A Guide to Creating a World from Scratch

5 tips from Meg Gardiner whose new novel is the thriller “Unsub”.

From Signature:

Meg Gardiner is the author of eleven critically acclaimed novels, including the Evan Delaney series, of which China Lake won the Edgar Award. Her latest thriller, Unsub, was released on June 27th this year.

I discovered Meg because she’s represented by The Story Factory founded by screenwriter Shane Salerno who has been a supporter of this blog almost since its inception. Other clients: Don Winslow, Steve Hamilton, Lou Berney, Marcus Sakey, John Katzenbach, Adrian McKinty, Reed Farrel Coleman, Bill Beverly, and Blake Bailey, as well as four-time Oscar-nominated filmmaker Michael Mann.

Here’s what Meg has to say about her approach to writing:

Every novel I write needs two things: a compelling main character, and a story that hooks the reader. The first novel in a series needs more than that. It calls for either a story that continues beyond The End, or a protagonist whose job calls for more stories. Ideally both.

My new thriller, Unsub, is about a legendary killer and the young cop who hunts him. The Unsub — an unknown subject in a criminal investigation — starts killing again after twenty years, and Caitlin Hendrix must decipher his coded plan before he drags more innocents to the abyss.

I knew this novel would launch a series. That shaped how I wrote it. As in all my novels, I was creating a world from scratch — but this world requires room to grow. Fortunately, writing two other series (about journalist Evan Delaney, and forensic psychiatrist Jo Beckett) helped prepare me to cook up the world of Caitlin Hendrix.

According to Meg, here are five things a new series needs:

1. A hero or heroine who can handle the job
2. A cast of characters who create a matrix of “real” life
3. A world with roots that can deepen and flourish
4. Forces of antagonism
5. Unfinished business

I think Meg’s observations about heroes and heroines are especially relevant:

An everyman, caught up in events beyond their control, can be a terrific hero in a stand-alone novel. But a series protagonist needs characteristics that will carry them through multiple novels:

Skills — to do the job that will drive the series, book after book (cop, spy, thief…);
Secrets — that readers will thirst to uncover;
Fears — that hold them back, and they work to overcome;
An Achilles’ Heel — because invincibility is boring.

A heroine must shine. She must be multifaceted and intriguing. But characters must be more than a collection of quirks. (She plays the banjo! Eats popsicles at crime scenes! Trains racing badgers!) And while every hero needs a past, they shouldn’t come laden with so much baggage that they’d sink a cruise ship. Amnesia, triple identities, psychic abilities, a secret addiction to SPAM… add that up and it’s too much.

Mannerisms and eccentricities don’t make a character. A burning desire for justice does.

How the character defines justice — and seeks it — create distinctive, exciting stories.

Meg ends the article with this observation:

Every novel must work on its own — it should have a beginning, middle, and satisfying end. But in a series, every book must also plant seeds that don’t pay off yet. A series novel is like a song that ends before the final chord. The melody leads toward the final note… but leaves us hanging. The music doesn’t resolve. In a series novel, as in a song, when a chord doesn’t resolve, we listen in anticipation, hoping, needing that resolution.

That’s suspense. And that keeps readers coming back for more.

Good stuff. And good things happening for Meg. Her novel ‘Unsub’ has been picked up by CBS to be developed as a TV series.

You can learn more about Meg’s new novel here.

For the rest of the Signature article, go here.

Twitter: @MegGardiner1, @SignatureReads.