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Scarcely any novel enthusiast has not read any thriller novels at all. The genre is immensely popular with readers of all ages. The best thrillers have provided gripping suspense, exhilaration, and enjoyment to readers since the first beginnings of the genre. Their scope is vast, with many sub-genres.
So, what are they?
Obviously, the novel must must engender thrills in its readers. Straightforward enough, but where are the origins of this ability? The predecessors of thriller novels originated with the writers of early civilizations such as the Greeks or Persians. For example, the Odyssey in Greek and the Mahabharata in Sanskrit were, it can be argued constructed using similar narrative mechanisms to the modern day thriller novels. Originating in the Tenth Century and later translated by Sir Richard Burton, the Arabian Nights narrates the first ever detective thriller as a tale entitled "The Three Apples".
With this ancestry, the art has grown and contemporary 'thrill fiction' can be sub-divided into several genres such as the intelligence related thriller, medical, political, legal case related thriller, historical, technological, action, exploration oriented thriller, armed forces operations thriller, and romantic thriller. At least. The list is practically never ending. Thrilling the readers, that's all it's about, and there are so many ways. Normally, all of the genres will be creating thrills by working on several aspects of the reader's mind: emotions, empathy with a character, impatience, uncertainty, fear, anticipation and even panic. The most able novelist will be toying with several of these areas of the reader's mind at any one time.
The reader's imagination, though, is definitely the most effective target area for the novelist to work on, but it is also the aspect needing the highest skill to manipulate effectively. Although each of the sub genres has its inherent dimensions, there are a few regular techniques used by novelists. For example: the disguising of significant facts from the reader until the a climactic point, the dramatic description of combat (even if only verbal). Add in foreshadowing, unexpected twists in the plot and hanging chapter ends and you have the basic devices which are deployed to work up the thrill and excitement levels.
Let's examine a couple of sub-genres in more detail:
The espionage thriller offers a typical example of the thriller genre-type. Some specialize in the operation of intelligence gathering structures within particular countries and governments - for example the British SIS or the Chinese Guoanbu. Other genre-specialist writers focus on the technology of espionage, be they satellites or miniature cameras. The main character is often an anti-hero having a problem with her organization.
In psychological thriller novels, brain games as well as infatuations, persecutions, mental entrapment and other such themes are the most common structural devices.
So, there's plenty of scope for writing and giving thrills to readers.

Before becoming a novelist, Susan Goldsmith was an undercover private investigator, worked as an outside sales rep, and spent five years in pharmaceutical sales. In this interview, she talks about her journey as an author and her exciting road to publication. She also discusses her creative process and offers tips to aspiring writers.
Q: It's wonderful to have you here, Susan. Why don't you start by telling us a little about your background and how you started writing?
A: Stories are what got me through my childhood. When real life was overwhelming, I'd crawl into my imagination where sick mothers could be made better with a magical potion, or crazy fathers weren't really crazy. They were just more evolved than the rest of us. Could see whole words and realities we couldn't. Mean teachers? Witches - the whole lot of them. I soon branched out, and after sitting in Stephen King's head for a while, decided my life was a Disney movie compared to the stuff his characters endured. Poor Carrie. Now that girl had issues!
I loved stories, and had an endless supply of original ideas that would make fantastic books, but darn it, no matter how hard I willed those ideas to be carried through osmosis from my brain to my favorite authors', it never happened. There they sat, alone in the dark, wilting, while I pursued every career, but writing, and no, graduating with a degree in Journalism most definitely doesn't count. Journalism and imagination are two words that don't belong in the same sentence.
A creative imagination was also frowned upon in my brief stint as an undercover private investigator with Pinkerton when I was placed in a company (no, I'm not telling which one!), and was told to write down my observations. Uh oh, I had a captive audience but couldn't embellish what I was seeing and boy was my imagination coming up with some really good stuff. In reality, I was bored silly. Eventually that boredom had me shaking things up... but that's another story entirely.
Several career paths later, fate intervened and I found myself home, being a full time mother and wife. Suddenly, I was staring at the blank computer screen, not writing, just staring. I'd make a point to walk by it on my way to the bathroom, in-between Barney episodes, or during those times when my children actually did fall asleep during nap time.
Eventually, I did turn the computer on, and have been writing ever since.
Q: Congratulations on the release of your first novel, Abithica. That's an unusual name. How did you come up with it and what does it mean?
A: Abithica is a word I made up. Without giving too much away, it is the name of the main character, so it had to be both unique and otherworldly.
Q: What is Abithica about and what was your inspiration for it?
A: Abithica must borrow all that she is from others: names, lives, even bodies, but only for periods of time she cannot control. What is she, and why is she compelled to fix the lives of the people she inhabits, even the despicable ones?
When she switches into the troubled life of Sydney Turner, she ends up breaking the one rule that has sustained her, the one thing in her control-never get attached-and learns the pain of loving and being loved in return.
My vacuum, Thomas Moore and my very persistent imagination were the inspiration behind Abithica. Maybe I should explain that. You see, all my best thoughts have come while pulling a vacuum. Now enter Thomas Moore. He wrote a book called Care of the Soul. In it, he asked a very profound question: what is your worst fear? Hmmm, what is my worst fear, I wondered. Naturally, I grabbed said vacuum and unleashed my imagination.
Losing my husband and children was the answer. Oh, but what if I was taken from them without their knowledge and they didn't even know I was gone? Ouch! That would definitely suck. But what would suck even more is if another soul took my place and I was there, unseen, invisible, watching their lives continue as if I had never existed.
I was getting closer to my worst nightmare, but I wasn't quite there yet. It needed a little something more. Got it! What if the body I was in had never really belonged to me in the first place? What if it was me who had been the intruder all along? I had been borrowing the woman's life... and now... she wanted it back.
The question became an obsession, and my vacuum and I spent a lot of time together. Soon, the idea of "switching" was born. It grew legs and arms and even acquired a face, Abithica's face.
Q: What is your protagonist like? Tell us something irresistible about her.
A: She is you and me. She is anybody who has ever asked the questions, why am I here? Is there a God, a purpose, a cosmic plan? She perceives herself as a victim, a pawn in some cosmic joke, only to discover in the end she is oh, so much more!
Q: Who is your target reader?
A: My target readers are bound to be urban fantasy lovers, the romantic at heart, and those of us who like to ponder all those enormous, unanswerable questions about life, and what the heck we're doing here.
Q: How would you describe your creative process while writing this book? Was it stream-of-consciousness writing, or did you first write an outline?
A: You have no idea how funny that question is! My "creative process", if you insist on calling it that, was throwing tantrum after tantrum. I wrote and I wrote and I wrote, but the words... they weren't matching the woman in my head. The tone was wrong. The voice was wrong. The action was wrong. The whole darn story was wrong. It wasn't Abithica, not even close.
The problem I soon learned was I didn't have an outline, so I ended up re-writing the first chapter 30 different ways and every one of them was the beginning of a completely different story. I was like an artist standing over an empty canvas. Was I going to use pastels, pencil or paint? Was it going to be a nature scene, or a portrait? Why not an elephant? Did it even have to be on a canvas? Why not the side of a building or a sidewalk? I had no idea so I kept trying a little of everything, until eventually, nothing worked and I found myself pinned to the ground, screaming uncle.
At the same time, I was well aware that some of my best writing had come about by accident when I had unwittingly allowed the characters to tell their own story. They were the writer, I was the vessel. Every single writing session after that, it's what I strove to duplicate. I'd sit down at the keyboard, clear my mind, and relax enough to set the characters free. On a really good day, they'd talk for eight hours straight and take me places I had never even imagined. Eventually, I got better at it, I started to set an alarm to remind myself to eat. I'd then set it to remind myself to start dinner and then again to remind myself to pick up the kids. This was the reason I wrote, and the reason I kept coming back for more.
I had a problem though. What I needed was something to keep Abithica on task, without constricting the creative flow I craved. The answer: a plot summary. I took the next couple of days building on that concept until I had a sketchy beginning, middle and end. I now had a direction, but Abithica still had plenty of wiggle room to be creative and I was still willing to follow her on whatever tangents she chose to take me on.
Q: What is your writing schedule like?
A: My writing schedule revolves around my family. When the girls are at school, my hubby is at work, and I'm alone, (if it's possible to be alone with 3 dogs, 2 cats and a bird!) I unleash my imagination and hold on for dear life. My favorite part is the end, when I get to read the crazy places my imagination took me that day.
Q: How did you find Twilight Times Books?
A: Twilight Times Books was recommended to me by my mentor, Gerry Mills, who helped me put some "magic" into my writing. It didn't hurt either that TTB was recommended by Predators & Editors, or that the water cooler discussion on Absolute Write had nothing but positive things to say about TTB and its founder, Lida Quillen.
Q: What has been the most surprising aspect of publishing for you so far?
A: I was delusional. I actually thought when I wrote, The End, I was done. Oh contraire! That was only the beginning. The hardest writing I've ever done was condensing 95,000 words into a one sentence summary!
Now, I'm learning the wonderful world of marketing. All I can say is, God Bless Goodreads! If it wasn't for that website nobody would know Abithica exists, and believe me... she is so done with that!
Q: I hear there's a sequel in the horizon. When is it coming out?
A: Yup, there is a sequel. I am 40,000 words into it. The beginning and the end are done. All I'm doing now is filling in the middle.
Q: What is your best tip for aspiring novelists?
A: Don't just talk about it, do it. Write it for yourself, and then later, after you're convinced it's a masterpiece, set it in a drawer and forget about it, the longer, the better. Then read it with fresh eyes. Fix all the problems, and then repeat, again, and again, and again....

When it comes to literary horror, there are a lot of different paths that you can take in order to get the most out of the fear created by writers, but it's sometimes hard to decide which book to read next. In order to help those that are not sure where to venture next, it became important to look into a list of 3 of the scariest books that you can get your hands on for a low cost. The following is a list of the best in horror writing from years past, and can still strike fear into the hearts of even the most jaded of imaginations. Look at the following if you dare, and never stop reading.
Interview With the Vampire by Anne Rice - The first book seems innocent enough, but the pages are full of terror and fear. Long before shiny vampires took over the landscape of vampirism, Anne Rice was creating a long-standing record of beauty and terror. The book is filled with real life lamentations that would befuddle a person that had to live forever and feed. While the motion picture made this into a more dramatic and polished version, the book still stands as one of the better examples of what you can do with genre fiction.
The Amityville Horror by Jay Anson - This best selling novel took the haunted house genre and created something bigger, badder, and something that still creeps people out. Could a house really push someone into the brink of insanity and then bring them back with no recollection? The boundaries of real life terror play victim to the genre here and it truly showcases how far a person will go when psychologically tormented by spirits within a house. The house recently sold and hasn't been an issue, but that hasn't stopped people from reading, watching and exploring the original big, bad, haunted house.
The Shining by Stephen King - The master of horror has written one of the most eclectic blends of books in the past but in The Shining he really turns up the volume to 11. Here we get everything from psychotic rampages, to telekinesis, and beyond. You thought the movie was creepy? Wait till you get a hold of this epic in nearly 800 pages of length. You just can't compare the movie to this solid book, which will give you nightmares if you're not careful.
The above 3 books are novels that were written long ago and are still gaining new audiences. The main reason why it's important to explore these titles is to preserve reading as a form of entertainment and learning. Remember, everyone spends years learning how to read and write, so why not continue that tradition for pleasure in your adult years? The above are just a taste of some of the better horror novels you can read and love today.