Changing Lanes: From Writing Historical Fiction to Thrillers

“What’s your book about?”

Literary Agent, Janet Reid, asked me that question at the 2019 Writer’s Digest Conference in New York City. I was an unpublished, un-agented writer fueled on little more than hope and urgency. Janet was the first literary agent I’d ever met, and even though she had a nice smile and kind eyes, my chest was a drum circle of thumping anxiety.

(7 Things I Learned While Writing Across Genres.)

That summer, when she asked the question, I was at the midpoint of finishing my first historical novel. I grew up reading books in that genre. Writers like Michener, Jakes, Haley, Follet, and Clavell influenced my love of history. I hadn’t given it much thought when I quit my job to write—if I was going to become an author, those were the kinds of books I wanted to write.

“What’s your book about?”

Months before the conference, a librarian asked me that question too. I told her, “It takes place in the 1740s in New Hampshire—about a boy who grows up in a log cabin in the woods.” She tilted her head. “But New Hampshire had sawmills since the 1600s. Why on earth would he be in a log cabin?” Writing historical fiction is hard, and, sometimes, librarians are bad for morale.

By the 2019 conference, I’d been writing for three years, full-time, and had thrown two unfinished novels in the drawer. My wife would tell you that I’m a stubborn person. She’s not wrong. I kept at it. I wrote every day—weekends too. I was improving. My characters had depth and their dialogue was convincing. My sentences were more literary—crisp and descriptive.

“What’s your book about?”

If you haven’t attended a Writer’s Digest Conference, you should consider treating yourself. I’m not sure there was anything I did that was more important to my writing career than stepping on that southbound bus to New York City. As I write this, I’m looking at the red, moleskin notebook on my desk filled with convention quotes like, “readers are smarter than you—never show them all your cards,” “fight scenes are fifteen seconds of sight, sound, and smells—not emotions,” and my favorite, “happy, nice, perfect people make for boring fiction.”

But it was the encounter with Janet Reid that changed the course of my writing. She’d just given a funny and informative presentation on the dos and don’ts of querying a literary agent (“never attempt to flatter them, but do try to spell their names correctly”). When she was done, I waited in a long line of writers hoping to speak to her one-on-one. I can’t remember the question I asked, but Janet’s answer was smart, genuine, and kind. And then she looked up at me and asked,

“What’s your book about?”

I screwed up my courage. “It takes place in the 1740s in New Hampshire—about a boy who grows up in a house…not a log cabin—a lot of people don’t know they’ve had sawmills up there since the 1600s.”

Janet shook her head. “No, I want to know what your book is ABOUT?”

I stammered a while—watching as my thought balloon fled the scene. She gave me a nod—like she’d seen it a thousand times before. “You don’t know what your book is about, do you?”

In seconds, she had diagnosed my writing disease. In three years, I’d made progress on scenes, characters, and dialogue, but I hadn’t learned the most important thing about writing—how to tell a story.

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It’s a seven-hour bus and car ride from New York City to my home in New Hampshire. By the time we’d reached Hartford, I’d made a decision about the book I was writing. I had a boy. I didn’t have a story. I took the kid out of the woods and put him in a drawer. At the outskirts of Boston, I realized my best chances of coming up with a great story and finishing a novel would come without the constraints of historical accuracy. When I finally parked the car in the driveway, I’d made the decision that my next book would be a thriller—a genre, maybe more than any other, that would force me to work on the writing muscle I needed to develop most. Plot. Action. Forward motion. Suspense.

Writing a thriller isn’t easy, but it came more naturally to me. And those years of striving to improve my writing weren’t wasted. It took years for me to find my voice and changing lanes made all the difference.

I’m grateful to the Writer’s Digest team that put on that conference—grateful for the speakers and the lasting friendships I made in New York City over those few days. And, I’m especially grateful to a certain literary agent with kind eyes.

What’s your book about?

(Editor’s note: Literary agent Janet Reid, who was an invaluable resource for so many writers over the years, passed in April 2024. Find a nice memoriam on Janet’s site here.)