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As an author of crime-thriller fiction, I’ve occasionally been asked about violence in my novels. Typical questions range from, why is so much violence in your books? to another, more personal one: Is violence part of your personality or is it totally contrived for your novels?
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We’ve all heard the old dictum: “Write what you know.”
In a very general sense, that’s probably true, but there’s much more to writing novels than sticking with those areas with which you are familiar by virtue of training or education.
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We’ve all had the experience of reading a novel and being caught up not only in the story, but in the characters (think of Gone Girl and Catcher in the Rye). It’s partly a matter of having an interest in one or another genre, but most of us have enjoyed novels that are not from our preferred reading landscape.
There are probably several reasons why a novel can grab and hold you so you’re sorry the read is coming to an end.
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Barry Eisler is the best-selling author of two thriller series, one featuring John Rain, a half-Japanese, half-American former soldier turned freelance assassin; and another featuring black ops soldier Ben Treven.
After graduating from Cornell Law School, Barry joined the CIA and held a covert position with the Directorate of Operations. After leaving the organization, he worked as a technology attorney and startup executive in Silicon Valley and Japan, and earned a black belt at the Kodokan International Judo Center. He began writing full time in 2002 and Rain Fall was the first of his seven-book John Rain series.
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Reading newspaper accounts about Aaron Alexis, the Washington mass murderer, it’s abundantly clear he was a highly disturbed man. His hearing voices and complaints about electrical vibrations directed at him from outside his body indicated a specific psychiatric disorder, namely, Paranoid Schizophrenia. He was reportedly seen by mental health professionals at various times and was described as having a volatile temper.
There are chilling reports about Mr. Alexis which bring to mind James Holmes, the Aurora, Colorado shooter and Adam Lanza, the Newtown, Connecticut mass murderer. In these horrific instances, reports of the shooters’ mental illnesses emerged after the incidents, which left many innocents dead or injured. However, the existence of these people’s mental illnesses were known before the rampages took place.
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I’m occasionally asked why I write crime-thriller novels.
They always say write what you know, but I prefer to write what I love. And they always say, write the kind of book you would love to read. So, I write crime fiction.
But as a psychiatrist and novelist, I think there’s more than that when it comes to crime thriller fiction.
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Jane Velez-Mitchell is a two-time Emmy award winning television journalist, a bestselling author, and the host of her own program on HLN. She is featured frequently in the media as an expert on high-profile court cases, appearing on CNN, MSNBC HLN, TRU TV and other national television outlets.
In 2010, her HLN show garnered a third Genesis Award from the Humane Society of the United States. Ms. Velez-Mitchell has won two other awards for her program, Celebrity Justice.
She is the author of non-fiction books including: Secrets Can Be Murder: What America’s Most Sensational Crimes Tell Us About Ourselves; Addict Nation; and I Want: My Journey From Addiction and Overconsumption to a Simpler Honest Life, which became a New York Times best seller.
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As a novelist and psychiatrist, I listened to Eleanor Longden’s lyrical presentation with a mixture of awe, admiration and humility.
She hauntingly described the “toxic, tormenting sense of helplessness” accompanying severe mental disturbance. “My voices were a meaningful response to traumatic life events. Each voice was related to aspects of myself…that I’d never had an opportunity to process or resolve, memories of sexual trauma and abuse, of anger, shame, guilt, low self-worth.” I found these statements deeply insightful.
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Let me begin by saying I have a desktop, a laptop, a tablet, an e-reader and a smartphone. I use them all and think they’re great technologic advances. In certain obvious ways, they’re a boon. So I’m not some version of Grandpa Cranky-Pants complaining about the role of technology in our lives.
But something strange is definitely happening.
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