Sunday, April 18, 2010

Disaster, Anyone?



When the Soviet Union fell, there were many suspense and thriller writers who were crestfallen because they believed they would have nothing to write about. The Soviets were the perfect villains for the writers of fiction. They were powerful and seemed recklessly determined to dominate the world. The way their government officials dressed, and their military uniforms, had the visual effects needed to set the stage for almost anything. The aura of mystery that we called the Iron Curtain helped tremendously. While the Soviet Union might be on the garbage heap of history, the political entities that evolved have a greater potential for the imaginative writer.

Need another type of danger or disaster? What about the oil crisis. The possibility of energy shortages and the catastrophes they are sure to bring about, are almost too frightening to contemplate. What about medical or industrial accidents? What about the clever terrorist who gains control of the Internet and is able to penetrate the safeguards that protect the military, nuclear power facilities and our infrastructure? All we have to do is pick our disaster and scoot our chair up closer to the keyboard. The Internet has all of the technical details needed to flesh out the type of stories you have been itching to write. You don’t have to be Ian Fleming, Tom Clancy or Dan Brown in order to write them. As one small boy said in one of my horror stories, “The goblins are out there, Frankie. I think I hear them at the door.”

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