I watch my 7 year old overcome obstacles everyday and am amazed at his creativity in overcoming them. He’ll say “I want to have a drink in the living room.” I don’t want him to have another drink so I simply say, “You can’t, no drinks allowed in the living room.” He asks, “Why?” And I answer, “Because if you spill it will be hard to clean up.” He walks away and returns a few minutes later with a cup with a lid and straw, and a plate to set it upon. I quickly ask, “What’s going on?” To which he answers, “Just getting a drink in a cup that won’t spill. And don’t worry, I’ll set it on the plate.”

The little bugger has found a way to work around my excuse for not letting him have a drink. He does not hear the word “No”, instead he hears, “find another way”. 

And what a great lesson can be learned from that…find another way. 

My husband is the smartest man I know (to be honest it was one of the things that attracted me to him). One New Year’s Eve, while we were dating, we went to a party in a hotel room in downtown Chicago. The party hosts were friends of ours and worked hard to get everything set up. Unfortunately, they brought the stereo but left the speaker wire at home. Well, it’s hard to have a party without music. My husband (boyfriend at the time) ran off to the bedroom and returned with a wire coat hanger. He then proceeded to fashion speaker wire out of the metal coat hanger and the party was saved. Obstacle overcome.

So bringing this to a personal level…I currently face an obstacle. I need to write a 10,000 word thriller story for an anthology and it’s due by mid-May. The obstacle is that I have never written a thriller. My story is half way done but I am struggling with creating twists and turns or a surprise ending.

How am I overcoming it? Well, I’m in the thick of it now and am reading short thriller stories and taking note of what works so well in them. Few characters, simple plot that can be summed up in 2-3 sentences. I’ll keep you posted on whether or not I make it past the obstacle.

Any other tips for writing thrillers?

Any obstacles you have boldly overcome?