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Fiction With Content by Carl Ramirez
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Fiction With Content |
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Education
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During my "day job" in the fashion industry, I worked in 32 countries. This career provided me the opportunity to view firsthand the people and settings of fascinating locations around the world. I was able to get a better understanding of lifestyles, cultures, and religious beliefs of a broad assortment of nationalities by working in these countries for weeks or months. During my final international job my wife and I lived in Vienna, Austria for almost three years. We visited many European neighboring countries and tried our best to blend in with the complex citizenry. When we returned to live in the U.S., I taught at Philadelphia University, which provided me an opportunity to do some international consulting. I was fortunate enough to consult to the government of Thailand, which resulted in 10 trips to that fascinating part of the world. When I decided to try my hand at writing fiction and was learning the craft, I realized I had an opportunity to incorporate my life experiences into my novel writing. This provided me with a rich medium to create fiction with content. I was always fascinated with the world cultures and locations that some of my favorite thriller authors incorporated into their novels. Steve Berry's writing is referred to by one of the all-time bestselling thriller authors as a "Globetrotting treasure hunt with exotic locales." James Rollins's thrillers take readers from the Himalayas to the Amazon jungles, to the Alaskan tundra. And Clive Cussler's novels search through fascinating worldwide underwater kingdoms. The setting of a thriller must be described so well that readers feel like they've been there. The locations and items that make up the setting must create a visual image of the place. Readers must see the settings as if they're experiencing a movie. All the little nuances of color, smell, and shapes bring a setting to life. Settings must be an artistic creation similar to a memorable painting that stays with readers after they close a book. I make it a point of visiting every location described in my thrillers. While travelling for business, I took hundreds of photos of the places I visited. As I create the outline of a thriller novel, I try to schedule vacations to key locations that will play important roles in the book and update my previous photos. When I start writing the novel, I use two monitors: one for writing the novel and the other to view actual photos of the settings I'm describing. My first published novel, which has been translated into eight foreign languages, has scenes that take place in Vienna, Austria. I received a comment from a German speaking reader through my website who said he took the book to a cafe in Vienna and liked it so much he spent the entire day reading the book and drinking liters of coffee. He thought my descriptions of Vienna were extraordinary, but I mention that my character takes a Russian hydrofoil from Vienna to Budapest. He wanted me to know there are no Russian hydrofoils going from Vienna to Budapest. I was stumped as my wife and I had taken the hydrofoil four years before on a research trip for the novel. I called friends in Vienna and found out that two years ago the Russian hydrofoils in Vienna closed up shop. This example shows how carefully readers take what you say as the gospel truth, even in a fictional novel. I try my best to provide readers a fast-paced read with each scene ending with a ticking bomb, an urgent deadline, a character in jeopardy, a hint of something to come that grabs them by the throat and requires them to turn the page. But after they finish the novel, I would like readers to feel that they've learned something new about another part of the world, its people, and its culture. essays buy
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