THRILLERFEST

by Melodie Johnson Howe

Joe Finder, David Morrell, Melodie Johnson Howe

I just got back from New York where I attended Thrillerfest. Sleep deprived, I am writing this column from memory with no notes or programs to help my recollection. So it’s very sketchy.

For the first two days of the convention they have Thrillercraft, where such writers as Steve Barry, John Lescroart, Gayle Lynds (one of the co-founders of Thrillerfest), Jim Rollins, Jeffery Deaver (alas, I did not hear him speak), and many others teach the nuts and bolts of the writing craft to aspiring writers. Gayle was great in deconstructing the thriller so the audience could see how a writer using story, mood, and dialogue builds the structure of the novel.

David Morell gave the best advice: Follow your passion. Don’t chase the trends in the market, because you’ll always be chasing them down not up. His talk was a kind of verbal graphic of the peaks and many valleys of his career. The audience did not seem to want to hear this. They were all looking for a hook they could grab hold of and swing into the Number One position on the NY Times best seller list

His words reaffirmed what I have always stubbornly lived and written by. I wouldn’t be as good as I am if I had not stuck to writing about what fascinates me, what hits me in the gut. The mother/daughter theme weaves in out of my novels and short stories. It’s disguised in many ways, but it’s there and gives the work a depth that it probably wouldn’t have otherwise. Interestingly, it’s there even when I try to avoid it.

One of my favorite moments of the convention was chatting with the writer John Lescroart, a charming and gracious man. But when he quoted my genius detective, Claire Conrad, (The Mother Shadow) to me, I didn’t know what he was talking about. Then he said, “You wrote that.” And I, with woman-of the-world aplomb, screamed, “I did????”

Kathleen Sharp and I roomed together. She’s a non-fiction writer and investigative reporter. Her new book, Blood Feud, will be out in the fall and is getting a big push. She rolled her hair up every night in huge rollers, then wrapped a bandana around her head. Being tall, slim, and white, she looked like a Klansman’s dream of the perfect mammy. In the morning she would wake up and say, “I’m having trouble sleeping. Are you?” And this is the hard-hitting reporter who is taking Johnson & Johnson on in her book. This why I love writers. What we do is all in our head and heart.

Sans rollers, Kathleen interviewed Joe McGinniss, who was receiving the lifetime achievement award for non-fiction.

I was on a panel titled something like “Reel Screenwriting.” Having never written a screenplay in my life, I informed our moderator (called “panel master” at Thrillerfest), Jon Land, that he might want to ask me some question from the actors point of view. Jon turned out to be a delight and a great moderator. Sorry, master.

Sitting behind my name plaque, I found myself squeezed in between some heavy Hollywood writers. Immediately I felt the masculine tension—the jockeying for the best parking space, the deadly seriousness of their profession, and the “I’m working, you’re not attitude” pressing in on me. Flipping my blonde hair from my face (how many years have I’ve been doing that?), I straightened my shoulders and fended off the testosterone by talking about screenwriting from the actor’s point of view. Lots of fun for me since I rarely get to do that on panels. Modesty forbids me say that I was told I was the star of the panel. But modesty doesn’t forbid me to write it.

By the way, at the awards banquet the best short story of the year came from Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine. Of course I can’t remember the writer or the title of the story. I do remember that Gayle Lynds wore a beautiful black Vera Wang evening gown. Okay my priories may be a little out of whack, but what can I say. I’m going to sleep.