The Writer’s Corner: The Craft of Writing Political Thrillers

I never planned on being a novelist. In fact, if you were to look at the backgrounds of my wife, Lynn, and myself, it’s her name you would expect to appear on the bestseller list. She is the creative writing major with the Jewish studies minor. Lynn is an excellent writer who understands more about grammar and sentence structure than I ever will.

My passion growing up was film. I absolutely love movies. In fact, I went to Syracuse University to study filmmaking. When my roommate would be studying for a calculus exam with a buddy, I’d have to ask them, “Could you keep it down, guys? I’m trying to analyze this opening scene from Raiders of the Lost Ark.” This love for film continues into today and has greatly affected my perspective of how a thriller should be written.

I’m a big fan of Lee Child’s protagonist Jack Reacher. However, when I think of Jack Reacher, my mind goes to Jack Reacher the movie, not Jack Reacher the books. When I visualize him, I don’t see the six-foot-five-inch, 250-pound disheveled mess from the novels. I picture Tom Cruise. The same is true with many of today’s political thrillers. There are so many great writers who can draw me in with their plot, their action, and their dialogue. However, there is still very little that can beat the rush and excitement of a Mission: Impossible movie marathon. Film transports you to another world, another reality. It lets your senses experience things that they would otherwise never be able to experience. I want this in my books. This is why I write so visually. I want my readers to see and feel the action and the settings. I want their minds to be watching the movie while their eyes are reading the words.

The first line I ever wrote in a novel was the opening sentence of The Last Jihad.

A presidential motorcade is a fascinating sight, particularly at night, and particularly from the air.

Close your eyes. Can you see it? Each person who reads that line likely visualizes something different. But that’s okay. The details of the scene aren’t what’s important. What’s critical is allowing for that magical transformation from words on a page to pictures in a mind. As that opening scene unfolds, the reader flies with the Gulfstream IV business jet as it descends through the Denver darkness on a kamikaze attack mission to assassinate the president. To me that intro is less the opening of a novel than it is the first act in a movie that I would like to see made one day.

This moviemaking perspective is especially evident in my upcoming novel, The Beirut Protocol. From the opening firefight to the viciousness meted out in a Hezbollah hideaway, you’ll be able to see clearly the perilous and courageous actions of Markus Ryker as he strives to save not just himself, but those who have put their trust in him. It’s truly a movie in a book.

So make sure you pick up The Beirut Protocol this spring. Then you can take your copy, settle in to your most comfortable chair with a large soda, a tub of buttered popcorn, and maybe a box of Junior Mints, and enjoy the show.

—Joel C. Rosenberg

For more about my novel writing, check out this interview I did with thecrewreviews.com: https://thecrewreviews.com/index.php/author-interviews-season-2-2020-2021/joel-c-rosenberg/.