitty is a Denver radio deejay. She broadcasts a phone-in show called "The Midnight Hour," on which she doles out advice to the troubled and lovelorn undead.

Kitty's show is popular enough to achieve syndication—straight people think it's a howl—but the attention it draws doesn't please everyone. The local vampires threaten her. Kitty's pack leader is not happy about it, either. Kitty knows she is providing an important public service, though. That's evident from the anguished calls she gets on the air.

Kitty's first program at the beginning of
Kitty and the Midnight Hour
(2005) illustrates the depth of need in the undead community. After a couple of joke calls, requests for Pearl Jam songs, and questions about whether vampires are real, Kitty gets the call she's been waiting for:

Then came the Call. Everything changed. I'd been toeing the line, keeping things light. Keeping them unreal. I was trying to be normal, really I was. I worked hard to keep my real life—my day job, so to speak—away from the rest. I'd been trying to keep this from slipping all the way into that other world I still hadn't learned to live in very well.

Lately, it had felt like a losing battle.

"Hi Kitty." His voice was tired, flat. "I'm a vampire. I know you believe me." My belief must have showed through in my voice all night. That must have been why he called me.

"Okay," I said.

"Can—can I talk to you about something?"

"Sure."

"I'm a vampire. I was attacked and turned involuntarily about five years ago. I'm also—at least I used to be—a devout Catholic. It's been really ... hard. All the jokes about blood and the Eucharist aside—I can't walk into a church anymore. I can't go to Mass. And I can't kill myself because
that's
wrong. Catholic doctrine teaches that my soul is lost, than I'm a blot on God's creation. But Kitty— that's not what I feel. Just because my heart has stopped beating doesn't mean I've lost my soul, does it?"

Now there's a good one for you. How would you answer that question? Kitty delivers a discourse on Satan in Milton's
Paradise Lost,
and Satan's big mistake, which was not pride or rebellion but failing to believe that God would forgive him. She counsels faith over rage at one's fate, and striving for an honorable life. The caller is comforted.

A Catholic vampire having a crisis of faith? That's pretty heavy for a popcorn read. It's also logical. Vaughn assumes that her creatures are real and that their problems are ones they'd actually face in our world. Kitty's call-in shows make it easy to slip into Vaughn's alternate Denver and the conflicts that its supernatural denizens face.