Following on from discussion in another thread about who / what we think of when writing anything, I've just taken a short break and decided to see what the top authors are producing with a view to getting a better ‘feel’ for the marketplace.

Suitably inspired by the first eighteen paragraphs of works by leading US and UK writers, every one of whose books is emblazoned with the words ‘new international bestseller’, I think it’s time to become similarly commercial.

The intention is to produce a novel that will be as close to the dialogue, description, characterisation and locales as anything yet penned in the current mass market crime / spy / international thriller genre.

It will, I sincerely hope, serve as a master-class in fine writing for everyone who is trying to get their work published but keeps being rejected because their standards aren’t low enough. Sorry. High enough. However, as the key to success here seems to be an ability to produce a book a year, I believe that with the assistance of other members in terms of plot suggestions etc, it should be possible to finish this blockbuster much earlier.

Say, three weeks.

Modestly entitled ‘International Bestseller’, because there’s really not much point in sticking anything else on the jacket, I have now completed chapter one whilst simultaneously discussing the merits of LOTR with IB. So it shows, you can write a commercial bestseller and chew gum at the same time.

My research has involved intensive study of anything up to ten pages (collectively) from international best selling authors as diverse as Sidney Sheldon, Jeffrey Archer, Tom Clancy’s assistant writers, someone who isn’t Alistair Maclean, a man who used to be in the SAS, and Colin Forbes. It all goes to show that one can learn by example.

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Uploaded into the Crime & Thriller Writers' Group. Unfortunately, it is being made available to Members Only, as otherwise it might get taken up by a publisher and printed before it's even finished, and seems to be the case with many of the international bestsellers I have minutely examined.