Yesterday saw a lively Curzon lunch in Oxford Circus which had to be accommodated by a larger table than previously booked.  We were pleased to welcome guest of honour, Barry Forshaw, Crime Time editor and reviewer for The Independent, The Times and The Express as well as author of many related books (including 'British Crime Writing: An Encyclopedia' and 'Rough Guide To Crime Fiction').  His omnivorous reading tastes prompted some lively discussion on anything from Poe to Fleming and we quickly realised that, next month, an evening dinner appointment would be more appropriate given that gossip and Curzon business took us through lunch hour and into the afternoon.

We were also pleased to initiate (and obvioucly this clandestine process cannot be divulged here) a new member, Cyrus Moore.  Cyrus has a controversial city thriller, 'City Of Thieves', just out in hardback from Sphere which taps into the bonus culture downfall of the city and did so some years before it happened.  Needless to say, it's now selling well.

The Curzon Group Airport Tour was dissected and the consensus was that it had been a great success with a supermarket tour already being discussed for December.

We also talked over a potential Curzon compendium book and a Christmas party to be attended by bloggers, publishers and maybe a smattering of thriller authors. 

We're meeting up again in October and there's plenty on the agenda for the months ahead - more details on The Curzon Group site and on Twitter over the next few weeks.

In the meantime, here's an article that I wrote for the Conville and Walsh website about a subject very relevant to me at present.

HIGH TENSION

Richard Jay Parker

Narrative tension and character detail - it's a balancing act that I'm still trying to get right.

STOP ME has only been published a couple of weeks but judging by the sales on Amazon, Book Depository and at my signings the Vacation Killer and his deadly SPAM email seems to have captured the imagination of quite a few readers.  This is an auspicious start but, in the meantime, I'm obviously beavering away on the second book and trying to achieve the perfect balance of character depth and action.

My instinct is to move the story along at such a pace that the reader has whiplash before chapter four.  That's the sort of book that I like to read but I have to keep my own celluloid sensibility (from my script background) in check and tick a few more boxes that make the reading experience so different from the viewing one.

STOP ME has already garnered some good reviews not least for its pace but there's also been notes from editors about connecting more with Leo.  Some thought he was 'messed up' but 'endearing' some felt they wanted to know more about his inner cogs.

I've finished the first draft of my new thriller and it was a relief to have it greeted by Ben (Mason) with some positive noises.  Premise good, central relationship survives the critique intact.  No spine to be ripped out of the story, which is always a relief.  Rewriting is sometimes like being told you have to move house after you've only just unpacked your last crate.

There's always work to be done on the plot but it's the characters that I'll be focussing on.  The trick being to give the reader just enough but not so much that it slows the impetus of the story.

I've been catching up on some contemporary thrillers recently and some of them get straight to the meat of the plot without a pause for the reader to get to know the characters.  Sometimes these books end up being the equivalent of stage directions and I find my mind wandering as the writer attempts to choreograph detailed shoot outs/car chases in my head.  There does need to be more environment and character colour but how much before your thrill ravenous reader gets restless?   

Readers are just as prone to attention deficit and when you present a book that bears the moniker 'thriller' there's certainly an expectation for something that screws you to the seat of the chair until the last page is turned.  But every reader is different and demands different things from their reading experience.  I'll never cater for all of them but I can strive to insure that there's a mixture of story elements that don't cancel each other out.

That's all I need to do. Simple as that.  Take the rest of the afternoon off.

I hope my next self-contained thriller will have the right blend but I've a feeling it's going to be something I'll be perfecting for years to come.