From Technical to Creative

When young and unaware of how much fun writing fiction was, I studied a number of technical fields—mostly science, engineering, and economics. I even have degrees in some of these things. Very different from fiction, but this background has influenced the fiction I write in a number of surprising ways. Since it is in those domains that my adult life started, I thought a few words on how they influence fiction writing were worth some paper.

Stories Require Structure

I love puzzles. At their core, all engineering problems are just puzzles to be solved. Stories are also puzzles that need to be solved, first by the writer and then by the reader. This is especially true for genre fiction like mysteries and thrillers, but I believe it’s true for most fiction. Turns out I write thrillers, and so puzzles are essential to those stories. Creating a good puzzle for one’s protagonists and readers to journey through is as fun—and more rewarding—than solving a problem someone else has created.

Good stories are Like Puzzles

I love puzzles. At their core, all engineering problems are just puzzles to be solved. Stories are also puzzles that need to be solved, first by the writer and then by the reader. This is especially true for genre fiction like mysteries and thrillers, but I believe it’s true for most fiction. Turns out I write thrillers, and so puzzles are essential to those stories. Creating a good puzzle for one’s protagonists and readers to journey through is as fun—and more rewarding—than solving a problem someone else has created.

I Like Stories with Plot

When I say I like plot, I mean I really like plot. The more layered and nuanced, the better. Notice I didn’t say complicated. The best plots have a complexity to them that is not based merely on the volume of twists and turns but on a single core underlying truth that gives rise to apparent complexity from the perspective of an audience that doesn’t yet know the full story. It’s the scenario that makes for a great thriller or mystery novel, but it takes work to create and employs the same brain cells one uses to design a microprocessor with millions of transistors on it (an activity with which I have some tangential experience). Like the middle of a novel with a great puzzle at its core, microprocessor design seems from the outside like a mind-boggling contrivance possessing no rhyme or reason, but once one knows what’s going on, it all makes perfect sense.