Today, J.A. (Joyce) Schneider joins me to share a guest post on how to turn “an inkling of trouble” into a gripping medical thriller. Joyce is the author of Flora Tristan, Darkness Falls, and Embryo, as well as being a former staffer at Newsweek.
The Medical Thriller – From Inklings, To Ideas, To Research
by J.A. Schneider
‘Maria Moran’s first inkling of trouble was the coppery taste in her mouth. It came suddenly, a rushing whoosh of something that made her gag, and when she reached to wipe her mouth, her hand came away smeared with blood.’
So begins my new novel, Embryo, a medical thriller about a young intern, Jill Raney, determined to investigate tragedies and terror at a famous fertility and genetic engineering hospital.
From that subtle ‘first inkling of trouble,’ we know the book is a thriller. The first paragraph, the first line, grabs you, pulls you in emotionally. When the first paragraph is very short, as this one is, it gives readers time to blink, feel astonished, wonder : what! Readers instantly guess that whatever is about to come next will be worse. Much worse.
But what, exactly, distinguishes a medical thriller from a standard thriller?
In Embryo-most medical thrillers, for that matter-there’s no scary man stalking a vulnerable woman. No cliche mutilated body to thrust the characters into action. There’s just a seconds-ago happy person who’s just noticed something strange happening to her.
To work, medical thrillers depend on solid medical facts. A question I hear often is, how much research and technical information do you do before getting that first draft down? Do you know the material before you write, or do you go back and fill in the details later?
For me, researching medical facts first would be impossible, because it’s the material – each medical event – that propels the action and the characters. I pretty much know the big picture and sketch it out upfront. (I wouldn’t advise anyone not directly connected to medicine to try it, though; if your facts are wrong you’ll be doing a lot of revising.)
My husband Robert did OB before switching to Cardiology. He’s endlessly patient and loves helping with the medical details which I interweave as I go along. When writing Embryo I was constantly asking, ‘Explain this again, and that, and what happens if: ?’
But the ideas come first. I write the story; then, as I need information, I ask.
Take that opening scene, for example. Maria Moran is in a sudden panic. I’ve had that scene in my head for a long time. Years ago, my husband had diagnosed an identical case and told me about it; stunned, I’d never forgotten it. Abruptio placentae, it’s called. Massive hemorrhaging caused by the condition can kill both mother and fetus in minutes.
Bob’s patient was lucky: she was already in the medical ward for something else and was immediately transferred to OB. But what if she’d been walking down the street when it happened? The fastest ambulance couldn’t have gotten her to the hospital in time to save her. I’ve often thought of that woman and her story and it eventually propelled this novel.
I’ve also been in the hospital with Bob as he made rounds as an attending physician and picked up information that way. Plus, working for Newsweek taught me how to edit and cite research for papers Bob has written for medical journals, another great source of information.
Funny, how life evolves. In college I was a French major and I still love Balzac and Stendahl. A very liberal artsy type, I never dreamed that one day I’d be so besotted with science and medicine.
Also paleoanthropology. I’m wild about it! If you haven’t read Embryo yet, I have to warn you: the scenes with the hominids are some of my favorites.
Oooh, so creepy!
About J.A. Schneider
J.A. (Joyce Anne) Schneider is a former staffer at Newsweek. She has published Flora Tristan and Darkness Falls (Simon & Schuster, Pocket Books); Embryo is her first ebook. She has been married for decades to a very patient physician who enjoys explaining medical concepts and retelling his experiences. They live in Connecticut and have two adult children.
Joyce is now working on Embryo’s sequel.
You can find Joyce on Twitter, Facebook and Goodreads.
About Embryo
‘Maria Moran’s first inkling of trouble was the coppery taste in her mouth. It came suddenly, a rushing whoosh of something that made her gag, and when she reached to wipe her mouth, her hand came away smeared with blood.’
So begins this thriller about a young intern, Jill Raney, determined to investigate tragedies and terror at a famous fertility and genetic engineering hospital. When two pregnant women die and a fetus is delivered with severe chromosomal abnormalities, Jill’s superiors – including handsome, smitten-with-her resident David Levine – insist there’s no common link.
But her suspicions deepen with the grotesque murder near the hospital of another pregnant woman – her belly drained of amniotic fluid. And when a woman miscarries in the hospital and then disappears, Jill frantically searches for her – following a terrifying path that seems to link all the victims: Is someone playing with life…and the structures of human life itself?
An unforgettable tale of suspense with a shocking denouement, Embryo takes you deep into the mind of malignant genius.
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